Music of the Americas: Spring of Sound Art

Wednesday, April 8, 10 am

Anésio Neto is transdisciplinary artist and professor at the Instituto Federal de São Paulo (IFSP). His work explores the intersections between ecoacoustics, sonification, and immersive spatial audio, investigating how environmental data can be transformed into aesthetic material and sensory experience. He develops projects that articulate sound, image, and technology to conceptualize new ways of listening to the world. Currently, he is focused on the development of low-cost environmental sensors, data-driven sonification, and Python workflows. His practice is also oriented toward a “politics of listening,” inspired by epistemologies of the Global South as well as strategies for mediation and public participation. 

He sent us two videos from The Drone Sessions pt. 2, a series of drone ambient compositions constructed from samples by sound artists and electroacoustic composers. In this installment, Neto works with materials from Jean Schwarz, François Bonnet, and Gilles Racot, interwoven with sounds generated during his own experiments with analog and digital synthesizers. Through processes of appropriation and sonic transformation, the project constructs immersive, continuous, and densely layered soundscapes, exploring memory, the materiality of sound, and spatial perception, expanding upon the aesthetic and conceptual inquiries initiated in the first part of the series.

Thursday, April 9, 10 am

Gustavo Castellano is back with "Clavelina," an electroacoustic piece from a project that explores experiences involving plant life—flowers, trees, herbs, etc. 

The composer says about the work: "The aim is neither to describe the object itself nor to merely demonstrate how it sounds, but rather to engage in a sensory experience with it, whether visual, tactile, or through its surrounding soundscape. In this instance, I felt that Jorge Tiscornia’s work in his Cerámicas Rodadas series was destined to become an integral part of this audiovisual production."

Friday, April 10, 10 am

Peruvian-Chilean artist Renzo Filinich, joined by South African saxophonist Lolo Ntsewa, is back with "A Cybernetic Song," in a video filmed and edited by Alexia Webster. This improvisation, where feedback plays an essential role, incorporates the sound of the wind, entering through the machine and the saxophone. 

The MetLife Foundation Music of the Americas concert series is made possible by the generous support of Presenting Sponsor MetLife Foundation.

The 2025–2026 series is also supported, in part, by the Howard Gilman Foundation, Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, The Augustine Foundation, the Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, and The Amphion Foundation.