Jennifer Wright (Portland, OR): ASMR Triptych
Live Sound Installation
Photo of Jennifer Wright by Matias Brecher.
PERFORMANCE SYNOPSIS
“ASMR Triptych” is an interactive solo performance that invites audiences to interact with the performer, co-creating a delicate, soothing soundscape environment as she cycles through slow-moving rituals in three magical costume-constructions, each made of a material with uniquely stress-relieving properties: bubble wrap, Velcro, and a profusion of tiny metal charms attached to a metal cage-dress.
BIO
Jennifer Wright, M.M., B.M., is a pianist, composer, interdisciplinary artist, performer, educator, producer, and instrument creator whose work investigates social and environmental issues through dynamic, multi-sensory sonic experiences. She teaches at Reed College and in her private studio in Portland, Oregon.
Jennifer creates boundary-warping and transformative performative experiences. Her exuberantly experimental works meld diverse disciplines, narrative modes, and creative expressions into an adventurous and deeply intentional practice. Jennifer performs regularly as a solo and collaborative artist and has performed across the U.S.A., the U.K., Europe, and Cuba. Her many experimental instrument creations include the “Skeleton Piano” (a deconstructed piano that she plays from the inside out), the “Glass Piano” (a glass-rod instrument created from the remains of a Steinway grand incinerated in an antisemitic arson fire), “Arachne” (a gigantic, 160-foot-long web of tensioned steel cables) and her fleet of “Post-Apocalyptic Instruments”: a wild array of sound sculptures and installations built from trash, found objects, and industrial metal debris.
Her compositions have been performed at the 29th/31st Annual Festival de La Habana de Música Contemporánea in Cuba, on Oregon Public Broadcasting’s Think Out Loud, the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival, the 2020/2023 New Music Gathering Festivals, the Astoria Music Festival, March Music Moderne and Cascadia Composers concerts, the 2025 SubSuperior Festival in Duluth, MN, the Eugene Difficult Music Ensemble (EDME) 2023 New Music Festival and 2025 Ambient Ecology Festival, on KBOO, XRAY and KTCB radio, and on KGW TV and Cuban National TV. Since 2022, Jennifer has been Composer in Residence at Portland’s Zidell Shipyards, creating the ground-breaking “Break to Build” and “Long Strings” shows featuring site-specific sound installations that she built from over three tons of industrial debris.
Jennifer has collaborated with artists such as the Venerable Showers of Beauty Gamelan Orchestra, ProLab Dance, The Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education, video artist Nanda D’Agostino, Heidi Duckler Dance NW, pianist Kathleen Supove, Ensemble Interactivo de la Habana, filmmaker Takafumi Uehara, aerialist Jordie Campbell, Agnieszka Laska Dancers, sculptor Melita Westerlund, 20 Digitus Piano Duo, textile artists Bonnie Meltzer and Ree Nancarrow, and the Delgani Quartet, among others.
jenniferwrightpianostudio.com & skeletonpiano.com
CREDIT
Jennifer Wright: composer, performer, costume designer