Sarah Peebles

Sarah Peebles is a Toronto-based Canadian - American composer, improviser and installation artist originally from Minnesota (USA). Much of her work explores digitally manipulated found sound, unconventional methods of amplification, and distinct approaches to improvisation on the shō (笙), the Japanese mouth-organ used in gagaku (Japan’s imperial court music). Her installation practice focuses on BioArt which explores the lives of native wild bees, pollination ecology and biodiversity. Collectively titled “Resonating Bodies”, much of this activity is in collaboration with other artists, technicians and bee biologists. Peebles’ approach to the shō draws from gagaku, microtonality and psychoacoustic phenomena of the instrument, and many of her works alter its tuning and microphone placement in creating recordings of performances. She has released several recordings which include the instrument, including the album “Delicate Paths” (Unsounds 42U, 2014), which highlights her distinct approaches to performing, recording and composing for the shō. That album features a foreword and images dedicated to the instrument’s ethnobotanical and ethnozoological connections to ancient Asia, and inc