Ariana van Gelder

Ariana van Gelder is a Cuban-American composer and immersive artist specializing in deeply visceral sonic experiences. Her creations explore the tenuous intimacy between audience and medium with an eye toward increasing accessibility and sensory engagement. When was the last time the art touched you?

From 2006 to today, van Gelder has built a career that centers on multimedia installations, collaborations, commissioned works, semi-improvised performances, elaborate stage shows, and recordings. These include custom sound environments and scores for interactive virtual experiences, video, sculpture, live acts, and all manner of physical spaces, both inside and out.

As a composer with a background in theoretical physics, van Gelder has a keen interest in creating, defining, and formulating space for bodies through sound. In its most recent incarnation, van Gelder’s live practice reaches through the ether as if extending itself to envelop the listener in an embrace from within. Revolving around ever-building vocal loops created in real time, her voice glides and glistens through ten octaves, guiding the listener across a landscape that dives into rich, rumbling waves of bass and near-silent sub-bass. She also composes for and performs with multichannel systems, piano, prepared violin, bowed glockenspiel, field recordings, pressure-driven Mylar sculpture, and just about anything else that makes sound.

An active artist, van Gelder has contributed to exhibitions in and performed across North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia and at institutions ranging from museums, galleries, universities, and international biennales to traditional stages, private events, and surprise DIY/guerilla spaces.

Whilst having called home to both New York and Taiwan, van Gelder is currently scouting locations for the development of her next and most ambitious projects to date, a series of large-scale immersive experiences that promote joy, awareness, and inclusivity through passive interaction and active escapism. Presently, she is in Singapore.
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2020

4/12 SUBLIMITY @ B1, Taipei, TW

20/10 w/ Swivelized Sound - Greater Forms 9 @ 23 Music Room, Taipei, TW

28/3 ThirdSpace Sessions, Singapore (canceled due to pandemic)

27/3 RAW Art Space - Kuala Lumpur, ML (canceled due to pandemic)

25/3 Master Class @Universiti Sains Malaysia, School Of The Arts (canceled)

12/3 Master Class @ WAAPA - Edith Cowan University, Perth AU

10/3Tura New Arts, Perth, AU

3/3 MIUC, Melbourne, AU

25/2 w/ DJ Wèi Wáng 味王 - Greater Forms #2 @ 23 Music Room, Taipei, TW