I’m making music with treya lam in a new piece by Marie Lloyd Paspe! More details to come.

Vanity Project is a synth duo project by me & Trevor Gureckis. We’re sharing the bill with Tar Of, Ro Lundberg, and More Eaze. We go on first!

Lifting the Ground Up [iter.02] is a site-specific, public performance art ritual inspired by the element of earth and incorporates sound, visuals, plants, and scent. Through the restoration of native ecology, land stewardship, and communal care, it is a durational tribute to the communities of San Juan Hill. The project began in fall 2023 with a communal performance art ritual led by interdisciplinary artist, performer, and healer Rena Anakwe. The ritual was performed to prepare the land for a native planting ceremony with local NYC residents. On May 4, 2024, the plants will be revisited with a welcoming ritual and the project will close with a collaborative sound (healing) circle performance, featuring: Rena Anakwe, Darian Donovan Thomas, Olani Ewunnet, Sugar Vendil and William Alexander. Plants will be given away to continue their life cycles throughout NYC.

Information here

Kicking off the re-vamping of my organization with a holiday gathering featuring Filipinx artists! More details and RSVP coming soon.

I’ll show an excerpt of Antonym: the opposite of nostalgia at MR @ Judson. This is a dream come true!

This new musical work for voice and birdroar instruments by composer Brent Michael Davids honors Nora Thompson Dean (1907-1984), a Lenape teacher and herbalist who dedicated her life to preserving Lenape culture. The sung and spoken lyric consists entirely of her name “Weènchipahkihëlèxkwe” in Unami (Lenape for “downriver people”). Translated, her name was “Touching Leaves Woman” or as Nora herself suggested ‘Leaves-that-touch-each-other-from-time-to-time.’ A hand-notated music manuscript, inked on vellum, is part of the exhibition Nora Thompson Dean: Lenape Teacher and Herbalist and on view before and after each performance. The work runs approximately 20 minutes and will be performed in the Rotunda of J. Pierpont Morgan’s Library at 2 PM and in the Morgan Garden at 3 PM (weather permitting).

Tickets: Free with museum admission. More info here.

I’m back at High Concept Labs in Chicago, where I was in residence in 2019. I’ll share this work in progress with my dear collaborators flutist Laura Cocks, violinist Cinda Lan, dancer Annie Wang, and 2022 HCL Fellow Irene Hsiao.

Antonym: the opposite of nostalgia is a memoir of a Filipinx American childhood that interweaves music and movement, taking an imaginative approach to interdisciplinary performance and music composition. Excavating insignificant yet indelible experiences, Antonym envisions the future as an escape from pain and ponders how we can possess painful memories without being beholden to them. Using field recordings of New York City throughout the year, the four seasons serve as a cyclical frame and context for memory.

All are welcome in this workshop; no dance or music experience necessary. We will explore ways that movement can initiate/inspire/influence sound, the physicality of sounding, and where these impulses lie in our individual bodies/histories. Through improvisation we will create choreo-soundscapes with the materials we have available (voice, body, objects, instruments). Musicians will investigate sound and movement with/without their instruments. We will also create loose scores together and freely document (write, notate) as we go, discovering our own individual methods of drafting scores. Bring a notebook and writing utensil, and if you’re an instrumentalist interested in exploring movement, your instrument as well!

Sliding scale $15-30

2 shows @ 4pm and 6pm. More info here

from the CSS bard website:
The Center for Indigenous Studies at Bard College presents Being Future Being: Land/Celestial by Emily Johnson/Catalyst as part of a series of programming developed in partnership with CCS Bard to surround the exhibition Indian Theater: Native Performance, Art, and Self-determination since 1969.

Being Future Being is a multi-scalar work, created by Emily Johnson for the stage and beyond. Featuring a newly commissioned score by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Raven Chacon and a stellar cast of performers, Being Future Being: Land / Celestial invites you into a series of intimate encounters with our more-than-human kin. As audiences journey to three separate outdoor locations, they form a powerful processional—one with the capacity to reshape the way we relate to ourselves, and to the human and more-than-human cohabitants of our worlds.

The performance is approximately 1 hour, followed by a reception, and a performance by Jeffrey Gibson and Arielle Twist.

On Sunday, July 23, 2023: 2:00pm, please join us for Jeffrey Gibson and Emily Johnson in conversation, moderated by Candice Hopkins. This conversation will take place at the Hessel Museum of Art.

For more information on other Being Future Being works and current calls to action, visit www.catalystdance.com.

I’ll perform music that incorporates voice and movement by composer Bethany Younge.

Lucie Vítková, Musical Body

Charlotte Mundy, Musical Body

Sugar Vendil, Musical Body

Bethany Younge, Soprano, Musical Body, Electronics

Pauline Kim Harris, Violin

Flesh is a culmination of some of Younge's most recent artistic adventures involving the expressive limits of the human body as well as the "fleshing," or animation, of non-human bodies (i.e. instruments and objects). Voices, extreme physical gestures, percussive violin-playing, and electronics contribute to a musical landscape that is at once futuristic and atavistic. Integral to each composition is Younge's highly personalized performance practice.

Program:

//Atavist I. for three musical bodies + electronics

(Pauline, Sugar and Bethany) 

//Atavist II. for four musical bodies + electronics

(Lucie, Sugar, Charlotte and Bethany)

Where Waste Piles for mezzo soprano and violin

(Pauline and Bethany)

Flesh for composer/performer + textile sensor costume

(Bethany)

more info coming soon

Join us for a work-in-process showing of BĀS by 2022/23 BRIClab Performing Arts residents Sugar Vendil and Janelle Lawrence.

BĀS is a Black and Asian bridging project by composer-musicians and interdisciplinary artists Janelle Lawrence and Sugar Vendil. It seeks to address racial tensions and foster mutual understanding, empathy, and healing through active listening, music, movement, and storytelling.

Join us for a work-in-process showing of BĀS by 2022/23 BRIClab Performing Arts residents Sugar Vendil and Janelle Lawrence.

BĀS is a Black and Asian bridging project by composer-musicians and interdisciplinary artists Janelle Lawrence and Sugar Vendil. It seeks to address racial tensions and foster mutual understanding, empathy, and healing through active listening, music, movement, and storytelling.

SAVE THE DATE! My new LP (!) May We Know Our Own Strength will be released on Gold Bolus Recordings. Follow my Bandcamp so you can listen and purchase!

Conjurings braids invocation, incantation, questioning, un-earthing, and ceremony to open space for future (un)doings.

I’ll share an evening of music that encompasses my practice as a chamber musician, soloist, and budding synthesizer queen including new semi-improvised pieces for synth & voice. The opening installation-style performance of “ooh wo aa oo wa o” for vocalizing chamber ensemble will feature the final performance of my ensemble The Nouveau Classical Project: Laura Cocks, flute; Marina Kifferstein, violin (NCP alum); cellist Thea Mesirow; and guest clarinetist Yuma Uesaka.

Stick around for more performances by Aldrin Valdez and Les the DJ!

Doors open at 7:15 pm
RSVP

This concert, curated by Shelley Washington, will feature works by Shelley, Susanna Hancock, Darian Thomas, Aeryn Santillan, and me! I’m also the pianist for the concert and will play Shelley’s UNIFORMS with members of LACO and my own piece, ooh wo aa oo wa o.

More info at laco.org

I’m composing music for electronics for Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya’s Rivers of Renewal. If all goes well, this will involve a midi ring worn by the artist, which will allow her to shape the music as she paints!

This participatory installation is a part of GATHER: A series of monuments and rituals

Phingbodhipakkiya’s Rivers of Renewal offers the opportunity to shed anguish and start over, letting go of whatever might weigh us down. Each April, Thai people celebrate the start of a new year during the Songkran festival, where everyone from children to elders takes part in throwing water at one another. The spirit of Songkran lives in this piece as visitors are invited to find release by throwing water at a cylindrical tapestry of mixed media and pigment. With every splash, the pigments run together creating rivulets and textures dripping from the tapestry onto the ground, creating a grand, layered commemoration of community catharsis. With this piece, we create a monument to restoration and renewal, celebrating the transformation that we’ve witnessed and the peace that follows.   

I’m composing music for electronics for Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya’s Rivers of Renewal. If all goes well, this will involve a midi ring worn by the artist, which will allow her to shape the music as she paints!

This participatory installation is a part of GATHER: A series of monuments and rituals

Phingbodhipakkiya’s Rivers of Renewal offers the opportunity to shed anguish and start over, letting go of whatever might weigh us down. Each April, Thai people celebrate the start of a new year during the Songkran festival, where everyone from children to elders takes part in throwing water at one another. The spirit of Songkran lives in this piece as visitors are invited to find release by throwing water at a cylindrical tapestry of mixed media and pigment. With every splash, the pigments run together creating rivulets and textures dripping from the tapestry onto the ground, creating a grand, layered commemoration of community catharsis. With this piece, we create a monument to restoration and renewal, celebrating the transformation that we’ve witnessed and the peace that follows.   

I’m thrilled to collaborate again with Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya on her installation, Islands in the Sea. I’ve composed a semi-improvised score for sarunay, 8 voices, and electronics, and will perform with my ensemble, Sugar Vendil/Isogram.

This participatory installation is a part of GATHER: A series of monuments and rituals

Artist Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya transforms the Paul Milstein Reflecting Pool into a site that honors the grieving process. Nine sculptures serve as beacons of reflection, lighting a path forward from losses that so many of us have suffered in the last few years. With this installation, visitors engage in a ritual reminiscent of Loi Krathong, a celebrated Thai festival of gratitude, forgiveness, and respect. Participants are invited to release a floating vessel to carry away their burdens, worries, or grief gently into the pool. Each vessel reflects the sky as it drifts along the water, forming a flotilla of shared struggle. The installation serves as a gentle reminder that while grief never fully leaves us, we can temper sorrow by embracing the many forms that grief and healing may take. 

Sugar Vendil/Isogram
Sugar Vendil, Artistic Director & Performer
Grace Aki, Performer
Chris Ignacio, Performer
Muyassar Kurdi, Performer
Cindy Galvis-Lan, Performer
Thea Little, Performer
JuYoung Ma, Performer
Veronica Mak, Performer
Linda McBride, Performer

Grace Aki is an actor, playwright, and visual artist.

Chris Ignacio is a NY-based performer and educator originally from San Antonio, TX. He recently was a puppeteer for The Met's Madama Butterfly and is currently pursuing his MFA at Arizona State University, in Theatre/Interdisciplinary Digital Media.

Muyassar Kurdi is a New York City-based interdisciplinary artist. Her work encompasses sound art, extended vocal technique, performance art, movement, analog photography and film. She has toured extensively in the U.S. and throughout Europe. She currently focuses her attention to interweaving homemade electronic instruments into her vocal and dance performances, stirring a plethora of emotions from her audience members through vicious noise, ritualistic chants, and meditative movements.

I’m thrilled to collaborate again with Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya on her installation, Islands in the Sea. I’ve composed a semi-improvised score for sarunay, 8 voices, and electronics, and will perform with my ensemble, Sugar Vendil/Isogram.

This participatory installation is a part of GATHER: A series of monuments and rituals

Artist Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya transforms the Paul Milstein Reflecting Pool into a site that honors the grieving process. Nine sculptures serve as beacons of reflection, lighting a path forward from losses that so many of us have suffered in the last few years. With this installation, visitors engage in a ritual reminiscent of Loi Krathong, a celebrated Thai festival of gratitude, forgiveness, and respect. Participants are invited to release a floating vessel to carry away their burdens, worries, or grief gently into the pool. Each vessel reflects the sky as it drifts along the water, forming a flotilla of shared struggle. The installation serves as a gentle reminder that while grief never fully leaves us, we can temper sorrow by embracing the many forms that grief and healing may take. 

Sugar Vendil/Isogram
Sugar Vendil, Artistic Director & Performer
Grace Aki, Performer
Chris Ignacio, Performer
Muyassar Kurdi, Performer
Cindy Galvis-Lan, Performer
Thea Little, Performer
JuYoung Ma, Performer
Veronica Mak, Performer
Linda McBride, Performer

About the Performers

Grace Aki is an actor, playwright, and visual artist.

Chris Ignacio is a NY-based performer and educator originally from San Antonio, TX. He recently was a puppeteer for The Met's Madama Butterfly and is currently pursuing his MFA at Arizona State University, in Theatre/Interdisciplinary Digital Media.

Muyassar Kurdi is a New York City-based interdisciplinary artist. Her work encompasses sound art, extended vocal technique, performance art, movement, analog photography and film. She has toured extensively in the U.S. and throughout Europe. She currently focuses her attention to interweaving homemade electronic instruments into her vocal and dance performances, stirring a plethora of emotions from her audience members through vicious noise, ritualistic chants, and meditative movements.

A dream come true! I’ll be performing a showing of Emily Johnson’s Being Future Being with Stacy Smith and Chloe Alexandra Thompson doing sound. Score by Raven Chaconne.

Free admission! No reservations required.