Shanna Sordahl

Shanna Sordahl (she/they) is a sound artist and composer based in the East Bay Area, California. Using amplified cello with analog and digital electronics and installation art as her primary mediums, Sordahl’s work is a continual exploration of one’s relationship to both sound and physical spaces, questioning ingrained relationships and patterns of perception while articulating unexpected processes of change. Subverting traditional approaches to music, she emphasizes timbral changes, physical friction, the resonant body of objects, unconventional playing techniques, and feedback. Drawing on themes of loss, perceptions of time, and methods of transformation, Sordahl is especially inspired by the beauty of noise, discoveries from field recording, the role of ritual in performance, and adaptive, empathy based community systems.