Karen Power is an Irish composer, sound artist, and improviser. Her compositions use two primary sources; acoustic instruments and everyday sounds. Power’s creative output is diverse, both in its approach and delivery, seeking to capture and translate the essence of an idea through a variety of forms, media and methods of dissemination. Recent musical works have been presented as sound installations and multi-sensory walk-through experiences, staged orchestral and ensemble pieces, wordless opera, collaborations between sound and dance, sound and image, free and guided improvisations, solo instrumental works, duets, musical happenings, and most recently, augmented, virtual, and expanded Realities. Power was a DAAD Artist-in-Residence in 2015 and her work continues to receive international recognition.
Every day environments and how we hear every day sounds lies at the core of Power’s practice, with a continued interest in blurring the distinction between what we consider ‘music’ and all other sound. She has listened and recorded in some of the worlds most isolated and challenging locations: The Arctic, Amazon, Namib Desert, Australia's Outback, and most recently, Antarctica. Her art utilizes our inherent familiarity with such sounds as a means of engaging with performers and audiences, with the goal of altering our relationship with our world and how are behave and effect change in our living environments. Many of the works are devised to ensure that an active listening environment is created, maintained, and shared by all involved. The aim is for the work to simultaneously challenge every listener's memory of hearing while presenting new contexts for such sounds and forever altering how we hear our world, while acknowledging the change we all bring upon it.
At MacDowell, Power spent her time listening and editing her recent field recordings made during her return trip to the Arctic in August 2024. She was preparing her specialized, full frequency field recordings made from above, inside, and deep below the Arctic ice for a series of upcoming commissioned works for piano, viola, two large-scale ensembles, and a sound installation, which will be premiered in 2025/2026.
Karen Power
Studios
Watson
Karen Power worked in the Watson studio.
Built in 1916 in memory of Regina Watson of Chicago, a musician and teacher, this studio was donated by a group of her friends, along with funds for its maintenance. Originally designed to serve as a composers’ studio with room for performance, Watson was used as a recital hall for chamber music for a…