About Us
Sound Symposium is a production of Sound Arts Initiatives, Inc. In addition to the biennial symposium, Sound Arts produces Night Music, a monthly improvisational music series at The Ship Pub; ONSOUND, a biennial festival with a distinct focus; Echo Village, a multi-disciplinary event at the MUN Botanical Garden; and satellite events throughout the year such as Drone Day. As always, keep your ears tuned to the harbour throughout the year to catch special renditions of the Harbour Symphony!
Sound Symposium has been opening ears and experimenting with sound since 1983. Every two years, artists from around the world converge on St. John’s, Newfoundland & Labrador, an eclectic Canadian city on an island in the North Atlantic. The symposium is brimming with sound activities, both planned and impromptu, all open to the public. There are daytime workshops, evening concerts, outdoor experiences, late night jam sessions, and daily Harbour Symphonies. You’ll hear cutting-edge electronic music, folk traditions from around the world, improv of all shapes and sizes, world premieres of contemporary classical music, and anything else an artist can dream up. There are dance performances, gallery exhibits, film screenings, installations, and more. Sonic happenings take place in concert halls, on street corners, in basements, in forests, on hillsides, in the harbour, and on the ocean. It’s an event unlike any other because St. John’s is a place unlike any other. Every performance is imbued with the unique culture and breath-taking natural beauty of Newfoundland & Labrador.
Board of Directors
John Barry, Co-Chair
Rod Zdebiak, Co-Chair
Bill Brennan
Kathy Clark Wherry
Susan Hadley
Greg Locke
Kathleen Parewick
Artistic Programming Team
Kathy Clark-Wherry
Benton Roark
Craig Squires
Delf Maria Hohmann
Bill Brennan
Andrew Staniland
Gayle Young
Michelle LaCour
Kate Read
Duane Andrews
Jing Xia
Staff & Volunteers
Kathy Clark-Wherry, Artistic Director
Michelle LaCour, Executive Director
Wendi Smallwood, bookkeeper
Oz Gilmer-Osborne, archivist
Chad Feehan, social media manager
Craig Squires, Night Music coordinator
Delf Maria Hohman, Harbour Symphony coordinator
Wallace Hammond, live sound engineer
Greg Locke, photographer and webmaster
Geoff Panting, sound recordist
John (J.) Barry, graphic designer
History
& Vision
Our History
The seeds of what would become Sound Arts Initiatives were planted in 1983 with the first Sound Symposium. Funded by the Canada Council for the Arts and dreamed up by Don Wherry, Mike Zagorski, Paul Bendzsa, and Martin Rickert, this inaugural symposium featured invited guests R. Murray Schafer, Michael Snow, Robin MacKenzie, and Terrill Maguire. These high-profile Canadian artists were joined by over one hundred Newfoundland & Labrador artists in a week-long exploration of sound. Although it was intended to be a one-off event, response from the community was so overwhelmingly positive that a second Sound Symposium was undertaken in 1984, featuring ten visiting artists and another large number of local participants. Following the 1984 event, the Sound Symposium Committee decided to offer a Sound Symposium once every two years.
Since then, interest in the Symposium has grown steadily. It has played host to thousands of local, national, and international artists, has been the subject of numerous documentaries, and has helped to cement St. John’s as an epicentre of creativity and sonic exploration. Many volumes of prose and countless hours of sound recordings would be required to tell the story of Sound Symposium over its first 40+ years, to say nothing of Night Music, ONSOUND, the Harbour Symphony, and our other countless offerings. Our roots are strong, and we are confident that they will support us for many years to come as we branch out and continue to evolve as an organization.
Land Acknowledgement
Sound Arts activities take place primarily in St. John’s, Newfoundland & Labrador. St. John’s is home to a rich, diverse, and vibrant urban Indigenous community. Located on the ancestral and unceded territory of the Beothuk, the lands and waters in and around the City have traditionally served as a gathering place for the Mi’kmaq. The broader region of Newfoundland and Labrador continues to be home to diverse Indigenous Peoples, including First Nations, Inuit, and Métis. We honour and pay respect to the past, present, and future caretakers of these territories. If you would like to learn more about the unique Indigenous cultural history of this area, please visit First Light’s website.
Our Vision
Sound Arts is dedicated to the creation, performance, exhibition, and appreciation of all types of sound, visual, and performing arts in St. John’s, throughout Newfoundland & Labrador, and across Canada. Through our artistic programming and outreach events, we strive to encourage, develop, and promote the work and talents of Newfoundland & Labrador artists. We aim to build enthusiastic support for all art forms, but particularly for those that are under-represented. We encourage artists to experiment, improvise, take chances, and dream big. If you enjoy sonic surprises and adventures in art, you’ll be right at home in the Sound Arts community.
Sound Arts is committed to an organizational culture that values and promotes diversity, inclusion, accessibility, and equal opportunities. We are committed to encouraging, uplifting, and actively supporting efforts to create equitable spaces, opportunities, and practices for all artists. We recognize the systematic barriers that affect the ability of marginalized communities to participate in the creative sector, and strive to remove those barriers through our programming procedures, promotion, and presentation. We encourage all those who may contribute to the further diversification of ideas to apply for and take part in our programming.
Our legal mandate and our suite of organizational policies can be found below:
The Legal Mandate of Sound Arts Initiatives, Inc.
Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Policy
Conflict of Interest Policy
Code of Conduct
Respectful Workplace Policy
Supporters
Without the support of various funding agencies, sponsors, donors, and volunteers, we could not have made Sound Arts into the successful and influential organization it has become in new music, sound art, performing arts, and education over our first 40+ years. We would like to thank the following organizations for their continued support of Sound Arts and the work we do.
Funders
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts
The Newfoundland & Labrador Arts Council – ArtsNL
The Government of Canada – Department of Canadian Heritage
The Government of Newfoundland & Labrador – Year of the Arts and CelebrateNL
Supporters
Delta Marriott Hotels and Conference Centre St. John’s
Memorial University of Newfoundland & Labrador School of Music
MusicNL
The Gerry Porter Family
The Mike Zagorski Family
Community Partners
Canadian New Music Network
International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation
Memorial University of Newfoundland & Labrador Botanical Garden
Research Centre for the Study of Music, Media and Place (MMap)
The Ship Pub
St. John’s Port Authority
Canadian Coast Guard
Neighbourhood Dance Works
Lawnya Vawnya
Eastern Edge Artist-Run Centre
St. Michael’s Printshop
Craft Council of Newfoundland & Labrador
The LSPU Hall
First Light Centre for Performance and Creativity
Bannerman Brewing Co.
Stray Light Media
And an enormous thanks to Sound Arts’ wonderful, generous billets who host dozens of visiting artists during each Symposium.
Sound Symposium thanks
our funders & partners
VOLUNTEER
Sound Symposium is powered by volunteers. Whether you’re looking to meet new people or spend time immersed in experimental music, your donated time is the secret sauce that makes Sound Symposium so special. We’ll thank you with some perks, too.
We need volunteers to work at the merchandise table, and to pull front-of-house shifts at concerts taking place at our various venues, including MUN, The Rooms, and Cape Spear. We need friendly faces to meet and greet attendees at workshops. If you’re good with computers, sound systems and machines of all sorts, we also need volunteers to assist the technical team.
We will help you find the volunteer position that’s right for your skills and your schedule.