Brown Arts Institute
Trace Fields: Spatial Audio Works from Brown and RISD Faculty
CONCERT
February 9, 2026
7:00 PM EST
The Lindemann Performing Arts Center, Main Hall
Trace Fields: Spatial Audio Works from Brown and RISD Faculty
CONCERT
February 9, 2026
7:00 PM EST
The Lindemann Performing Arts Center, Main Hall
An evening of new electronic works for immersive spatial audio by faculty from Brown and RISD, presented in the ambisonic cube at the Lindemann Performing Arts Center. Featuring work by Alex Chechile (RISD Digital+Media), Shawn Greenlee (RISD Digital+Media), and Ed Osborn (Brown Visual Art and Music).
Concert Program
Alex Chechile: Speaker
15 – 25 mins
Speaker (2026) introduces Distortion Product Sinusoidal Speech Synthesis (DP3S), a perceptually driven speech resynthesis technique based on sinusoidal partial tracking and controlled cochlear nonlinearity. Speech signals are analyzed into time-varying sinusoidal components whose frequency relationships are structured to elicit auditory distortion products generated by active processes in the inner ear. These internally produced frequency components are perceptually integrated as vocal formants and experienced as voice localized within the listener’s head. Additional sound generation is distributed across modular synthesis systems, including Serge and Buchla, alongside a voltage-controlled string resonator system that provides mechanically excited acoustic coupling. Performed in higher order ambisonics over a dense array of 40+ speakers, the piece frames speech as an emergent perceptual construct arising from the interaction of signal structure, nonlinear auditory physiology, spatial presentation, and hybrid electronic–acoustic excitation.
Ed Osborn: Slow Break
25 minutes
Slow Break is a multi-channel sound work made up of shifting clusters of sounds based on the sounds and structures of games of pool. These clusters are developed in combination with a set of quiet mechanical sounds and processed reflections of them. The piece is structured around repeated gradual clearings, following the arc of a pool game where the table is cleared of objects in a deliberate and varied manner. The title refers to an opening strategy that keeps the balls relatively close together on the table. It requires the players to operate carefully in subsequent moves as they work through the clusters and shapes as the game unfolds.
Shawn Greenlee: Sluicer
20 – 30 minutes
Sluicer is a performance system for spatial audio improvisation, adaptable to various output channel configurations from stereo to high density loudspeaker arrays. In this work, two 20-voice, erratic synthesizers operate as a roving “chorus” under the player’s direction. Both synths have a series of multichannel effects designed to work specifically with high order ambisonic signals, allowing the player to create and alter spatial dimensions. As audio flows, the guiding action is like closing/opening gates in a lock on a waterway. The results are timbral and spatial churns, swells, floods and drains, motion in repetition, expansion, and contraction. Sluicer is programmed in Max with tactile interfaces being high resolution, multi-touch control surfaces and a DJ-style MIDI controller.
Among other performances, Sluicer was featured at Virginia Tech’s Cube Fest 2024 ︎︎︎ on 140 loudspeaker channels; at the New Interfaces for Musical Expression 2024 ︎︎︎ conference at HKU in Utrecht, Netherlands, prepared for the 160 loudspeaker channels of the Game of Life Wave Field Synthesis speaker array ︎︎︎; the Residual Noise fest 2025 at RISD/Brown University for the IKO 3D loudspeaker ︎︎︎; and at the International Computer Music Conference 2025 ︎︎︎ at Northeastern University on a 15.1 system.
Alex Chechile is a sound artist, composer, and electronic artist whose work develops in parallel with research in neuroscience, psychoacoustics, and the biomechanics of hearing. With a particular interest in the relationship between sound and the body, his immersive compositions, installations, and performances aim to bring transparency to otherwise invisible processes in biological and technological systems.
Ed Osborn works with many forms of electronic media including installation, video, sound, and performance. He has presented his work at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the singuhr-hörgalerie (Berlin), the Berkeley Art Museum, Artspace (Sydney), the Institute of Modern Art (Brisbane), the ZKM Center for Art and Media (Karlsruhe), Kiasma (Helsinki), MassMOCA (North Adams), the Yale University Art Gallery, and the Sonic Arts Research Centre (Belfast). Osborn has received grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Creative Work Fund, and Arts International and been awarded residencies from the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program, the Banff Centre for the Arts, Elektronmusikstudion (Stockholm), STEIM (Amsterdam), and EMPAC (Troy, NY). He is Professor of Visual Art and Music at Brown University.
Shawn Greenlee is a composer, sound artist, and