Brenda Hutchinson is a composer and sound artist who has developed a body of work based on a perspective about interacting with the public and non-artists through personal, reciprocal engagement with listening and sounding. Hutchinson encourages her participants to experiment with sound, share stories, and make music. She often bases her electroacoustic compositions on recordings of these individual collaborative experiences, creating “sonic portraits” or “aural pictures” of people and situations.
In addition to her ethnographic pieces, Hutchinson has invented instruments (Giant Music Box, Long Tube, and gestural interface for the Long Tube), composed for film (Liquid Sky, 1982, co-composed with Clive Smith), and is active as a performer/improviser. Performances of her work have been presented in New York at Lincoln Center, Merkin Concert Hall, and The Kitchen, as well as in San Francisco at New Langton Arts, The Lab, and the Exploratorium.