MAILING LIST SIGNUP:
Hugh Livingston, principal, Livingston Sound
Contact: hugh at livingston sound dot com | 510 205 4844
News
Events
Press Coverage
Alice's Garden on Savanna! Garden
SF Chronicle on Savanna! Garden at the SF Flower & Garden Show
ArtPlace on Hugh's work in nature on the Russian River.
Satri Pencak on Sonoma Oaks: Points of View at Sonoma County Museum, June 2012
SF Chronicle profile on soundgardens
ArtHound on River Triptych at Warnecke Ranch & Vineyards, August 2010
Idora Design
NY Arts reviews LISTEN EDGEMAR
Mozaic Landscapes
Satri Pencak on Hugh's exhibition "Catch & Release" at SlaugherhouseSpace, June 2011
Garden Show of the Future
SF Chronicle on Savanna! Garden at the SF Flower & Garden Show
ArtPlace on Hugh's work in nature on the Russian River.
Satri Pencak on Sonoma Oaks: Points of View at Sonoma County Museum, June 2012
SF Chronicle profile on soundgardens
ArtHound on River Triptych at Warnecke Ranch & Vineyards, August 2010
Idora Design
NY Arts reviews LISTEN EDGEMAR
Mozaic Landscapes
Satri Pencak on Hugh's exhibition "Catch & Release" at SlaugherhouseSpace, June 2011
Garden Show of the Future
Published Media
Books
Music of Japan Today (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, May 2008). Dr. Livingston's contribution to the volume discusses the interpretation of traditional Japanese music, focusing on Bunraku, by Toshiro Mayuzumi. Available wherever books are sold. Also available in Japanese translation.
Articles
[TBU]
Films
Hugh appears (as himself) in the role of a high-altitude Rocky Mountain mushroom forager in Ron Mann's film Know Your Mushrooms, the first movie ever to be released on memory stick instead of DVD. Some of his chanterelle-finding scenes were cut from the theatrical release, but should be available in the home version.
CDs
solo cello
Strings & Machines (an early project of uncompromising cello with electronic processing. Tracks from this CD were included on 2 'best of' compilations: one new age and one heavy metal/noise). On sale for $8.
Process & Passion (a recent project of the music of Roger Reynolds with super-violinist Mark Menzies. There are individual solo compositions and the duo that Pulitzer Prize winner Reynolds wrote for us for the occasion of this recording).
chamber music
[12 CDs, TBU]
movie soundtracks
I Am Dina (soloist), Die Hard IV, Terminator III, Scream, Scream II, Scream III, Angel Eyes, Dracula 2000, Blade 2, XXX 2, The Faculty, Mimic, HellBoy
Music of Japan Today (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, May 2008). Dr. Livingston's contribution to the volume discusses the interpretation of traditional Japanese music, focusing on Bunraku, by Toshiro Mayuzumi. Available wherever books are sold. Also available in Japanese translation.
Articles
[TBU]
Films
Hugh appears (as himself) in the role of a high-altitude Rocky Mountain mushroom forager in Ron Mann's film Know Your Mushrooms, the first movie ever to be released on memory stick instead of DVD. Some of his chanterelle-finding scenes were cut from the theatrical release, but should be available in the home version.
CDs
solo cello
Strings & Machines (an early project of uncompromising cello with electronic processing. Tracks from this CD were included on 2 'best of' compilations: one new age and one heavy metal/noise). On sale for $8.
Process & Passion (a recent project of the music of Roger Reynolds with super-violinist Mark Menzies. There are individual solo compositions and the duo that Pulitzer Prize winner Reynolds wrote for us for the occasion of this recording).
chamber music
[12 CDs, TBU]
movie soundtracks
I Am Dina (soloist), Die Hard IV, Terminator III, Scream, Scream II, Scream III, Angel Eyes, Dracula 2000, Blade 2, XXX 2, The Faculty, Mimic, HellBoy
Biography
Hugh Livingston creates public sound environments and performs exploratory cello music. Hugh graduated cum laude in music from Yale, the 1990 recipient of the Bach Society Prize for excellence in musicianship and contribution to musical life at Yale. He has an MFA in contemporary music from the California Institute of the Arts and a doctorate from UC San Diego. Hugh composes situational music: responses to spaces, artists, architecture and design, history and people. His special areas of interest are spatialization, transit-related music, improvisation, collaboration with visual artists, electroacoustic music, and Asian music. Hugh is the founder of The ARTSHIP Recordings, a catalog of 54 improvised solos recorded on a 491-foot Art Deco cruiseliner. He has catalogued 120 different pizzicato techniques for the cello and conducted extensive research in China on contemporary and historical music. His first sound installation, LISTEN EDGEMAR, was created for a Frank Gehry-designed building in Santa Monica. Hugh fabricates unique sculptural speakers for gardens, and develops sonic solutions to combat traffic noise. His music is built around the theme of Audio in the Public Interest. His work is supported internationally by the Telluride Institute, the Creative Work Fund, the Asian Cultural Council, the Trust for Mutual Understanding, and the American Composers Forum.
Hugh is working in collaboration with Russian Riverkeeper to produce many art projects along the River. A gallery exhibition of sound and video installations, Catch & Release, opened June 2011 at Slaughterhouse Space in Healdsburg. A permanent sound garden, Sound & Place, opened June 26th at the Sonoma County Museum in Santa Rosa. A sound and video gallery installation, Points of View: Sonoma Oaks, opened June 2012 at the Sonoma County Museum. A river opera, High Mountains and Long Water, premieres September 2013 at the Chalk Hill Artists Residency, Warnecke Ranch & Vineyards, Healdsburg.
Hugh is working in collaboration with Russian Riverkeeper to produce many art projects along the River. A gallery exhibition of sound and video installations, Catch & Release, opened June 2011 at Slaughterhouse Space in Healdsburg. A permanent sound garden, Sound & Place, opened June 26th at the Sonoma County Museum in Santa Rosa. A sound and video gallery installation, Points of View: Sonoma Oaks, opened June 2012 at the Sonoma County Museum. A river opera, High Mountains and Long Water, premieres September 2013 at the Chalk Hill Artists Residency, Warnecke Ranch & Vineyards, Healdsburg.
Artist Statement
Hugh Livingston is a performer, composer and sound artist. He designs site-specific immersive sound environments for outdoor spaces, permanent and temporary. He designs and produces spectacles in the tradition of Renaissance garden entertainments and fetes from England, France and Italy. He creates spatialized musical experiences which expand the time and the experience of conventional musical compositions: an opera for the forest. Hugh's site-specific work is rooted in ways of looking at and hearing nature; he travels extensively recording avian 'dawn choruses' and babbling brooks. These recordings are used to build a portrait of a place, as well as serving as the seed material for musical compositions that reflect the presence of the human in nature.
As a visual artist, Hugh explores similar conceptual ideas with color, extracting color palettes from nature and creating modes of association with place. Part of the process is giving the colors site-specific names, referencing the community of the Russian River, for example, and building awareness of perception of nature for the audience. His project In a Different Light is a system of custom-made eyeglasses with lenses for viewing the landscape in each of the four seasons, highlighting subtle changes in color and light.
As a cellist, Hugh performs in abandoned castles, paleolithic caves, and alongside running streams. These improvisatory dialogues with other musicians define our perception of environmental and acoustical space, and provide a new method of contextualizing the musical gesture. Hugh also explores confrontational settings of outdoor musicmaking, mostly involving the cellist's typical obsession with sitting on the right kind of chair. Having left his concert career, Hugh now considers every chair to be a personal invitation, if not a challenge, to sit on it and perform.
Dr. Livingston's installation art draws heavily on the technology of small transducers which make large objects radiate sound. The most common usages are on architectural salvage Victorian windows, Chinese bamboo birdcages, and plastic bucket chairs which simulate the tactile experience of playing the cello, as the listener feels the sound radiating through their body as well as hearing it acoustically.
Hugh is very interested in a conceptual approach to phenomena of sound, such as the shapes of gravel that make the creek bubble, the curvature of leaves that rustle in the wind. His projects The Natural History of Babbling Brooks and The Natural History of California Oaks (also known as Custom Creeks, Custom Oaks) examine how an object in nature could be designed and prototyped specifically with aesthetically pleasing sound in mind. Kits and instructions are provided for the home builder.
As a visual artist, Hugh explores similar conceptual ideas with color, extracting color palettes from nature and creating modes of association with place. Part of the process is giving the colors site-specific names, referencing the community of the Russian River, for example, and building awareness of perception of nature for the audience. His project In a Different Light is a system of custom-made eyeglasses with lenses for viewing the landscape in each of the four seasons, highlighting subtle changes in color and light.
As a cellist, Hugh performs in abandoned castles, paleolithic caves, and alongside running streams. These improvisatory dialogues with other musicians define our perception of environmental and acoustical space, and provide a new method of contextualizing the musical gesture. Hugh also explores confrontational settings of outdoor musicmaking, mostly involving the cellist's typical obsession with sitting on the right kind of chair. Having left his concert career, Hugh now considers every chair to be a personal invitation, if not a challenge, to sit on it and perform.
Dr. Livingston's installation art draws heavily on the technology of small transducers which make large objects radiate sound. The most common usages are on architectural salvage Victorian windows, Chinese bamboo birdcages, and plastic bucket chairs which simulate the tactile experience of playing the cello, as the listener feels the sound radiating through their body as well as hearing it acoustically.
Hugh is very interested in a conceptual approach to phenomena of sound, such as the shapes of gravel that make the creek bubble, the curvature of leaves that rustle in the wind. His projects The Natural History of Babbling Brooks and The Natural History of California Oaks (also known as Custom Creeks, Custom Oaks) examine how an object in nature could be designed and prototyped specifically with aesthetically pleasing sound in mind. Kits and instructions are provided for the home builder.
