Stephanie Cheng Smith
Stephanie Cheng Smith is an L.A.-based composer, performer and programmer who creates interactive pieces, installations, improvisation, and through-composed works. Often using electronics, violin and light elements, Smith’s work stretches from ensemble performances and the realization of others’ scores to a solo practice that has included several projects that each utilize a novel technology-driven instrument of her own devise. Developing software and designing circuitry to control motorized elements, she has imagined a unique hybrid form where physical materials such jingle-bells, plastic cups, or pieces of paper can be deliberately – or aleatorically – controlled to “perform” expressive and organic sound events. A recent work, Life Cycles, uses such apparati to vibrate vellum, evoking the sound of cicadas. Smith's 2021 album Forms was released on A Wave Press.
