Sonic boom
Singer, songwriter and sound artist Miriama Young is spearheading a new discipline in Sonic Arts at UNSW.
Published on the 12 Sep 2014
Dr Miriama Young. Photo: Grant Turner/ MediaKoo
A simple question doesn’t always elicit a simple answer. Ask Dr Miriama Young to sum up what she does and she replies, “I am a composer and a sound artist.” She pauses. “And a writer.”
The New Zealand–born artist won several prizes for composition while still studying her undergraduate degree in History and Music at Victoria University in Wellington. In 2000, she travelled to the US on a Fulbright scholarship to Princeton University.
Since then Young has refused to be pigeonholed. She has joined the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at UNSW to develop Sonic Arts, one of four streams within the new Bachelor of Music degree.
How does Sonic Arts differ from everyday music? “I think of it as being very interdisciplinary by nature; it’s not necessarily dots on paper. It could be anything from sound installations to film soundtracks or interactive artworks where sound is the principal element.”
Offered for the first time next year, Sonic Arts gives an innovative practical and theoretical approach to the field.
As Young explains, the Sonic Arts stream encourages crossfertilisation and is driven by the key question, “How can we use technology in creative ways?”
Read the full story in Uniken.