Joanna Mattrey: POV: Simulation with Dr. Graham Walker

Wednesday, June 9th at 8pm EST, violist Joanna Mattrey continues her 2021 ISSUE residency with the premiere of POV: Simulation, a digitally induced synesthesia experience created in collaboration with physicist Dr. Graham Walker. Using the frequencies of Mattrey’s soundscape, Dr. Walker translates each sound into its mathematically corresponding color, to gain insight into the minute changes of overtones and subtones within Mattrey's performance. Combining this process with video footage (recorded at Fridman Gallery in the Lower East Side, New York), POV: Simulation forges a digital pathway through Mattrey’s compositions.

Compositions by Joanna Mattrey
Cosmol digital rendering by Dr. Graham Walker

Joanna Mattrey is a Brooklyn-based violist working in free improvisation, new music, and classical music. She uses extended techniques, modern compositional approaches, and electronic alterations to challenge the conventions of the viola. Drawing on her certifications in Alexander Technique, and Yoga, and an interest in Martial Arts, Joanna creates an embodied performance practice centered on ceremony and ritual. Her debut solo album, ‘Veiled,’ (Relative Pitch Records, 2020) explores the extreme sonic possibilities for viola and upcoming releases for Notice Recordings, Tripticks Tapes, Dear Life Recs, and Relative Pitch Records will include world premieres from her solo commissioning project, collaborative projects, and solo improvisations. Festival performances include Newport Jazz Festival, NYC Winter Jazz Fest, Lima Jazz Festival*, SxSW, and New Ear Festival. Residencies include Banff’s Composition Lab, MoMa PS1’s ALLGOLD, The Floor. Joanna has a B.A. in viola performance from the New England Conservatory (2009).

Dr. Walker is a faculty member of the Mechanical Engineering Department at Manhattan College, and he works in the field of systems engineering. This has included research in the areas of control, instrumentation, signal processing, and acoustics. This has allowed him to marry issues associated with system dynamics and sound control, which goes back to his Ph.D. work where he studies the effect that blast waves have on surrounding structures.