Ron Kuivila

The sound artist and composer Ron Kuivila studied under Alvin Lucier at Wesleyan University and graduated with a B.A. in Music and a B.A. in Mathematics in 1977. He went on to receive his Master of Fine Arts from Mills College, studying under Robert Ashley and David Behrman. Kuivila is Professor of Music at Wesleyan University, where he has taught for over 40 years. Amongst his students have been Dan Wolf, composer and music publisher, Douglas Kahn, author of numerous pioneering books in sound studies, Berlin based composer/performer/media artist Jessie Marino and Matt Rogalsky, co-organizer of this year‚s workshop on David Tudor‘s Rainforest IV.

Kuivila has released sound pieces as part of the Tellus Audio Cassette Magazine compilations as well as through Sonic Arts and Lovely Music. In the 1990s Kuivila and David P. Anderson were responsible for creating the software language Formula, with which George Lewis realized the original version of Voyager. He was a guest of the DAAD Berlinerkuenstler program in 1999-2000. In 2008 he received a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award. His concert music and installation works have been presented throughout North America and Europe. Recent works include Bellona Times, a multi-media installation based on an FBI interrogation of Danny Rodriguez, a participant in the January 6, 2020 attack on the US Capitol and Pitches and Neighbors, a piece for two string, two winds, and electronics written in memory of Alvin Lucier and premiered in Berlin in September 2024.