White Mountain Apache artist Laura Ortman to perform on campus Oct. 28

ALFRED, NY ­ – Laura Ortman, White Mountain Apache artist and musician who works across recorded media, live performances, and filmic and artistic soundtracks, will perform Oct. 28 at 7 pm in Miller Theater. Her appearance is hosted by Alfred University’s Institute for Electronic Arts, where Ortman is currently a Visiting Artist.

Her performance, “Twirl Bird,” is free and open to the public.

Ortman is versed in Apache violin, piano, electric guitar, keyboards, and pedal steel guitar, often sings through a megaphone, and is a producer of audio works using field recordings, whistles, tree branches, slides, guitar picks, bells, and tuning forks. She has performed at The Whitney Museum of American Art and The Museum of Modern Art, in New York City, the Musee d'Art Contemporain de Montreal, and the Centre Pompidou, in Paris. She also has collaborated with artists such as Tony Conrad, Jock Soto, Raven Chacon, Nanobah Becker, and Okkyung Lee.

At the McCord Museum, in Montreal, she recently performed with Caroline Monnet in a call-and-response installation titled Exquisit Score. Artforum said, “Ortman’s soaring violin compositions resonate across Monnet’s psychedelic wall-sized print and video collages, which combine kaleidoscopic forest scenes and Super-8 home videos to absorbing effect.” 

Twirl Bird is sponsored by Alfred University’s Institute for Electronic Arts with support from the Division of Expanded Media, Division of Performing Arts and The School of Art and Design. The IEA Residency program is sponsored by the New York State Council for the Arts and the Schein-Joseph Endowment.