Sonic Blossom Auditions
In spring 2024, the Utah Museum of Fine Arts is hosting a special presentation of Sonic Blossom, a participatory performance installation by Taiwanese-American artist LEE Mingwei. Sonic Blossom is a performance-based art project that allows local, classically trained singers to offer a spontaneous gift of song to museum visitors in the UMFA galleries.
Professional and student opera singers are invited to audition to be one of ten performers realizing Sonic Blossom in the UMFA’s galleries. Performances will take place during open hours April 10 to May 5, 2024. During the 23-day exhibition run, performers will be scheduled in two- or three-hour shifts according to their availability. Singers who can commit to four or five shifts during the special exhibition are strongly encouraged to audition. All singers will be compensated for their time.
How to Audition:
Prepare at least one of the following Franz Schubert Lieder
Du bist die Ruh, D. 776 “You are Peace, the Mild Peace”
An den Mond, D. 193 “To The Moon”
Frühlingsglaube, D. 686 “Spring Faith”
Nacht und Träume, D. 827 “Night and Dream”
Auf dem Wasser zu singen, D. 774 “In the Middle of the Shimmer of the Reflecting Waves”
Prepare a separate song of your choosing
Reserve a ten-minute audition time slot here (calendly.com/umfa/sonic-blossom-auditions)
Send a PDF of your audition pieces in the key you will sing by email to Emily Lawhead, associate curator of modern and contemporary art, by October 27.
Bring printed copies of your headshot and resume for the audition panel.
Perform your prepared pieces for the artist and an audition panel on November 14 at the Thompson Chamber Music Hall in the University of Utah’s David Gardner Hall.
Audition Date and Location:
November 14, 2023 | 4:00 – 8:00 pm (scheduled in 10-minute slots)
Thompson Chamber Music Hall, David Gardner Hall, University of Utah
1375 E Presidents Circle, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112
Please contact Emily Lawhead, associate curator of modern and contemporary art with any questions. Emily.lawhead@umfa.utah.edu
About the Artists:
LEE Mingwei
Born in Taiwan in 1964, LEE Mingwei, who currently residing in Paris, Taipei, and New York, creates participatory installations that enable strangers to engage with concepts of trust, intimacy, and self-awareness. Additionally, Lee conducts one-on-one events in which he and visitors explore these themes through daily activities like eating, sleeping, writing, and conversing. His projects often present open-ended scenarios for everyday interactions, adapting and transforming with participant involvement throughout an exhibition's duration.
Lee received his MFA from Yale University in 1997 and has since showcased his solo exhibitions internationally at venues including the Centre Pompidou, Tate Modern, Gropius Bau, Sydney Modern, Taipei Fine Art Museum, Mori Art Museum, Queensland Gallery of Modern Art, Auckland Art Gallery, Art Museum Ateneum, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He has also been featured in Biennials in Venice, Lyon, Sharjah, Liverpool, Taipei, Sydney, Echigo-Tsumari, Whitney, and the Asia Pacific Triennials.
His mid-career survey exhibition, Lee Mingwei and His Relations: The Art of Participation, was presented at Mori Art Museum in 2014, traveled to Taipei Fine Arts Museum and Auckland Art Gallery. Lee's European survey, Lee Mingwei: Li, Gifts, and Rituals, was on view at Gropius Bau in 2020 followed by Museum Villa Stuck. In the coming years of 2023 and 2024, he plans to unveil his projects and new creations in countries including Denmark, France, South Korea, Italy, Hong Kong, Japan, and the United States.
Dr. Mitchell Giambalvo
Born and raised in Pennsylvania, Dr. Mitchell Giambalvo received his doctorate in piano performance from Florida State University. He then returned to complete a second master’s degree in collaborative piano before becoming an adjunct professor of piano at Troy University in Alabama. Giambalvo moved to Salt Lake City and joined the University of Utah staff in 2019. He is a freelance vocal diction coach for singers, works with a variety of instrumentalists, and continues to pursue his love of collaborative music-making in Utah.
Giambalvo has performed as a pianist for the Utah Opera, is a substitute pianist with the Utah Symphony, and is the pianist for the Utah Flute Association – for which he recently performed with Catherine Ransom Karoly (Associate Principal Flutist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic) and Dr. Erika Boysen (Assistant Professor of Flute at the University of North Carolina Greensboro) at Westminster College. At the University of Utah, he also served as the pianist for the International Trombone Festival in 2023. Recent performances include The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs (Utah Opera), Olivier Messiaen’s Turangalîla Symphony (Utah Symphony), and Gustav Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde (NOVA Chamber Music Series). In addition to his work in Utah, he serves as summer piano faculty at Montana’s Red Lodge Music Festival.