Annea Lockwood
Home Ground
Annea Lockwood
Home Ground
Annea Lockwood’s Home Ground is a site-specific work acoustically mapping selected sites representing diverse environments on the PS21 grounds, carried out by members of the local community. Participants record the soundscapes of that site, especially at dawn and at dusk across the seasons, using audio/video recording, text, drawing, or other graphics via a sound mapping app.
Beginning Groundtone weekend, June 18-21, the public will be invited to explore the sites, listen, and contribute their own maps. The grounds are open dawn to dusk everyday, and all you need is a phone or a piece of paper to participate
The core of the project is that by listening to an environment closely and over time, Spring through Fall, you not only learn the make-up of a site and its ecology, but may also come to sense your part in it – not only how you respond to it but, reciprocally, how or if it responds to your presence e.g. tree frogs quieting when you approach them. From that mutual awareness can come caring. Home Ground is an immersion in the sonic world of a particular small area in the grounds of PS21, thus expanding your personal neighborhood. Over time the sounds ‘native’ to an area become familiar, and accumulate within your sense of that place, like the layers of humus beneath a tree. – Annea Lockwood
Home Ground is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
Annea Lockwood (b. 1939 in Aotearoa, New Zealand) is known for her explorations of natural acoustic sounds and environments in works ranging from installations to concert music. In recent years, her music has received widespread attention, including a Columbia University Miller Theatre Composer Portrait concert, two feature articles in The New York Times, and a documentary film by director Sam Green. Her sound maps of the Hudson River, the Danube, and the Housatonic River have been widely presented in Europe, the U.K., the United States and Australia, in addition to her instrumental works. Three recent collaborative works – Into the Vanishing Point with new music quartet Yarn/Wire, Becoming Air with avant-garde trumpeter Nate Wooley, and Skin Resonance with percussionist-composer Vanessa Tomlinson – were released on Black Truffle Records. Hearing Studies, co-authored with Ruth Anderson, was published by Open Space in 2021.
Wild Energy, a collaboration with Bob Bielecki focused on atmospheric, mammalian, and geophysical infra and ultrasound, is permanently installed at the Caramoor Center, Katonah. Elwha!, co-composed in 2025 with Claire Chase for flutes and field recordings of the Elwha River, received a commission from the Fromm Music Foundation, and recently premiered at the Kitchen in New York City. Other recent presentations of her work include the Ojai Festival, Big Ears, Other Minds, Queen Elizabeth Hall London, Rainy Days Luxembourg, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Noon to Midnight Festival, Tectonics-Athens, and the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival.
Lockwood is a recipient of the 2020 SEAMUS Award and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Photo credit: Sam Green
Groundtone is PS21’s annual weekend-long celebration of adventurous music by an eclectic selection of today’s most original voices. Dazzling performances and immersive experiences take place across the PS21 grounds with concerts in our theater, fields, installations, and barns.
This year’s Groundtone features Sō Percussion in collaboration with Grammy-nominated songwriter Becca Stevens, pathbreaking harpist Parker Ramsay, and a full slate of artists who defy categorization. On June 21, PS21 will usher the globally-renowned Make Music Day to Chatham for the first time, with a sunrise musical procession created by Phil Kline; and Annea Lockwood’s Home Ground, a new site specific work spanning the PS21 terrain.
Groundtone is four days of audacious music, unexpected collaboration, sound, and community in the PS21 landscape.