Photo by Virginia Harold at Pulitzer Art Foundation
Opening: Sunday, May 18, 2025 2:00 PM
Listen through August 31 during Conservatory open hours
Fern Room at Lincoln Park Conservatory
2391 N. Stockton Drive, Chicago
Free admission with reservation
As part of its ongoing Florasonic series, ESS presents The Southwest Northeast Back and Forth Bows, a new work by Laura Ortman, spatialized by Kari Watson.
The Southwest Northeast Back and Forth Bows features layered recordings of traditional Apache violin and symphonic amplified violin. Captured in a series of live studio sessions with ESS engineer Kate In, the performances blend expressive over-rosining techniques, subtle under-amplification, and nuanced phrasing to draw out the unique textures and tonal character of each instrument.
The Apache violin and the amplified violin are positioned in the southwest and northeast corners of the installation space, symbolically anchoring the sounds to their origins: Apache lands in Arizona and the urban wilderness of New York City, where Ortman has lived and worked since 1997.
The full 28-minute piece is spatially arranged by sound artist Kari Watson, who creates an immersive sonic environment that invites focused listening and physical exploration of the sound field.
Any guest for the opening reception will be expected to register as a visitor either in advance or upon arrival to the Conservatory
About Laura Ortman
A soloist musician, composer and vibrant collaborator, Laura Ortman (White Mountain Apache) creates across multiple platforms, including recorded albums, live performances, and filmic and artistic soundtracks. She has collaborated with artists such as Tony Conrad, Jock Soto, Raven Chacon, Nanobah Becker, Okkyung Lee, Martin Bisi, Jeffrey Gibson, Caroline Monnet, Tanya Lukin Linklater, Martha Colburn, New Red Order, and as part of the trio, In Defense of Memory. An inquisitive and exquisite violinist, Ortman is versed in Apache violin, piano, electric guitar, keyboards, and amplified violin, and often sings through a megaphone. She is a producer of capacious field recordings. Ortman has performed at The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Brooklyn Museum, The Guggenheim, Pioneer Works, and The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal, MASS MoCA, MCA Chicago, REWIRE Festival at the Hague, Baltimore Museum of Art, The New Museum, imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival, The Toronto Biennial, and the Centre Pompidou, Paris, among countless established and DIY venues in the US, Canada, and Europe. In 2008, She founded the Coast Orchestra, an all-Native American orchestral ensemble that performed a live soundtrack to Edward Curtis’s film In the Land of the Head Hunters (1914), the first silent feature film to star an all-Native American cast.
Ortman is the recipient of the 2025 Pioneer Works Music Residency, 2023 Institute of American Indian Arts Fellowship, 2022 Forge Project Fellowship, 2022 United States Artists Fellowship, 2022 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists, 2020 Jerome@Camargo Residency in Cassis, France, 2017 Jerome Foundation Composer and Sound Artist Fellowship, 2016 Art Matters Grant, 2016 Native Arts and Culture Foundation Fellowship, 2015 IAIA’s Museum of Contemporary Native Arts Social Engagement Residency, 2014-15 Rauschenberg Residency, and 2010 Artist-in-Residence at Issue Project Room. Ortman was also a participating artist in the 2019 Whitney Biennial. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
The 2025 Florasonic season is supported by The Paul M. Angell Foundation.
