
Susie Ibarra
Berlin, Germany
Susie Ibarra is a Filipinx composer, percussionist, and sound artist. Her interdisciplinary practice includes composition, performance, mobile sound-mapping applications, multichannel audio installations, recording, and documentary. Among her many projects, she is the founder of Susie Ibarra Studio and, with artist-musician and engineer Jake Landau, the label and publisher Habitat Sounds. She works to support Indigenous and traditional music cultures, like musika katutubo from the Philippines, advocates for the stewardship of glaciers and freshwaters, and supports initiatives in addressing water and desert climate, and women and girls education with Joudour Sahara, Morocco. Ibarra leads several ensembles including Talking Gong Trio with Claire Chase and Alex Peh. She has recorded over 40 albums and performed in events and venues such as Carnegie Hall, the Olympics, and the Sharjah Biennial. With her recent book Rhythm in Nature: An Ecology of Rhythm, she mentors artists and has taught students in arts,music, science and humanities about rhythm and sound in various natural habitats and landscapes. Recent honors include a 2024 DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program fellowship in Music and Sound, for which she is based in Berlin, and 2024 Charles Ives Fellowship in Music Composition with the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She is a Foundation for Contemporary Arts 2022 Music Fellow, United States Artists 2019 Music Fellow, TED Senior Fellow 2014, and NatGeo Explorers Storyteller 2020. Susie Ibarra is a Yamaha, Zildjian, and Vic Firth Drum Artist.

Susie Ibarra, CHAN, A Landscape Opera and Installation, 2022. Photo by Tessa Fuqua.
Susie Ibarra, CHAN, A Landscape Opera and Installation, 2022. Photo by Tessa Fuqua.
Susie Ibarra, CHAN, A Landscape Opera and Installation, 2022. Photo by Tessa Fuqua.
Susie Ibarra, CHAN, A Landscape Opera and Installation, 2022. Photo by Tessa Fuqua.
Susie Ibarra, CHAN, A Landscape Opera and Installation, 2022. Photo by Tessa Fuqua.
CHAN
Susie Ibarra is a Filipinx American composer, percussionist, and sound artist. She is the founder of Susie Ibarra Studio and co-founder of label and publisher Habitat Sounds.
Artist BioCHAN, a landscape opera and sound installation, tells ancestral stories of the Earth as both the Female Buddha and as Mother Nature. Created by composer, percussionist, and sound artist Susie Ibarra and produced in collaboration with the TANK Center for Sonic Arts, CHAN will feature acclaimed Taiwanese/American poet Jeffrey Yang, San Francisco Girls Chorus conducted by Valerie Agathe, Ibarra’s Talking Gong trio with soloists renowned flutist Claire Chase & pianist Alex Peh, and a lithophone percussion quintet performed by multi-instrumentalists Phyllis Chen, Jake Landau, Jen Yakamovich, Ellie Weinberg, Putu Tangkas Hiranmayena with Susie Ibarra
Sometimes it is necessary to return to a source, to a beginning, to be able to find our way in the middle and move forward into the future. CHAN is a return to the poetic line of Ibarra’s personal name, to her human ancestors, as well as ancestors of environment. Chan is Ibarra’s middle name, given as her mothers maiden name. Chan means to Meditate, or the Act of Reflecting. Chan is also a meditation practice called Dyana in Sanskrit and Vietmamese Thien, and Zen in Japanese Buddhism. The name Ibarra is Basque, meaning the river that runs between Two Mountains. It is an inspiration for the structure of this environmental opera.
CHAN will be performed, audio recorded, and filmed on Ute land along the southwestern border of Colorado and Utah in Fantasy Canyon, Whispering Cave, Dinosaur National Monument Park, and in the TANK Center for Sonic Arts, and will follow as a sound installation and performance in Berlin where Susie Ibarra is on Fellowship and in residence, and in Denver, San Francisco, and New York.

