“The function of art is not to communicate one’s personal ideas or feelings, but rather to imitate nature in her manner of operation.”
—John Cage, after Ananda K. Coomaraswamy
2009–present | Sound-art collective and performing ensemble
David Dunn, Rene Barge and Gustavo Matamoros
Established as a recurring project of the Subtropics Organization
Frozen Music brings together three autonomous approaches to sound generation, listening and spatialization within a shared acoustic environment. Formed in 2009 by David Dunn, Rene Barge and Gustavo Matamoros, the collective remains active in changing configurations.
A performance becomes Frozen Music when at least two of its three members are present. The collective usually performs in quadraphonic sound, although individual works have occupied systems ranging from eight to 120 channels and have lasted from several hours to an entire day.
THE BEGINNING
Frozen Music emerged from ideas discussed during Subtropics 20 at The Bass in February 2009. During that weekend, a conversation with advisors raised a simple question: if people were not coming to experimental music, why not bring the work to places where people already gathered?
The opportunity to act on that question was already developing. Following Matamoros’s performance of Piano Marina in 2008, Gary Farmer invited him to create a work for Collins Canal as part of the City of Miami Beach’s Sleepless Night 2009. Matamoros shared the idea with Dunn as a possible beginning for a new ensemble, and they invited Barge, with whom Matamoros was also collaborating, to join them.
The name Frozen Music draws from the familiar description of architecture as frozen music. Matamoros proposed it while establishing a formal place for the ensemble within the Subtropics Organization. That relationship made it possible to raise additional support for the inaugural performance, acquire equipment and continue the collective as a recurring project adaptable to very different situations.
Canal, presented on November 7–8, 2009, became Frozen Music’s first performance.
SOUND AS STIMULUS
Frozen Music does not function like a conventional improvising ensemble. Its members do not necessarily perform in response to one another or attempt to guide the accumulated material toward a satisfying musical result.
Each member introduces a sound stimulus and listens for what it causes: how it behaves in the site, what it reveals, how it encounters other sounds and whether something happens that seems worth exploring further. Those consequences inform the next action. The process becomes a feedback loop among sounds, performers, technology, architecture, environment and whatever else enters the situation.
Spatialization is a practice shared by all three members. Each may independently determine the location, movement, intensity and duration of an individual sound stream. These autonomous streams coexist within the same site and may accumulate into dense fields, separate into identifiable events or change their relationships as listeners move through them.
Duration is fundamental. Frozen Music performances often continue for several hours. Extended time allows conditions to develop that cannot be completely anticipated: architectural resonances, environmental sounds, human activity, weather, non-human responses and changing relationships among the performers’ actions.
IMITATING NATURE’S MANNER OF OPERATION
A soundscape may center on the representation of an environment. Frozen Music instead borrows something from the way environments behave. Its sounds—whether recorded, electronic or produced by physical objects—are allowed to coexist, interfere, evolve and exceed the intentions of the performers.
David Dunn’s chaotic oscillators generate autonomous, organic and unpredictable activity. Gustavo Matamoros’s Small Sounds retain the complex behavior of physical events and materials. Rene Barge’s synthetic sounds can suggest energy fields, noise sonorities, oscillations and other evolving forces.
In this sense, imitating nature does not necessarily mean reproducing the sounds of nature. It means allowing sound to operate through multiplicity, interaction, instability and emergence.
CHANGING CONFIGURATIONS
Following the pandemic, health considerations made it impractical for Dunn to continue flying. Frozen Music nevertheless remains a three-member collective.
In recent Miami performances, Matamoros and Barge have worked as 2/3 FM with quadraphonic files generated and spatialized by Dunn using his chaotic oscillators. Matamoros monitors these materials during performance, adjusting their level or fading them as the work moves into different territory. The signals produced live by Barge and the other quadraphonic materials enter Matamoros’s interface, through which he manages the final output while interfering as little as possible with Barge’s independent sound stream.
In the performance chronology, D, R and G identify the participating members. D* indicates Dunn’s participation through remotely supplied materials.
Most Frozen Music works are generated collaboratively without a single author directing their content. Two important exceptions are Canal, whose site-specific installation was conceived and designed by Matamoros, and Sound Paintings, which began with sound and moving-image materials generated by Dunn. In both cases, Frozen Music collectively activated and developed the work through performance.
Frozen Music has also provided a context for presenting independently authored work by one of its members. A Lambent Mirror for Remote Ontographies of Nested Infinities was composed and spatialized by Dunn; Matamoros selected the work, adapted and tuned it to the i360 XR Theater, and presented it as Frozen Music with Dunn participating remotely. These distinctions are identified in the chronology below.
Selected Works
FM: CANAL (2009)
Frozen Music’s inaugural performance took place within a 1,000-foot, eight-channel installation conceived and designed by Gustavo Matamoros for Collins Canal in Miami Beach. The installation established the technical, physical and spatial conditions; Frozen Music supplied thirteen hours of continuously changing live sound.
Read and learn more about Canal in its own page
FM: POND (2012)
LISTEN
FM: Pond (2012) | 10′00″ excerpt from the twenty-four-hour performance | Binaural recording made in situ during the early morning, approximately eight hours before the conclusion | © 2012, Subtropics Editions.
David Dunn and Gustavo Matamoros presented this twenty-four-hour quadraphonic event beside the Duck Pond at the University of New Mexico during the ISEA 2012 Machine Wilderness Conference. Its extended duration placed the collective’s electronic activity within the changing conditions of an active outdoor environment.
FM: SOUNDSPACE (2015)
Created for Subtropics 23 in collaboration with the New World Symphony, SoundSpace distributed 24 independent sound streams through 120 loudspeakers in Miami Beach’s SoundScape Park.
Dunn, Barge and Matamoros each supplied eight channels. Matamoros designed independent spatial trajectories for the 24 sources, which Roberto Toledo, Director of Audio Services for the New World Symphony, programmed into the park’s sound system. The result was an immense, continually changing field in which the collective’s sounds mixed with traffic, vegetation, weather and human activity.
REVIEW
REVIEW AND VIDEO BY COMPOSER FAST FORWARD
Fast Forward described SoundSpace as a dense but remarkably clear field in which environmental and electronic sources became impossible to separate:
“At any given moment, it could sound like an aviary, dinosaurs chomping on digital greenery, or a factory stamping out car parts.”
He observed that traffic, animals, weather and human activity joined the installation, producing an experience governed by change and chance rather than a discernible musical progression.
Watch the video and read Fast Forward’s complete account on Vimeo.
FM: MARCH IN NY (2018)
Frozen Music made its New York debut at Roulette Intermedium in Brooklyn as part of Thomas Buckner’s Interpretations Series. The eight-channel performance brought Dunn, Barge and Matamoros together with the late Chris Mann as an accomplice.
LISTEN
FM: March in NY (2018) | 7′40″ excerpt | Binaural recording by Gustavo Matamoros | © 2018, Subtropics Editions.
Special thanks to Jim Staley and the Roulette staff, and to Thomas Buckner for including Frozen Music in the 2017–18 Interpretations Series.
follow the link to the Roulette website to find a full recording of this performance
FM: SOUND PAINTINGS (2021)
Created for Subtropics 25 at SoundScape Park, Sound Paintings began with sound and moving-image materials generated by David Dunn. Frozen Music developed those materials as a 120-channel audiovisual performative installation, with Dunn participating remotely and Matamoros and Barge performing on site.
The work included a film adaptation by Ricardo Matamoros and extended Frozen Music’s feedback process across sound, moving image and the architecture of the park.
THE SOUND PRACTICE OF FROZEN MUSIC
Frozen Music is less an ensemble than a confluence of strategies for sonically activating space. We simply trust each other to approach this task in our own individual manner and with our own choice of tools. These can vary with every event. Rene and Gustavo tend to use prerecorded audio samples and extracted resonances from each new performance site. They may also amplify small sounds made from an assortment of objects, either brought to the location or borrowed from the site. I often use custom designed analog circuits along with amplified live signals from a variety of transducers placed at the location
We do not interact with each other in the traditional sense of a free improvisation but create a collective fabric that is infinitely variable and to which we all remain attentive. Shifting our actions in response to this dense cloud of sound, we often cannot recognize our individual actions or audio streams within the emergent texture and simply make incremental changes so as to keep the torrent of sound alive
Our preference is to engage within a specific place for extended time periods, several hours if possible. This gives us a sufficient duration to really explore the unique properties of a site; the otherwise hidden sound sources, resonances, and auditory history. Sometimes this has been a purely human dynamic where architecture is interrogated with sound to yield its unconscious potential but at other times the non-human world has chosen to respond with extended dialogues between our electronic world and a variety of insects, birds, and amphibians; all becoming a foreground feature
Always we are less concerned with satisfying the expectations of a human audience than with a pure exploration of the world through sound. Whoever or whatever passes through our web, or stops to listen, is welcome to make use of the sounds in whatever manner may please or excite them
— David Dunn
FROZEN MUSIC PERFORMANCE CHRONOLOGY
- D — David Dunn
- R — Rene Barge
- G — Gustavo Matamoros
- D* — David Dunn participating through remotely supplied spatialized materials
September 28, 2023 | 4–8 PM (G & D*)
FM: SYMBIOSIS
Collaborative ATMOS 11 sound installation by David Dunn and Gustavo Matamoros
i360 XR Theater, Glenn Hubert Library
Color-field projection by Freddy Jouwayed
August 31, 2022 | Noon–6 PM (G & D*)
FM: A Lambent Mirror for Remote Ontographies of Nested Infinities
7.1.4 sound installation composed and spatialized by David Dunn
Adapted to the i360 XR Theater and presented by Gustavo Matamoros
Color-field projection by Freddy Jouwayed
Glenn Hubert Library, Florida International University
September 16, 2021 | 6–10 PM (G, R & D*)
FM: SOUND PAINTINGS
120CH audio-visual performative installation
SoundScape Park, New World Center, Miami Beach
with film adaptation by Ricardo Matamoros
May 20, 2021 | 6–9 PM (G, R & D*)
FM: SUMMER
4CH sound picnic, part of Three Seasons
Collins Park, Miami Beach
April 26, 2021 | 6–9 PM (G, R & D*)
FM: SUPER FULL MOON SOUND EVENT
4CH sound picnic
Deering Estate, Miami
April 17, 2021 | 6–9 PM (G, R & D*)
FM: PARANORMAL
sound installation, part of Homemaking
Deering Estate, Miami
April 15, 2021 | 6–9 PM (G, R & D*)
FM: SPRING II
4CH sound picnic, part of Three Seasons
Collins Park, Miami Beach
March 18, 2021 | 6–9 PM (G, R & D*)
FM: SPRING I
4CH sound picnic, part of Three Seasons
Collins Park, Miami Beach
March 11, 2021 | 5–8 PM (G, R & D*)
FM: EARLY, TIMELY, LATE
4CH sound picnic, part of Vizcaya Late
Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, Miami
January 21, 2021 | 6–9 PM (G, R & D*)
FM: WINTER
4CH sound picnic, part of Four Seasons
Miami Beach Botanical Garden, Miami Beach
September 29–December 16, 2018 | 4–6 PM (D, G & R)
FM: ADAPTATION
12CH adaptation of the 16CH The Honk-Tweet performance
Audiotheque 2.0
924 Lincoln Road, Miami Beach
March 1, 2018 | 6–9 PM (D, G & R)
FM: MARCH IN NY
8CH performance
Interpretations Series
Roulette Intermedium, Brooklyn, New York
February 28, 2018 | 10 AM–9 PM (D, G & R)
FM: RESIDENCY
16CH performance
The Honk-Tweet, New Jersey
February 18, 2015 | 5–9 PM (D, G & R)
FM: SOUNDSPACE
120CH performative installation
Subtropics 23
SoundScape Park, New World Center, Miami Beach
Additional presentations of the recorded performance: February 25, February 27 & March 4, 2015 | 3–5 PM
September 21, 2014 | 1–6 PM (D, G & R)
FM: PICNIC 5
4CH performative installation
Miami Beach Botanical Garden, Miami Beach
August 9, 2014 | 8 PM (G & R)
FM: CHAPEL
4CH performative installation
Wayward Music Series
The Chapel Performance Space
Good Shepherd Center, Seattle, Washington
April 20, 2014 | 1–6 PM (D, G & R)
FM: PICNIC 4
4CH performative installation
Miami Beach Botanical Garden, Miami Beach
March 3, 2013 | 1–6 PM (D, G & R)
FM: PICNIC 3
4CH performative installation
Subtropics 22
Miami Beach Botanical Garden, Miami Beach
September 22–23, 2012 | 4 PM–4 PM | 24 hours (D & G)
FM: Pond
24-hour, four-channel performative installation
ISEA 2012 Machine Wilderness Conference
Duck Pond, University of New Mexico Main Campus, Albuquerque
August 15–September 4, 2012 (D, G & R)
FM: AWNING reprise
16CH sound installation
Listening Gallery, 800 Lincoln Road, Miami Beach
November 5, 2011 | 6 PM–2 AM (D, G & R)
FM: PLAZA
4CH performative installation
special guest: Russell Frehling
Sleepless Night 2011
Civic Plaza, 1701 Meridian Avenue, Miami Beach
September 5–November 30, 2011 (D, G & R)
FM: AWNING
16CH sound installation
Listening Gallery, 800 Lincoln Road, Miami Beach
September 10, 2011 | 6–11 PM (G & R)
FM: WAREYARD
4CH performative installation
ArtWalk
Awarehouse, 550 NW 29th Street, Wynwood
September 4, 2011 | 7–10 PM (G & R)
FM: ALLEY
4CH performative installation
Bridge Red Project Space, 12425 NE 13th Avenue, North Miami
May 15, 2011 | Noon–6 PM (G & R)
FM: PICNIC 2
4CH performative installation
special guest: Kerry Ware
Miami Beach Botanical Garden, Miami Beach
May 13, 2011 | 7–10 PM (G & R)
FM: CORNERS
4CH performative installation
special guest: Kerry Ware
FAT Village Arts District, 519 NW 1st Avenue, Fort Lauderdale
April 15, 2011 | 7–10 PM (D, G & R)
FM: TERRACE
4CH performative installation
special guest: Kerry Ware
Museum of Art, One East Las Olas, Fort Lauderdale
March 13, 2011 | Noon–4 PM (D, G & R)
FM: PARK (PICNIC)
4CH performative installation
Collins Park, 2100 Collins Avenue, Miami Beach
March 12, 2011 | 6–10 PM (D, G & R)
FM: WALK
4CH performative installation
special guest: David Behrman
Subtropics 21
Dorsch Gallery, 151 NW 24th Street, Wynwood
December 2–3, 2010 | 6–10 PM (G & R)
FM: POLYPHONY
8CH performative installation
ArtCenter/South Florida Hallway, 924 Lincoln Road, Miami Beach
September 16, 2010 | 6–9 PM (G & R)
FM: SCAFFOLDING
4CH performative installation
Miami Art Museum, 101 W Flagler Street, Miami
May 23, 2010 | 2–10 PM (D, G & R)
FM: EMERGENCY RADIO BATTERY-CHECK NIGHTTIME EVENT
4CH plus FM-radio transmissions
Miami Beach Botanical Garden, Miami Beach
April 18, 2010 | Noon–6 PM (D, G & R)
FM: KEY
4CH performative installation
Earth Fest 2010
Crandon Park, Key Biscayne, Florida
March 25, 2010 | 7–9:30 PM (D, G & R)
FM: SUBTROPICALIA
4CH performative installation
North Beach Bandshell, Miami Beach
February 13, 2010 | 7–11 PM (G & R)
FM: SWEAT IN C
4CH performative installation
International Noise Conference 2010
Sweat Records, 5505 NE 2nd Avenue, Miami
December 4, 2009 | 7–11 PM (D, G & R)
FM: AUTONOMOUS SOUNDS II
4CH performative installation
Carl Fisher Clubhouse Complex, Washington Avenue, Miami Beach
December 3, 2009 | 7–11 PM (D, G & R)
FM: AUTONOMOUS SOUNDS I
4CH performative installation
Carl Fisher Clubhouse Complex, Washington Avenue, Miami Beach
November 7–8, 2009 | 6 PM–6 AM | 13 hours (D, G & R)
FM: CANAL
8CH site-specific sound installation/performance
Sleepless Night 2009
Collins Canal, Miami Beach
MEMBERS
Composer and sound artist whose work investigates environmental sound, bioacoustics, nonlinear systems and self-organizing electronic processes. Within Frozen Music he contributes chaotic oscillators, transducer-based signals, field recordings and spatialized electronic materials.
Sound artist and musician working with synthesis, signal processing, feedback and noise. Within Frozen Music he generates independent electronic streams whose changing densities and behaviors interact with the site.
Sound artist working with Small Sounds, architectural resonances, environmental recording and spatial audio. Within Frozen Music he develops site-specific structures, prepares and spatializes source materials, and often designs or manages the performance system.
special guests:
Other Coverage
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