6/10/11: NPR's radio show "All Things Considered" features a story on the Peter Sellars/Dawn Upshaw/Gil Kalish red fish blue fish first staged performance of George Crumb's "Winds of Destiny" (American Songbook IV) at the Ojai Festival/Cal Performances in Berkeley. Listen here!

10/15/10: Mode Records will release my realization of Cage's 51'15.657" for a speaking percussionist on their Cage complete percussion works series. (The series is headed up by Percussion Group Cincinnati and will also feature red fish blue fish and Third Coast Percussion.) We'll record audio and video in may of 2011, and hope to launch the project by 2012 for the Cage centennial. Mode Records was recently named label of the year by New Yorker music critic Alex Ross. Click here to read more.

7/5/10: I'm thrilled to announce that in September I'll join my mentor Allen Otte (of  Percussion Group Cincinnati) on a tour of  New Zealand. We'll travel to Wellington, Christ Church, and Hamilton performing a program we're calling Speaking of and After Cage which is mainly music for vocalizing percussionists by John Cage, with Frederic Rzewski and new Zealanders Annea Lockwood and Gao Ping. For more details, look here.

6/21/10: In May, red fish blue fish gave the premiere of  Michael Pisaro's 45-minute long work Hearing Metal III  for 16 suspended cymbals. We performed on the Fresh Sounds series at the Sushi Center for Urban Arts in downtown San Diego.    The Wire, a British music magazine, did a story on Pisaro and this new work. Read the article and listen to an excerpt from our performance here.

5/30/10: I'm excited to announce that I'll be spending July 12th-August 17th in Italy! I'll play in the orchestra at CCM's Spoleto festival, and join my husband Ben who directs the festival's Solisti program.  

5/23/10: For the last 14 months I've been working on a solo simultaneous realization of all of John Cage's 45' for a speaker and his27'10.554" for a percussionist. These are vintage pieces: music from the mid-50's and part of a whole series of timed works that Cage referred to in notes and letters as "the ten-thousand things." He encouraged the combination of these pieces but, as far as I know, this is the first time that one person has done the entirety of both the percussion and speaking piece simultaneously.

11/4/09: An excerpt from my recent Cage project, 51'15.657" for a Speaking Percussionist, is up on UCSD's YouTube channel. To see 8'45.298" of this work in progress, look here. As this is a live recording, I suggest listening with headphones.

9/7/09: The New Yorker online just released a new video of our performance of John Luther Adams' new outdoor percussion piece Inuksuit at the Banff Center last June. Check it out here.

7/30/09:  Visit my new YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/bonniewhitingsmith 

3/25/2009: I'm very excited to announce that I'll be performing at the Lucerne Festival Academy this summer in Switzerland. The academy, under the artistic direction of Pierre Boulez, brings together 130 musicians from all around the world to study and present new works and modern masterpieces. This year's festival highlights music that integrates live electronics, and features composers Saariaho, Boulez, Murail, Widmann and others. I'll be in Lucerne from roughly August 22nd-September 10th. 

3/1/2009: After  several years off, I've finally completed my Master's at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.  I spent three lovely months preparing for a recital, playing chamber music, enjoying Midwerstern snow,  listening to the Percussion Group Cincinnati, and studying with Allen Otte. 

 3/3/2009: This June, I'll participate in the Roots and Rhizomes Summer Percussion Residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Alberta, Canada.  The program, lead by percussionist Steven Schick, will include the performance and study of important works in contemporary percussion literature as well as world premiers of music by John Luther Adams and Mark Applebaum. More information here.

11/27/2008: I just returned from a mini-tour of California. Highlights included a performance at the Chapman University Percussion Symposium in Orange, a day teaching at the Oakwood School in North Hollywood, and a lovely visit at UCSD.

9/30/2008: I'm playing a little bit of percussion with the Seattle Symphony this week. I place my tambourine inside a piano and wail on the lowest strings for about ten seconds during Stephen Albert's Anthems and Processions.  It's my first time playing with the orchestra, so I'm pretty excited. More info here.

9/5/2008: I gave gave a workshop for Seattle Symphony's Soundbridge  teaching artists. The theme of the morning was Integrating Music, Movement, and Story.  For more on my workshop offerings for performers, students, and educators, look here.

9/2/2008:  I joined the faculty at the Seattle Conservatory of  Music. This year, I'm teaching Music Theory and Ear Training and I've developed my own course: Active Listening: Writing, Evaluation, and Discussion for Musicians.