Sound Travels Festival of Sound Art
New Adventures in Sound Art (NAISA) launches the 28th edition of the Sound Travels Festival of Sound Art with summer-long events that opneinteractive exhibitions as well as the four day Sound Travels Intensive coinciding with World Listening Day on July 18. The festival opens on June 6 at 7 pm EDT with a Pride Concert. Featured is a performance by Kat Estacio as well as The Elemental Trilogy by Barry Truax, who recently was awarded the Order of Canada. The concert will be in-person and livestreamed with a Q&A component.
Sound Travels Pride Concert
In-Person and Online Performance presented in association with Almagiun Pride
By Barry Truax and Kat Estacio
June 6, 2026 at 6 pm Doors open at 5 pm for Café Service and a special video screening
In-Person at NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 313 Highway 124, South River, Ontario, Canada.
Online audiences register in advance for access.
Tickets $15
In-Person and Online Performance presented in association with Almagiun Pride
By Barry Truax and Kat Estacio
June 6, 2026 at 6 pm Doors open at 5 pm for Café Service and a special video screening
In-Person at NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 313 Highway 124, South River, Ontario, Canada.
Online audiences register in advance for access.
Tickets $15
The Sound Travels Festival of Sound Art opens with a Pride Concert celebrating two LGBQT2S artists from different generations. Featured is a performance by Kat Estacio as well as a multi-channel screening of The Elemental Trilogy of works by Barry Truax, who recently was awarded the Order of Canada. The concert will be in-person and livestreamed with a Q&A component.
Androgyne, Mon Amour by Barry Truax will be screened in the workshop studio prior to the concert from 5 to 6 pm and played online after the concert.
Androgyne, Mon Amour by Barry Truax will be screened in the workshop studio prior to the concert from 5 to 6 pm and played online after the concert.
Program:
I. What the Waters Told Me by Barry Truax
If we listen carefully to flowing water in all of its varied forms, we may begin to hear voices and ascribe human emotions to them. The voices may be argumentative, even angry, as at the start of our journey, but suddenly they become hushed as we enter a large cavern. A mysterious voice seems to give us commands as we await the next stage, while ethereal voices guide us along. The commands become more insistent until the waters burst forth with transcendent song in a celebration of water and life.
If we listen carefully to flowing water in all of its varied forms, we may begin to hear voices and ascribe human emotions to them. The voices may be argumentative, even angry, as at the start of our journey, but suddenly they become hushed as we enter a large cavern. A mysterious voice seems to give us commands as we await the next stage, while ethereal voices guide us along. The commands become more insistent until the waters burst forth with transcendent song in a celebration of water and life.
II. How the Winds Caressed Me by Barry Truax
The wind is a restless and devious presence in our lives, revealing itself as an invisible, tactile experience, and aurally only in what it is interacting with. It can pretend to speak to us with a voice when it passes through a narrow opening, or it can even resemble a musician when it activates a string — the Aeolian effect — or resonates a tube with its breath. And its moods can range from being a relentless, stormy foe, to the most gentle of caresses. This piece propels us through its repertoire, eventually enveloping us in an ocean of transcendence.
The wind is a restless and devious presence in our lives, revealing itself as an invisible, tactile experience, and aurally only in what it is interacting with. It can pretend to speak to us with a voice when it passes through a narrow opening, or it can even resemble a musician when it activates a string — the Aeolian effect — or resonates a tube with its breath. And its moods can range from being a relentless, stormy foe, to the most gentle of caresses. This piece propels us through its repertoire, eventually enveloping us in an ocean of transcendence.
III. When the Earth Mourned for Me by Barry Truax
With each passing day, we see evidence of our deteriorating environment and that evokes in us a personal and collective grief. We mourn for the earth, but if we listen to its cries, does it also mourn for us, the instigators of its demise? This piece invites us to listen to the voices of the earth that may emerge even from what we have extracted from it. The journey proceeds in four overlapping sections: Choir, Lament, Anguish, and Threnody.
With each passing day, we see evidence of our deteriorating environment and that evokes in us a personal and collective grief. We mourn for the earth, but if we listen to its cries, does it also mourn for us, the instigators of its demise? This piece invites us to listen to the voices of the earth that may emerge even from what we have extracted from it. The journey proceeds in four overlapping sections: Choir, Lament, Anguish, and Threnody.
IV. Kulintang and Electronics Performance by Kat Estacio
Emerging from the tidal estuaries of Pasig River with taga-ilog/Tagalog ancestry, soundmaker and researcher kat estacio has since flowed towards the Great Lakes and is now based in Tsí Tkaròn:to (Toronto). Anchoring kulintang, an Indigenous gong ensemble music tradition from Mindanao (Southern Philippines), as a site of divergence and retrieval, estacio is bridging archipelago narratives of percussive sound making and land-based tending from a diasporic perspective.
Emerging from the tidal estuaries of Pasig River with taga-ilog/Tagalog ancestry, soundmaker and researcher kat estacio has since flowed towards the Great Lakes and is now based in Tsí Tkaròn:to (Toronto). Anchoring kulintang, an Indigenous gong ensemble music tradition from Mindanao (Southern Philippines), as a site of divergence and retrieval, estacio is bridging archipelago narratives of percussive sound making and land-based tending from a diasporic perspective.
Barry Truax is a Professor Emeritus in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University and a recipient of the Order of Canada. He worked with the World Soundscape Project, editing its Handbook for Acoustic Ecology, and has published a book Acoustic Communication, that deals with sound and technology. Truax’s multi-channel soundscape compositions are frequently featured in concerts and festivals around the world.
Waterscape
By Lina Choi
June 11 to September 14, 2026. Open 10 am to 4 pm Thursday to Monday
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 313 Highway 124, South River, Ontario.
Admission by Donation
Waterscape is a sound sculpture by Lina Choi that produces water-like sounds through small motor-driven devices. Each element creates subtle drops and flows, forming an evolving, immersive sound environment.
Inspired by the movement of water, the work reinterprets these rhythms through mechanical systems, blurring the line between natural and artificial. The surrounding sounds invite listeners to slow down and experience a shifting sonic landscape.
By Lina Choi
June 11 to September 14, 2026. Open 10 am to 4 pm Thursday to Monday
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 313 Highway 124, South River, Ontario.
Admission by Donation
Waterscape is a sound sculpture by Lina Choi that produces water-like sounds through small motor-driven devices. Each element creates subtle drops and flows, forming an evolving, immersive sound environment.
Inspired by the movement of water, the work reinterprets these rhythms through mechanical systems, blurring the line between natural and artificial. The surrounding sounds invite listeners to slow down and experience a shifting sonic landscape.
Lina Choi is a Montreal-based artist working with sound, installation, and performance. Her practice explores the relationship between water, sound, and the body through immersive and meditative environments. Drawing from field recordings and experimental sound processes, she creates works that evoke fluidity, memory, and sensory experience.
Voice of the Water
Interactive Installation
By Eric Powell
Ongoing, Thursday to Monday, 10 am to 4 pm
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 313 Highway 124, South River, Ontario.
Admission by Donation
Voice of the Water is an interactive rotary telephone-based listening station. Using sounds collected from inside the lakes and rivers around South River, Voice of the Water encourages listeners to connect with the local waterways as they explore the boundaries and overlaps between planes of existence. The Artist's goal is to create a venue for contemplation, catharsis, and a deeper engagement with the surrounding environment
Interactive Installation
By Eric Powell
Ongoing, Thursday to Monday, 10 am to 4 pm
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 313 Highway 124, South River, Ontario.
Admission by Donation
Voice of the Water is an interactive rotary telephone-based listening station. Using sounds collected from inside the lakes and rivers around South River, Voice of the Water encourages listeners to connect with the local waterways as they explore the boundaries and overlaps between planes of existence. The Artist's goal is to create a venue for contemplation, catharsis, and a deeper engagement with the surrounding environment
Sound Travels Workshop Intensive
July 16 to 20, 2026
Warbler’s Roost, 3785D Eagle Lake Road, South River, Ontario
$678 with 4 nights accommodation and $495 with no accommodation.
July 16 to 20, 2026
Warbler’s Roost, 3785D Eagle Lake Road, South River, Ontario
$678 with 4 nights accommodation and $495 with no accommodation.
Advance Registration Required
A 4-day Intensive for artists to create sound art works that includes the soundscape of an outdoor forested or lakeside location and respond in-kind. Participants’ work will be facilitated by NAISA Artistic Director Darren Copeland.
There will be additional presentations by North Bay naturalist, forester, and birder Fred Pinto and Sundridge multi-disciplinary artist Christine Charette. Pinto will speak about how geologic history shapes the vegetation of the workshop site. Charette will draw on two works she has made at Warbler's Roost to illustrate how she draws from her multi-diciplinary skills to create sited outdoor artworks.
Equipment for audio playback will be provided by NAISA. The Weathered Piano site at Warbler’s Roost can also be accessed for staging performances and installations.
A 4-day Intensive for artists to create sound art works that includes the soundscape of an outdoor forested or lakeside location and respond in-kind. Participants’ work will be facilitated by NAISA Artistic Director Darren Copeland.
There will be additional presentations by North Bay naturalist, forester, and birder Fred Pinto and Sundridge multi-disciplinary artist Christine Charette. Pinto will speak about how geologic history shapes the vegetation of the workshop site. Charette will draw on two works she has made at Warbler's Roost to illustrate how she draws from her multi-diciplinary skills to create sited outdoor artworks.
Equipment for audio playback will be provided by NAISA. The Weathered Piano site at Warbler’s Roost can also be accessed for staging performances and installations.