On April 11 on the way to the Able Assembly at Berklee College of music, we stopped in to catch up with Co-Founder and Principal Ryan Edwards and Technical Manager Odie Desmith to find out what they were working on since winning the MIDI Innovation Awards with their entry Sound Sculpture.
MASARY Studios was founded 10 years and is an artist collective based in Boston with the initial team coming together for a light festival project in Boston called the Luminous Festival.
For the past 10 years, MASARY has developed touring repertoire, architecturally-integrated artworks, and numerous ephemeral performances and productions both regionally and throughout North America. They co-produce an annual new-media event called WaveForms in Boston which is an invitation for artists to share work, connect with audiences and build community.
The studio’s practice includes live percussion performance, electronic music and production, facade projection-mapped video, artistic research, technology and materials fabrication, and the expansive use of animation.
Waking the monster
The studio’s first project involved mapping the Green Monster at Fenway Park as a percussion instrument for a festival, which was a significant success and led to the formalization of the studio.
“Waking the Monster,” transformed Boston’s most iconic structure – Fenway Park’s Green Monster – into a three story percussion instrument. Nine percussionists mounted the structure to perform six compositions commissioned specifically for the Monster as an instrument. Four musical acts, a violinist/singer, trombone ensemble, and DJ/drummer duo supplemented the program with pieces throughout the event. Eight triggers were placed on the structure, which interacted with the animation at specific moments in the compositions. The theme, color scheme, and movement of the animation varied from piece to piece, working hand-in-hand with the music. The performance drew over 30,000 visitors to the festival on Lansdowne Street.
Masary Studios
Sound Sculpture- MIDI Innovation Awards 2023 Winner
Sound Sculpture is a large-scale interactive music sequencer designed for installation at venues such as museums, schools, community centres and public art festivals. Comprising 25 cubes kitted out with positioning tags, batteries, processors, a WiFi antenna and an LED array, the installation allows participants to generate musical patterns by physically moving and rearranging the blocks.
A software application continually scans the locations of the blocks, and uses their physical placement to generate a musical composition, typically with the x-axis representing rhythm and the y-axis representing pitch.
Masary entered both the SXSW Innovation Awards and The MIDI Innovation Awards in 2023.
Ryan Edwards
Founder, Masary StudiosNext Steps for Masary Studios
Masary Studios is working on defining their next big project.
They are thinking about a journey in three acts.
Act 1- Educating the audience about sound itself
Act 2 -Sound organized as music
Act 3 -The final act where the audience can actively engage in the music making process itself.
Where will this end up?
We believe in our ability to open a world to music, inviting the most seasoned musicians as well as those truly novice, into a shared space of illumination, enrichment, and playful creativity. Creating journeys for the public designed to access and deepen oneʼs sense of musical creativity is our passion.