Corey Smith

At the Saari Residence, my work will center on the hammered dulcimer—an American folk instrument whose characteristic long sustain and sympathetic resonance offer exciting musical metaphors. I approach the dulcimer as an instrument and as a resonant body, using its vibration as a starting point to think about orientation, identity, and relational listening. My practice combines musical performance, lecture, field recording, and simple amplification technologies such as transducers, which allow sound to travel into objects and architecture. Through these methods, I investigate resonance as both a physical phenomenon and a metaphor for queer embodiment: how bodies are shaped by what they come into contact with, and how vibration leaves traces over time.

I want to approach the Saari Residence as a space for sustained listening and refinement. I hope to refine and deepen the material of an ongoing performance project, Essay on Resonance. I’m looking to test new sonic relationships between instrument, voice, electronics, and surrounding materials, and to develop a quieter, more attentive mode of working—one that values duration, repetition, and a focus on place.

Corey Smith is a composer, writer, and performer from Chicago, Illinois. Their work explores critical regionalism, sensuality in performance, and queer sonic ecologies. Sometimes, their performance and sound work appears in more traditional venues—Steppenwolf Theater, Hyde Park Art Center, the Mattress Factory. Other times, in more unexpected places: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Emil Bach House, a prairie at dawn, or international festivals like Rotterdam Film Festival and Bath Fringe. They’ve held residencies at High Concept Labs, Light Box Detroit, the Iowa Lakeside Lab, the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, Grin City, and the University of Illinois Springfield. Their work has been featured by Hyperallergic, Architectural Digest, and the Chicago Reader. Smith is a proud Midwesterner, collaborator, and friend. They teach at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.