TED Community » Susie Ibarra

About Me

Composer/Percussionist Susie Ibarra resides in New York and has performed both as a soloist and collaborator in various configurations. Known for her innovative style and virtuosity Ibarra creates cultural dialogue through her music, interdisciplinary art, teaching and documentary film and field recordings. Ibarra is a Yamaha, Vic Firth and Paiste Artist and recipient of a 2008 Asian Cultural Council Fellowship to research Indigenous Philippine music. She founded with Cuban Composer/Percussionist Roberto Rodriguez SONG OF THE BIRD KING LLC, to preserve with film and music Indigenous culture and ecology. Their title film, Song of the Bird King, tells the stories of land and loss of seven endangered Indigenous Philippine Tribes and the near extinct Philippine Eagle through music and a musician’s journey home.

In 2010 Ibarra will be in residency with Pulitzer Poet Yusef Komunyakaa and Music-Theatre Group in Brooklyn NY to workshop Saturnalia, a chamber performance piece set in Thailand that addresses war and AIDS. She will also be performing a new program of music Mysteries of Nature: Music for Strings and Percussion featuring Susie Ibarra Quartet. Ibarra has recorded and performed with numerous artists and her can be heard on Drum Sketches, EK Dialects, Folkloriko and Mundo Niños. Whether performing a concerto at Carnegie Hall, performing Electric Kulintang, or field recording in Mindanao, Ibarra listens to the musical dialogue. It is a language of traditions and avant-garde. This language has brought her to serve children and Indigneous communities globally.

2010 Lectures and Workshops include: A roundtable with The Tipping Point on Artists and Climate Change at the Arts Presenters Conference; ,Composer portrait of cross–cultural music with Philadelphia Music Project/ Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, Panel discussion on The Cultural Role of the Avant-Garde at Encounter IAM, Mundo Niños childrens workshops with BplusC Leiden, Netherlands.