Sarah Peebles

Who is Sarah Peebles?

Sarah Peebles is an American-Canadian composer, improviser, and installation artist. She is one of the few non-Japanese performers of the shō, a traditional mouth organ used in gagaku, Japan's imperial court music. Originally from Minnesota in the United States, she lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Peebles integrates sound she gathers from natural habitats and cityscapes from various regions of the world into her works, often exploring non-traditional performance and installation settings. Her practice focuses on sound manipulated via laptop, projected via loudspeakers and via physical objects, often in conjunction with sampled or live shō. Her ongoing collaborations include "Smash and Teeny" with guitarist Nilan Perera and new media work with Robert Cruickshank, among others. Her music has been performed and broadcast widely and is available on CD.