bio
Michelle Yom is a flutist and composer known for her innovative technique, unique vocabulary, and penchant for improvising.  She is dedicated to expanding the range of musical expression through extended technique, improvisation, and electro-acoustic sound environment.  She received an M.A. in music from New York University in 2006 and has been creating experimental music since.

In 2009, Doggebi, a drum/flute improv duo collaboration with SPIKE the Percussionist led to the release of Penetralia of the Moment (Noiz Temple Records), a full length album that depicts sections of Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow.  In 2010, a residency with Labotanica led to Back To Imagined Spaces, an installation that explores the relationship between spirituality and human physiological perception.  What Is Now, an audience participatory video installation that explores the malleable nature of human time perception, was exhibited at The Foundry in 2010 Art Crawl. 

As a collaborative performer, Yom has performed in sound series They Who Sound, Resonant Interval, and Nameless Sound, as well as with CoRE Suspension Troop, Texas Dance Improvisation Festival 2010, and Parallel Universe Art Exhibition 2011.  She has also performed in Korea, France, Italy, and has extensively toured Australia and New Zealand.

artist statement
Improvising forces me to work only with the materials in front of me- a pitch, a tambre, a key click, or the acoustics of a room.  This allows my imagination to run wild.  Paradoxically, it also means imposing my own rules in order to make it coherent. I prepare the ingredients, and attempt to cook something delicious without a recipe.

Ultimately, it means trusting the process.  It means that in the moment before the first note, I attempt to forget everything I think I know about music and then just listen.  Oddly enough, the closer I get to pure listening, the more interesting and meaningful the sounds become.  The music unfolds itself effortlessly, like a dream you wake up to wondering how you conjured something epic, a story that seemed outside of you.