Marina Rosenfeld

Having pursued formal piano studies at Harvard and the California Institute of Art, Marina Rosenfeld later explored turntables as a vehicle for merging composed structures with spontaneous performance. She captured filtered sonic fragments—including bells and sirens—onto acetate discs, and from 1997 onward she has presented live realizations of her “fragment opera,” occasionally incorporating video and electronic elements. Onstage she completes each work’s final mix through real-time improvisation. Her debut release, theforestthegardenthesea, appeared in 1999 and documented two such concerts, one given solo and the other in an ensemble context. Drawn to all-female lineups, she has directed the seventeen-piece Sheer Frost Orchestra since 1993; the rotating membership performs on electric guitars activated by nail-polish bottles while additional participants reshape the sound via laptop processing.