DARLENE CASTRO ORTIZ - Associate Technical Director

Darlene Castro Ortiz (b.1993) is a composer and sound artist based in Chicago. Her interest in music began at a young age with the violin, first in a youth mariachi band, then in a classical orchestra setting. Inspired by her bilingual upbringing, her creative interest mostly lies in sonification and creating sonic representations of non-musical objects, often using electronics, noise, and extended techniques. Her music draws most of its inspiration from trying to auralize processes or extra-musical objects in order to arrive at vivid, self-contained musical translations. These musical translations can sometimes be literal, other times more veiled and often use visual art, poetry, linguistics, and scientific processes as starting points. Recently, her creative research lies in sensors, digital music instrument design, and experimental and interactive score layouts.

Her music has been performed and commissioned by ensembles such as Spektral Quartet, the Runnin' Fl'UTES', Salty Cricket Composers Collective, PANTS (Wind Quintet), Nightingale Ensemble, the Salt Lake City Public Library's SHH! A Very Quiet Music Series, Plena Libre, the Metropolis Ensemble, The Chicago Civic Orchestra, ~Nois Saxophone Quartet, and Fonema Consort among others.

She completed her Bachelors in music composition at the University of Utah and is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Chicago.