BIO
Steve Parker transforms salvaged WWII surveillance equipment, discarded brass instruments, and maritime tools into sculptures that make invisible systems audible. His sculptures function as three-dimensional scores, activated by breath and touch. They reveal the hidden infrastructures that shape our collective experience: from military monitoring networks to the ultrasonic territories of urban wildlife.
Parker’s practice has been recognized by the Creative Capital Award, the Rome Prize, the Pollock-Krasner Award, a Fulbright, and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. His work has been presented at the American Academy in Rome, Crystal Bridges Museum, Lincoln Center, MASS MoCA, and SXSW. As a soloist and member of Ensemble Signal, he has premiered over 200 new compositions.
Parker’s investigations have produced an opera for 1.5 million Mexican free-tailed bats, automobile symphonies performed in parking garages, and sonic healing rituals performed by NCAA marching bands. Each project asks: how do we listen and respond to the systems we cannot see?
Parker is Associate Professor at UT San Antonio and Artistic Director of Collide Arts. He holds degrees in Mathematics and Music from Oberlin, Rice University, and the University of Texas at Austin.
cv | compiled press | steven.c.parker(at)gmail.com
Current projects
HOUSTON IS SINKING, 2027 (in progress): supported by Creative Capital and Musiqa, this project uses defunct navigational tools to sonify land loss in Houston—one of the fastest sinking cities in the world. It unfolds as an exhibition of interactive sonic sculptures made from antiquated nautical devices and a foghorn choir performance in Galveston Bay.
Wild Sounds, 2025-2027 (in progress): a curated series of performances, workshops, and installations that amplify the connection between native plants and sound at the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center, one of the largest botanical gardens in the country.
Funeral for a Tree, 2025: transforming fragments of a century-old live oak into playable wooden records, each slice encoded with the songs of migratory birds that roosted in its branches over its lifetime. Medical ventilators and shengs breathe through the tree's remains, creating a sonic and scuptural archive of the oak tree’s life.
Shēng Rebirth, 2025: a project that combines salvaged American marching band instruments with Taiwanese materials and technologies to create hybrid musical instruments, presented through workshops, performances, and an album. Supported by Fulbright, the Asian Cultural Council, and 金車文藝中心 KCCA.
FIGHT SONG, 2022-2026: an installation and performance featuring a National College Athletic Association (NCAA) marching band performing sonic meditations. The project examines themes of healing, injury, and labor in football, drawing from legacies of sonic therapy.
“Steve is recalibrating our most profound relationships. There is something wholly ordinary about the sounds he documents, even—or especially—those separating life from death. If the bird will not stop to sing, so be it. Steve invites us to sit and wait for the next one to come along. ”
“Steve Parker’s musical instruments make no sound. Instead, this trombonist repurposes brass instruments as sculptural listening devices. His inspirations are the early-20th-century military sound locaters — some called war tubas — that were used to detect approaching enemy aircraft before the invention of radar. Parker’s instruments exude a similar gangly menace, with yards of Seussian tubing ending in the flared bells of trombones and sousaphones.”
“Steve Parker exemplifies the way contemporary artists push beyond the boundaries of genres and media towards the pursuit of creativity. His generous approach brings together groups of trained performers and even invites curious members of the public to participate in his scores.”
“The generosity and respect with which Parker forms his connections — sonic, sculptural, conceptual — always includes his audience, and always invites them to create their own.”
“Incredible, jaw-dropping soloist”
“There was only one possible criticism of the trombonist Steven Parker’s wonderful performance of Sequenza V: a sorry lack of clown shoes.”
“Music in a traditional auditorium is well and good, but if we’ve learned one thing from Steve Parker, it’s that all the world’s a concert hall. His boldness and fervor inspire us and carloads of other music lovers to go off-roading with him at every opportunity. Honk if you love Steve Parker!”