Steve Parker creates sculptural ecosystems that transform public spaces into large-scale civic performances. His work invites viewers to engage with layered sonic objects, salvaged materials, and communal rituals to reshape how we listen to our surroundings.
He is the recipient of the 2025 Creative Capital Award, the Rome Prize, the Pollock-Krasner Award, and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. Currently he is a Fulbright Senior Scholar and Asian Cultural Council Fellow at National Taiwan University and Artist in Residence at 金車文藝中心 KCCA. In Taipei, he is working with Taiwanese musicians, instrument makers, and noise artists to create hybrid sonic sculptures.
Parker’s projects range from an outdoor opera for 1.5 million bats—featuring echolocation devices and conch shells—to a sanctuary of acoustic mirrors and bird feeders playing 12th-century liturgical chants. Other works include monumental ear trumpets inspired by WWII surveillance tools, symphonies for bicycles and pedicabs, and sonic healing rituals performed by NCAA marching bands.
Parker's work has been presented the American Academy in Rome (Italy), Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art (Arkansas), CUE Art Foundation (New York), the Fusebox Festival (Texas), Gwangju Media Art Festival (Korea), the Lincoln Center Festival, Los Angeles Philharmonic inSIGHT, the Lucerne Festival (Switzerland), MASS MoCA (Massachusetts), Rich Mix (London), and SXSW. As a solo trombonist and as an artist of NYC-based "new music dream team" Ensemble Signal, he has premiered 200+ new works.
Parker is Associate Professor of Instruction at the University of Texas at San Antonio and Artistic Director of Collide Arts. He holds degrees in Mathematics and Music from Oberlin College, Rice University, and the University of Texas at Austin.
cv | steven.c.parker(at)gmail.com
Current projects
HOUSTON IS SINKING, 2027 (in research phase): 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.
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.
SOUND CONSTRUCTION, March - September 2025 (in development): 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.
“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!”