Shi-An Costello
Shi-An Costello (aka coshian) is a composer, pianist, sound artist, and a proud Asian American born and raised in Chicago.
Watch Shi-An’s Performance
Shi-An Costello (aka coshian) is a composer, pianist, sound artist, and a proud Asian American born and raised in Chicago. He has released three albums, two classical solo albums (Rounded Binary and Posthumous) and the independent EP, water. Other projects are [alloy] (commissioning and premiering works for prepared piano), Bach Cello Suites, Recomposed (recomposing the complete J.S. Bach Cello Suites for solo piano), and Development (a reimagination of sonata form through works of Franz Joseph Haydn, Domenico Scarlatti, others). He has commissioned and performed the works of living composers from around the world. He was visiting artist in composition at Boston Conservatory, Interlochen Center for the Arts, and in percussion at Schulich School of Music McGill University. He holds a BM from Columbia College and MM from McGill under Sebastian Huydts and Dr. Sara Laimon respectively.
Above photo by Fauve Foto
About the Performance
Shi-An Costello premieres Household Sounds of Chicago (CCT cut), an electro-acoustic music score blending the sounds residents across the city chose to highlight within their households during the spring of 2021. Eleven members from five multigenerational home environments created the building blocks for the music, which is played live on acoustic piano and electronics. In a very real way, Household Sounds of Chicago (CCT cut) is their response to the question of what it is like to live in Chicago in 2021.
It is also a sonic time capsule by Shi-An Costello that unexpectedly creates alternatives to the idea of the companionship music brings listeners. Hearing what the participants offered from their in-home environments opens us to the gamut of feelings we have lived in a year of living socially and physically distanced. Household Sounds of Chicago (CCT cut) suggests a way to bring us closer to one another and ourselves. This includes the dissonance and haphazard still entailed in 2021, with the open-ended laughter and slices of hope. The music’s ineffability transports us out of the routine to rally to stand in unison and confront fears and aspirations collectively.
Household Sounds of Chicago, photo courtesy of the artist