This instrument is composed of two tubular flutes that can be played independently or together, allowing for the creation of multiphonic melodies, harmonic beating, and complex sonic textures.

Polyphonic flutes are tubular duct flutes in which a single instrument is formed from two, three, or even four distinct flutes. These flutes often have separate air channels, enabling the player to activate each voice individually or in combination. Instruments of this kind have a rich cultural lineage and were common in Mesoamerica, made by cultures including the Colima, Aztec, and Maya. My original work engages this history not through replication, but through sustained material research and contemporary interpretation.

Although polyphonic flutes are technically demanding to build, requiring precise control of airflow, tuning relationships, and clay behavior, I am continually drawn to them for both their challenge and expressive potential. As a musician, composer, and performer, I am deeply interested in their capacity to hold harmony and dissonance simultaneously, to produce beating frequencies that are felt as much as heard, and to invite a listening experience that is immersive and embodied. Through intuitive tuning and sculptural form, each instrument becomes a singular exploration of sound, symbol, and breath; at once a functional musical tool and a ceramic object shaped by my ongoing investigation into ancient technologies, living materials, and contemporary experience.

Double flute installed in a discovery drawer of the Wall of Wonder

The Wall of Wonder features digital displays of artworks and artists, discovery drawers with samples of artists’ materials and artworks to touch, and other interactive elements.
 

My double flute with snake motif sits in a discovery drawer with the theme “Play with Clay” and can be experienced through sight, touch and sound; there’s a button to push that triggers an audio of a short composition I created with the instrument.
 

Short composition I recorded, edited and produced with this instrument in Ableton Live.  The recording accompanies the instrument in a "Discovery Drawer" and can be triggered with a button to activate the audio.

I did recordings with the flute in Ableton Live and then arranged and edited the audio to create a short composition of about 2 minutes.

This music mask produces sound with internal bells and two small flutes that have two finger holes each.  The flutes can be played separately or together to produce melodies and beat frequencies.

Photo by Julieta Bilbao of Nómada Cerámica.

Clay is the foundational material of this exhibition—both a physical substance and a carrier of deep time. Human relationships with clay stretch back thousands of years. Across cultures, people have developed sophisticated techniques for shaping, firing, and sounding this material, creating objects that are at once functional, symbolic, and expressive. In this exhibition, clay is approached not only as raw matter, but as a collaborator—one that invites careful study, sustained practice, and attentive listening.

This material inquiry is made visible through an installation of wild clay samples gathered from Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, and Argentina. Each sample reflects a specific landscape and geological history, carrying distinct color, texture, mineral content, and sonic potential. By presenting these clays alongside finished works, the installation foregrounds the research and testing that underpin my practice, tracing a continuum from earth to instrument. Together, the samples and artworks reveal clay as a living archive of place and time, and as the foundation for an ongoing exploration of sound, craft, and contemporary experience.

Earthenware, oxides, pigments, beeswax

10 x 3.5 x 4.5 in

2024

Owl-shaped flute with four finger holes.

 

As part of my solo exhibition, I led two live instrument demonstrations that activated the gallery through sound, breath, and collective presence. Staged in front of projected video of natural landscapes from Maryland and Argentina, the demonstrations wove together place, memory, and sound, inviting visitors to engage the exhibition through listening, feeling, and embodied attention. The sounds of polyphonic flutes, whistling bottles, trumpets, whistles, and rattles resonated against moving images of mountains, rivers, and trees, emphasizing the relationship between material, sound, and place. Each session concluded with an interactive component in which visitors were invited to play clay flutes I had made, transforming the exhibition into a living, communal space and foregrounding multisensory engagement, material memory, and the joy of making music together.

From Mud to Music: Creating in Community

Photo Installation

2025

My teachers in Argentina instilled in me the importance of passing on instrument-making traditions through direct experience, mentorship, and embodied knowledge, and I began teaching early in my studies there. After twelve years living and working in Argentina - focused on material research, technical refinement, and performance-based exploration - I returned to the United States in 2021.

Working with people of all ages continues to deepen my understanding of our shared relationship with clay and sound, the power of music to create collective emotion, and the vitality that emerges through communal making. Teaching is an extension of my studio practice and ongoing artistic inquiry, rooted in listening, responsiveness, and community engagement. The photographs in this installation document teaching artist residencies in Maryland schools and instrument-making workshops at the Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts, Baltimore Clayworks, and Creative Alliance. All photographs of minors are used with permission.

The Confluences video installation and listening chamber create a shared yet individualized space that invites visitors to slow down and enter sustained attention. The stillness of the camera frame juxtaposes static, silent recordings of landscapes in Maryland and Argentina with the gentle movement generated by light, wind, and water in the recordings, inviting viewers into their own stillness and allowing their nervous systems to be soothed by the rhythms of the natural world.

Seated before the projections, visitors choose how they listen by donning wireless headsets with three audio channels, each featuring an original composition made with hand-built ceramic instruments, electronics, and field recordings. This layered structure reflects a compositional approach grounded in material knowledge and intentional listening, allowing each participant to shape a personal experience within a collective, multisensory environment.

Milkweed Double Ocarina / Earthenware, oxides, pigments, beeswax / 5.25 x 2 x 7.5 in / 2024

Shell Bells / Earthenware, oxides, pigments, beeswax / Various / 2023

Lily Flute / Earthenware, oxides, pigments, beeswax / 10.25 x 4 x 4 in / 2023

As part of the public programming for Kith & Kin: A Rewilding of Sound and Form, I curated and organized a live performance at the Creative Alliance Theater that brought together local musicians for a collaborative exploration of sound, improvisation, and listening.

Titled Confluences, the performance featured Michele Blu, Rachel Beetz, Bonnie Lander, and myself, working across voice, singing bowls, flutes, electronics, and handmade sculptural instruments. For my set, I performed on a hand-built ceramic double flute with live electronics, extending my investigation into polyphony, material resonance, and the relationship between ancient instrument technologies and contemporary sound practices, while activating the exhibition’s themes through shared, responsive music-making.

This video was presented as a silent projection within the Confluences Video Installation and Listening Chamber.  Here, it is paired with the exhibition’s ambient score, which played on loop during the show to extend the presence of the natural world into the gallery. Composed of recordings of landscapes in Maryland and Argentina, the video’s stillness and duration reflect a sustained practice of attentive observation, allowing subtle movement of light, weather, and water to shape the viewer’s experience over time.

The exhibition incorporated didactic materials, including photographic images of the more-than-human beings that inspired the instruments on view. These materials were intentionally developed to offer multiple points of entry into the work, reflecting a research-driven approach that values accessibility, layered meaning, and diverse ways of engaging. By pairing images with sculptural and sonic works, the exhibition extended its inquiry beyond the objects themselves, inviting visitors to encounter the instruments through ecological, symbolic, and experiential perspectives.

Recording of a short composition with Timber Rattler Triple Flute

This flute-making workshop is part of a bilingual class and workshop series I have offered at Creative Alliance since 2023, . With continued support from Arts in Education grants from the Maryland State Arts Council, 2026 will mark the fourth consecutive year of Mud to Music programming at this cultural center, a vital arts and cultural hub serving a neighborhood with a strong Latin American community presence.

Developed in close collaboration with Creative Alliance and its affiliated programs, including Creative Immigrant Educators of Latin American Origin (CIELO), the Latinx collective Artesanas, and the Creativity Center, this series is designed for English- and Spanish-speaking youth and adults. Grounded in rigorous material knowledge and hands-on learning, the program affirms the arts as essential to individual and collective well-being, fostering creativity, cultural continuity, and meaningful connection across generations and communities.

(Image used with permission)

In 2025 I led a 6 session rattle-making residency with three groups of students at City Neighbors Charter School.  Students learned through a scaffolded, step-by-step program to build and decorate their own rattles using clay, tools, and simple hand building techniques.

(Image used with permission)

Halconcito Pichón (Little Hawk) and the Magic Quest is a musical, mythical story I created for Pre-K through 5th grade performances.  Each character in the story is a different instrument, many of which I have made myself, and the performance is designed to expand children's understanding of what musical instruments have been and can be, and exercise their social and emotional skills through storytelling.

Synopsis:

Our story takes us to the faraway lands of Halconcito Pichón or Little Hawk, who is a bird that can’t yet fly because she doesn’t know her song.  For her wings to take flight, she must go off on a magic quest to find it!  She’ll need to call on assistance from different helpers to find her way and it won’t be easy, but Halconcito Pichón is determined to take to the skies.

In this musical journey, we'll experience a diverse collection of musical instruments made across the Americas for thousands of years while we participate in a mythical story of challenge and persistence that ultimately leads to triumph and celebration.  Instruments to be shared will include working recreations of Pre-Columbian ceramic instruments like whistling bottles, noise generators and multiple flutes, as well as folk instruments that continue to shape Latin American music to this day like the Charango and Caja.  

In November 2022, I led a free flute-making workshop at the Baltimore Museum of Art as part of the museum’s BMA Maker Series, offering participants direct access to instrument-making as both a technical practice and a form of cultural inquiry. Drawing on years of specialized study and material expertise, the workshop emphasized hands-on learning as a pathway to understanding sound, form, and meaning.

The session began with a guided exploration of instruments in the museum’s Indigenous Arts of the Ancient Americas collection, where we discussed the sophisticated ways Pre-Columbian cultures integrated sound, music, iconography, and sculpture to express complex worldviews. Participants then built their own clay flutes through a step-by-step process using ancient pottery-making techniques, experiencing firsthand how craft knowledge is transmitted through doing. By engaging ancestral technologies in a contemporary setting, the workshop highlighted the continued relevance of this knowledge and affirmed the arts as a vital force for learning, reflection, and community connection. This workshop was supported by the Maryland State Arts Council.

(Image used with permission)

At this school, the emergent curriculum is shaped by the environmental phenomena that capture students’ curiosity each day. Introducing a structured, multi-week arts program within this context presented a valuable pedagogical challenge, requiring careful adaptation to a learning environment grounded in exploration and free play.

I refined both the sequencing of activities and the selection of tools, drawing on creative teaching strategies to frame each session in ways that sustained student engagement amid the many stimuli of the outdoor classroom. This process strengthened the program by balancing structure with flexibility, and demonstrated how thoughtfully designed arts experiences can integrate seamlessly into emergent, place-based learning while supporting sustained focus, curiosity, and creative growth.

(Video used with permission)

A student plays the clay flute she's been building and tuning.

From AY24-25 I served as the MD Traditions Artist-in-Residence at UMBC. As part of the residency, over the course of 3 Fall sessions I shared instrument-making practices with UMBC undergraduate Linehan Artist Scholars (LAS) where I introduced them to historic ceramic instruments of Central and South America, like whistling bottles, polyphonic flutes, rattles and ocarinas, and then led them through a step-by-step process to build and tune their own unique flutes with clay.

On December 6th, 2024, we collaborated on a public presentation at UMBC where scholars received their flutes back from firing, and proceeded to explore their sounds before working to develop a graphic score that they then performed publicly as a group.  During the Spring semester, I worked with the LAS over the course of 3 sessions to develop a “Teacher Box”, which consists of teaching materials that enable art teachers in public schools to introduce their students to the practice, history, and cultural significance of instrument making.

In this photo we see Linehan Artist Scholars in group improvisation with a set of clay flutes that I made.

© Maryland State Arts Council 2025, MSAC.org

In 2021 I gave a flute-making intensive workshop over the course of two days at Washington Street Studios in Harpers Ferry.  Participants were introduced to different Pre-Columbian instruments, and learned to build a simple ocarina and a sculptural ocarina.

(Image used with permission)

In 2024 I led an 8 session rattle-making residency with 9 groups of students at William Wirt Middle School.  Students learned through a scaffolded, step-by-step program to build and decorate their own rattles using clay, tools, and simple hand building techniques.  

(Video used with permission)

In 2025 I led a 6 session rattle-making residency with four groups of students in the Spanish language immersion program at Kettering Middle School.  The program was taught entirely in Spanish and students learned through a scaffolded, step-by-step program to build and decorate their own rattles using clay, tools, and simple hand building techniques, while they also practiced their Spanish language skills and built new vocabulary.

Here we see students celebrate as they explore the sounds of their recently fired rattles.  

2023

12 x 3 3/4 x 1 in

Earthenware, oxides, pigments

Original instrument composed of two tubular flutes; one with pentatonic tuning and the other which acts as a drone producing a single note when played.  The flutes have separate air channels which allow them to be playing individually or together.

Polyphonic flutes are tubular duct flutes where one instrument can be made up of two, three, or even four different flutes.  Oftentimes the flutes have separate air channels so that they can be played individually or in different combinations.  These types of flutes were common to Mesoamerica, made by cultures like the Colima, Aztec, and Maya.

2021

7 1/2 x 2 1/2 x 2 in

Earthenware, oxides

I was instructed in the creation of this ancient flute by one of my teachers, Estéban Valdivia, who received presidential permission to study instruments in the archives of all of Ecuador's museums.  Being able to analyze broken historic artifacts, as well as completing x-ray scans of intact instruments, allowed Valdivia to study the inner workings of this complex flute in detail to understand the construction of the two internal whistles hidden within the abdomen of the flute.

Because of the particular construction of the acoustic system, this flute has a very particular, airy timbre.

Read about the Jama-Coaque culture

Read about Estéban Valdivia

2023

10 ½ x 4 x 8 in

Earthenware, oxides, pigments, beeswax

Horn inspired by Great Blue Heron. This sculptural instrument can be played in different ways to produce sounds ranging from percussive to bird-like calls to deep vibrating drones. 

The shape, design, and coloring of the instrument is inspired by the morphology of Great Blue Heron, who has been an important bird throughout my life story.

The trumpet was one of the most significant musical instruments in the pre-Columbian Andean World, in terms of denotation of power. These “natural” trumpets or horns were made of clay or conch shell and produced a single pitch.  However, a skilled trumpeter could produce different tones through varying lip vibration and air pressure.  

2023

10.5 x 4 x 8 in

Earthenware, oxides, pigments, beeswax

Horn inspired by Great Blue Heron. This sculptural instrument can be played in different ways to produce sounds ranging from percussive to bird-like calls to deep vibrating drones. 

Whistling bottles are complex instruments that were produced by different cultures from about 1500 BCE to 1500 CE, in a wide geographical area stretching from Peru to Mexico.  No traces of their original uses have yet been found.  These instruments are composed of a system of hollow tubes and vessels and produce sound through one more or more small whistles.  They can be played by blowing into their spouts to activate the whistle, and some can be played through the movement of water in their interior, which pushes air out through the whistle as the instrument is rocked back and forth.

This whistling bottle features two small whistles, which are embedded in the base of the stirrup where it connects to the backs of two pelicans.  When the instrument is played, by blowing into the vertical spout, the air travels through the spout, through the rectangular vessel, and up through the hollow bodies of the pelicans, to activate the whistles.

View the original Double-Whistle Vessel with Sea Birds, Lambayeque (Sicán) (Artist), 900-1100 (Middle Horizon)

View the original Double-Whistle Vessel with Sea Birds, Lambayeque (Sicán) (Artist), 900-1100 (Middle Horizon)

This video features a short composition I played, recorded, and produced with the instrument shown in the image, which is an historic recreation of a Whistling Bottle from the Sicán/Lambayeque culture of Peru. 

Whistling bottles are sophisticated sound artifacts composed of systems of hollow vessels, tubes and whistles.  These complex instruments were made for about 3,000 years by many different cultures across Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and as far North as Mexico. 

This whistling bottle has two pelicans, each with a small whistle embedded in the stirrup near its back.  The whistles can be activated either by blowing into or across the spout of the instrument, or through movement of water in its interior.

The original object is stewarded by the Walters Art Museum and forms part of their Art of the Americas collection.

View the original Double-Whistle Vessel with Sea Birds, Lambayeque (Sicán) (Artist), 900-1100 (Middle Horizon)

Image shows a detail of the whistles embedded in the back of each pelican.

View the original Double-Whistle Vessel with Sea Birds, Lambayeque (Sicán) (Artist), 900-1100 (Middle Horizon)

Image shows the historical recreation finished with traditional techniques: painting with colored engobes and  burnishing.

View the original Double-Whistle Vessel with Sea Birds, Lambayeque (Sicán) (Artist), 900-1100 (Middle Horizon)

View the original Double-Whistle Vessel with Sea Birds, Lambayeque (Sicán) (Artist), 900-1100 (Middle Horizon)

View the original Double-Whistle Vessel with Sea Birds, Lambayeque (Sicán) (Artist), 900-1100 (Middle Horizon)

Image from performance at the Centro Cultural Kirchner in Buenos Aires, Argentina. 

I am playing a bamboo Siku, or panflute, collected by the Orchestra with a Peruvian instrument-maker. 

Excerpt from "Antara" a composition by Chilean composer Carlos Zamora, during a performance at the Regional Conference of Higher Education of Latin America and the Caribbean (CRES 2018) in Córdoba, Argentina.

Performance of "Entonces en la Escala de la Tierra", a composition by Susana Ferreres for sculptural ocarinas, whistling bottles, double flute, and noise generators.

Alejandro Iglesias Rossi on stage playing three Huéhuetls, which are traditional carved wooden drums that were used by the Aztec and other cultures in Mexico.  These instruments were collected by the Orchestra with a contemporary Mexican drum-maker.

Alejandro Iglesias Rossi (Buenos Aires, 27 de julio de 1960) is an Argentine composer, director, researcher, and educator. He has received two emblematic musical distinctions from UNESCO: the "First Prize of the International Tribune of Composers" (Paris, 1985) for his work Ancestral Rites of a Forgotten Culture, and the "First Prize of the International Tribune of Electroacoustic Music" (Amsterdam, 1996) for his work Angelus.

At the National University of Argentina at Tres de Febrero, Iglesias Rossi created the Orchestra of Indigenous Instruments and New Technologies. There he is director of the Master's Degree in Musical Creation, New Technologies and Traditional Arts,​ and of the Bachelor's Degree in Indigenous, Classical and Popular Music of the Americas, and also directs the Center for Ethnomusicology and Creation in Traditional and Avant Garde Arts (IDECREA).

Iglesias Rossi is a founding member of the Musical Research and Creation Network of America (RICMA), and he is president of the Argentine Music Council and vice-president of the Music Council of the Three Americas of the International Music Council of UNESCO.         

Image from a concert at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, of Susana Ferreres, the Visual and Scenic Arts Director of the Orchestra of Indigenous Instruments and New Technologies. 

Ferreres is wearing a sculptural Armadillo headdress, which she designed and fabricated herself.

Susana Ferreres is a multidisciplinary artist and has dedicated her life to researching the Indigenous iconography of the Americas as well as the Eastern Byzantine and the medieval West. In 2004, together with the ethnomusicologist Isabel Aretz and the composer Alejandro Iglesias Rossi,  she founded the Center for Ethnomusicology and Creation in Traditional and Avant-garde Arts at the National University of Tres de Febrero. There, she directs the Iconographic and Corporeal Research Program in Sacred Art and created the first Program for the Recovery of Indigenous Instruments and Traditional Masks of the Americas.

She is director of performing and visual arts of the Orchestra of Indigenous Instruments and New Technologies. There her body of iconographic work is intertwined with avant-garde creation, giving rise to an artistic-academic model that is taught in the Bachelor's Degree in Indigenous, Classical and Popular Music of the Americas and in the Master's Degree in Musical Creation, New Technologies, and Traditional Arts. Ferreres produces and directs the creation of the sets, costumes, choreography, and masks that the Orchestra has presented in concerts around the world.

Image from a performance at the Centro Cultural Kirchner in Buenos Aires, Argentina. 

I am playing a Lakota hand drum made by Sonja Holy Eagle.  This instrument was collected by my adopted Uncle Mark Van Norman, of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, who gifted it to the Orchestra in 2017.

Read about Sonja Holy Eagle

Image from performance at the Centro Cultural Kirchner in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where the OIANT performed together with the Orquesta Sinfónica Juvenil Nacional San Martín (National San Martín Symphonic Youth Orchestra)

Image from a performance at the Leo Brouwer Festival de Música de Cámara in Havana, Cuba. 

I am playing instruments called "bastones" that were made by members of the Orchestra.

Image from performance at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. 

Musicians are playing Teponaztli and Huéhuetls, which are hand-carved traditional drums that were used by the Aztec and other cultures of ancient Mexico.  These percussion instruments were collected by the Orchestra with a contemporary Mexican drum-maker.

Image from a concert at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. 

I am playing instruments called "bastones", which were made by members of the Orchestra.