Music

CREATIVES IN PRACTICE: JOSHUA FINEBERG

Boston University professor of composition and director of BU Center for New Music, Joshua Fineberg, recently completed a site-specific sound, light, and water installation at the Goethe-Institut Boston as part of the Boston Public Art Triennial.

One thing that gravitates the next generation of artists to Boston University College of Fine Arts? Knowing that their professors, advisors, and mentors are also working artists, gaining real-world experience and bringing that back into the classroom through their curriculum, lessons, and talks. In CFA’s Creatives in Practice series, your favorite CFA faculty and staff members share the work they’re doing off campus, locally, nationally, and globally.

In October, BU School of Visual Arts and School of Music, in collaboration with the Berlin-based arts collective House for the End of the World (HEW), presented Sites of Convergence, multi-site interdisciplinary exhibitions that transformed less-traditional spaces into dynamic meeting points where ideas, people, and practices intersect. The exhibitions explored themes of technological reliance, urban development, and identity through experimental installations, sound, and performance, highlighting the potential of site-specific work as a catalyst for dialogue and exchange.

Joshua Fineberg, BU professor of composition and the director of BU Center for New Music, was instrumental in developing this partnership, supported by the BU Institute for Excellence in Teaching & Learning, BU Office for the Arts, and the Goethe-Institut Boston.

Sites of Convergence consisted of two consecutive exhibitions. The first, The Other One: Dependency, Distortion, and Displacement, ran at the Goethe-Institut Boston from October 11 through 14 and featured the works of HEW artists Fineberg, performance artist Elana Katz, and AI and visual artist Dario Srbic. As part of the Boston Public Art Triennial, Fineberg’s site-specific sound, light, and water installation, out of the dead land immersed viewers in a visual-sonic experience that induced a sense of disorientation. Playing for nearly 20 minutes, the installation featured the recorded cello, electronic sounds, light, and water.

The second exhibition was a student-focused one, where, “in the basement of Boston University’s 111 Cummington Mall, the students showing work in Interstice have taken classrooms B34, B36, and B40, along with their eerie contents, as a starting point for creating site-responsive artwork,” writes E. Tubergen, Assistant Professor of Art, Sculpture.

In CFA’s Creatives in Practice, Fineberg shares the importance of continuing to make art while educating and inspiring the next generation of artists and how music and visual arts can come together to create a one-of-a-kind experience.

Q&A WITH JOSHUA FINEBERG

CFA: Tell us more about Sites of Convergence and what this opportunity means for both working artists and student artists.

Fineberg: This exhibition was in collaboration with HEW Berlin, a nomadic artist collective that I have worked with before, which focuses on site-specific art in locations that activate place and memory. HEW was founded in Berlin in 2020 by Elana Katz, and this Boston show was its first edition outside of Germany.

In relation to this exhibition, there was also a site-specific exhibition of student works in a disused set of classrooms on the BU campus, titled Interstice. CFA artists included undergraduate and graduate sculpture students and composition students. This marks one of the first major collaborations of BU School of Visual Arts and School of Music students working together to make multi-disciplinary art installations.

How does your real-world experience in the field connect to your role as a faculty member at CFA?

I see one of my primary roles as a faculty member to be modeling a life in art. For composers and artists, building a life in art is not just about what you know; it is also about who you are as a human being and how you live your life. The professional world is changing rapidly in the arts, and this makes it even more important for artists to think about their work and their role in society. Nothing I can say to a student will be as important in demonstrating these ideas as the life I live and the work I make.

What advice would you give your students about building a sustainable career in the arts?

I believe the key is not to focus on the externals of a career but to grow in confidence in your artistic work, and the career opportunities will follow.

Any fun facts or other information you’d like to share about this work?

Sometimes you can even convince a historic building to let you bring in 125 gallons of water, 80 pounds of sand, black out all their windows, and bring in a full theatrical lighting rig.

read more about sites of convergence

Connect with Joshua!

Joshua Fineberg is a Professor of Music, Director of the Electronic Music Studios, and the Founding Director of the BU Center for New Music. He teaches music composition, orchestration, contemporary aesthetics & repertoire, and electronic music.

Fineberg has won numerous awards and is published by Editions Max Eschig and Gérard Billaudot Editeur. Fineberg’s works are widely performed in the US, Europe and Asia.

In addition to composing and teaching, he actively collaborates with computer scientists and music psychologists to help develop tools for computer assisted composition, acoustic analysis and sound modification and in music perception research.

Interested in learning more about BU’s composition programs or have ideas to share with Fineberg? Visit Fineberg’s website or follow on Instagram @joshuafineberg.

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