Latex balloons have been Judy Dunaway’s primary musical instrument and compositional focus for over twenty years. She has presented her free improvisations and compositions on balloons as serious musical instruments, as well as sound installations and electronic works utilizing balloons, throughout the U.S. and Europe at many festivals and venues.

Photo: Jesse Summers

These include Academy of Media Arts Cologne (Cologne), Avant-Garde Schwaz Festival (Austria), Alternative Museum (NYC), Bang on a Can Festival (NYC), Everson Art Museum (Syracuse), Frau Musica Nova Festival (Cologne), Guelph Jazz Festival (Canada), Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors (NYC), New Museum of Contemporary Art (NYC), Podewil (Berlin), Roulette (NYC), CEAIT Festival (Los Angeles), Seltsame Musik Festival (Krems, Austria), SoHo Arts Festival (NYC), STEIM (Amsterdam) and Zentrum fuer Kunst und Medientechnologie (Karlsruhe).  

She has a Ph.D. in music composition from Stony Brook University (New York) and an M.A. in experimental composition from Wesleyan University where she studied with Alvin Lucier. She has been a Visiting Lecturer at Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston since 2005. At EMS she will be working on a new live improvisational interactive system based on recognition of her balloon sounds interfacing with synthesized electronic response.