The Sound of Downtown

Digital Sanctuaries

a musical pilgrimage through Lower Manhattan

Digital Sanctuaries, NYC is an urban music mobile app walk by Susie Ibarra and Roberto Rodriguez that brings 12 sanctuaries of music to 12 historic sites in Lower Manhattan. Digital Sanctuaries, NYC invites the public to join on a virtual pilgrimage through the built environment of a cityscape, discovering meditative spaces in unexpected places, marked by an ever-changing musical score. As the audience engages with the music in each place, they are encouraged to discover the hidden qualities of the world.

On June 21st, guided tours will leave at 1:00pm from India House, at 3:00pm from Peter Minuet Plaza, and at 5:00pm from Tear Drop Park.

This web-based app works across multiple smartphone platforms.

Composer/Percussionist Susie Ibarra is interested in the intersection of tradition and avant-garde, creating music that blends jazz, electronic, Southeast Asian, Middle Eastern and experimental music. Ibarra is a Yamaha, Vic Firth and Paiste Drum artist, with over 40 recordings as a leader, collaborator and soloist. She is a TED Fellow 2010, Asia 21 Delegate 2010 and recipient of a 2008 Asian Cultural Council /Rockefeller Fellowship that supported her work in Philippine Indigenous music and ecology.

Born in East Havana Cuba, and raised in Miami, percussionist and composer Roberto Rodriguez brings groundbreaking new music through his diverse cross-cultural roots. Drawing inspiration from Jazz to Afrocuban, and Eastern European Klezmer Jewish music to the Andaluz of North Africa, Roberto calls his original style “all world music”. Roberto is currently in collaboration with composer John Zorn, recording nine compositions commissioned by the composer for Masada-The Book of Angels. The music will be released in the U.S. in 2014 by Tzadik.

Composer & Percussionists: Susie Ibarra and Roberto Rodriguez

Visual Art: Makoto Fujimura
Interaction Design: Shankari Mural

Digital Sanctuaries, NYC was commissioned through New Music USA’s Commissioning Music/USA program, which is made possible by generous annual support from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs as well as endowment support from The Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, The Helen F. Whitaker Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Rockefeller Brothers Fund, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and the Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trust.

The production of Digital Sanctuaries, NYC has been supported by The MAP Fund, a program of Creative Capital, primarily supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

Digital Sanctuaries, NYC is made possible in part by a 2014 LMCC Process Space artist residency.

Thank you to Andrew Horwitz, a Creative Consultant for Digital Sanctuaries, NYC, Founder of Culturebot Media and Arts, Inc.