Christopher Preissing

Discipline: Composing

Based In: Chicago, IL

Year at Millay: 2023, 2018

Awards/Honors: Artist-in-Residence, Djerassi Resident Artists Program, Woodside, CA (2012); Grant Recipient, IAS Artist Project Support Grant, Illinois Arts Council, Chicago, IL (2012, 1999); Artist-in-Residence, VCCA Residency, Amherst, VA (2012, 2011); Artist-in-Residence, Ucross Foundation, Clearmont, WY (2011); Artist-in-Residence, Mamori Sound Project, Mamori ArtLab, Mamori Lake, Brazil (2011); Grant Recipient, CAAP (Community Arts Assistance Program) Grant, City of Chicago, Chicago, IL (2011, 2010); Artist-in-Residence, KHN Residency, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, Nebraska City, NE (2010); Artist-in-Residence, Residency Program, Ragdale, Lake Forest, IL (2010, 2009); Grant Recipient, Meet the Composer/Midwest, Arts Midwest, Minneapolis, MN (1996, 1995); Grant Recipient, Associate Faculty Grant, Indiana University South Bend, South Bend, IN (1996); Grant Recipient, Arts Projects Support, Indiana Arts Commission, Indianapolis, IN (1995–1996, 1994–1995); Participant, ACF | create, American Composers Forum/Jerome Foundation, Saint Paul, MN (1994); Fellow, Emerging Artist Fellowship, Michiana Arts & Sciences Council, Community Foundation of Elkhart County (1993).

Website: https://www.christopherpreissing.com/

Christopher Preissing is a sound composer, intermedia artist, improvisor, producer, and creative instigator whose work engages the contradictions of liminality—memory and decay, perception and projection, preservation and loss—using archives, mapping, and taxonomies to produce clouds of meaning to engage participants. His work relies on paradox and ambiguity, found and built objects, and the happy accident. He has been an artist in residence at Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Djerassi, High Concept Labs, and many others, and his work has been presented at Columbia University (New York, New York), Springfield Museum of Art (Springfield, Ohio), Steppenwolf Theater (Chicago, Illinois), and the Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago, Illinois). Founder of NON:op Open Opera Works, his social practice work is informed by the pandemic, systemic oppression and racism, economic hardship, and political division.