LISA SCHONBERG
DRUMMER, COMPOSER, SOUND ARTIST, WRITER, TEACHER
instagram: @lisaannschonberg
Lisa Schonberg is a drummer, composer, sound artist, writer and teacher with a background in entomology and ecology. She began playing drums as a child in Staten Island, NY. Lisa received her Masters in Environmental Studies at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA with a focus on ant biodiversity in the Neotropics. She merges her interests by using field recording, writing, and music composition to document soundscapes, insects, and habitat, with the goal of drawing attention to environmental issues. Her recent work includes investigations of the endangered native Hawaiian Hylaeus bees and old growth forests in Oregon. Lisa recently returned from a third year of field work with ATTA (Amplifying the Tropical Ants) in the Brazilian Amazon, where she has been investigating ant bioacoustics with entomologists and creating music and sound work from the results.
Her compositions are performed by percussion/electronic music groups UAU and Secret Drum Band. Lisa also performs in the multimedia improv group Ecology Ensemble with Dana Reason, Mike Gamble, and visual artist Paris Myers, and composes with mutli-instrumentalist Kristina Dutton in their socially engaged project Pattern Ecology. Her past bands include Explode into Colors, STLS and Kickball.
Lisa is the author of The DIY Guide to Drums, The Hylaeus Project: A Documentation of the Endangered Native Bees of Hawaii, and Fieldguided, a series of books on insects and their habitats. She co-directed the artist collective Environmental Impact Statement, which asked artists to respond to development on public lands and interjects artist work into environmental policy-making. She is a regular contributor to Tom Tom Magazine and She Shreds magazine. She has performed with DUBAIS, Thao With The Get Down Stay Down, Taka Yamamoto, Mirah, Tara Jane Oneil, Tuneyards, Cloud Eye Control, The Need, Erase Errata, Peter Broderick with Gabriel Saloman, and others. Lisa has received support from the Regional Arts and Culture Council, the Oregon Arts Commission, Arc Teryx, The Oregon Community Foundation, Calligram, and The Andy Warhol Foundation For The Visual Arts. She been an artist in residence at the Banf Centre, Labverde (BR), HJ Andrews Experimental Forest (OR), Spring Creek Project (OR), A-Z West (CA), and Signal Fire. She has performed at The American Museum of Natural History, the Brooklyn Museum, the Pompidou, High Desert Test Sites, the Time-Based Arts Festival (Portland), Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, and has presented lectures throughout the US and in Brazil. Lisa currently resides in Portland, Oregon and teaches private drum lessons at Revival Drum Shop.