JANET SIT - composer / sound artist

Janet Sit is a current Ph.D. composition candidate at the University of California San Diego. Her compositions have premiered in Beijing, Berlin, San Diego, Toronto, Vancouver, and Victoria. She holds a B.Sc. in Zoology and B. Music from the University of Toronto and a M.Mus. from University of Victoria, where she began developing her installation practice. She also holds a Performance Diploma in Piano from the Royal Conservatory of Music. Janet has been commissioned by Caution Tape Sound Collective, Thin Edge New Music Collective, the Gray/Constant Duo, Dave Riedstra for his cross-Canada tour Topography: new music for solo bass, and The Art Song Collaborative Project, the AIR Contemporary Music Collective, and last Fall, by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra as part of their centenary celebrations. Her latest commission is a flute and piano work for Thomas Law and Nikola Markovic for the U. Victoria Emerging Alumni Artists Series exploring the topics of conformity/nomadism, heritages and identities living in diasporas. Her electronic music was featured in King Britt’s The Buddy System Project’s A Re-Mix (Remix Project) on Bandcamp and in a multi-disciplinary collaboration, Gravebirth, with fellow graduate students at UCSD. In Spring 2024, an expanded version of Gravebirth will be presented in the Qualcomm Institute IDEAS events at UCSD. Her research interests include combining her science and music backgrounds to create works that explore the perceptions of underwater time and space within accessible performance spaces. These music/acoustic investigations are contextualized with her scuba diving and snorkeling practices and her lived experiences near water in the former colony of Hong Kong, Toronto, Victoria, and now San Diego. In the community, she teaches music at the International Rescue Committee (El Cajon) and she is a regular panelist on UCSD student workshops on academic experiences. This past summer, she designed and taught as a first-time instructor for an undergraduate class on sound installation practices.