Weston Olencki a composer, musician, and audio engineer; originally from South Carolina, and working now in Berlin. Their currently making work focused around questions of instrumental music and its contexts/constructs, various mediated practices of listening and improvisation, and is rooted in the technological, material, and cultural histories of vernacular art-making. Their recent music deals with the non-linear relationships and unexpected resonances between experimental sound, geography, historicity, and (mostly American) musical traditions.
Weston has previously performed and presented work at the Borealis Festival, Donaueschinger Musiktage, Musica Nova (as a soloist with the Helsinki Philharmonic), Lampo, Ghent Jazz Festival, Black Mountain College, philharmonie luxembourg, Squeaky Wheel, Festival Musica, kalvfestivalen, the American Academy in Rome, Roulette Intermedium, Jalopy Theatre, Frequency Festival, Pioneer Works, and the OPTION series, & was awarded the Kranichsteiner Musikpreis from the 2016 Darmstadt Ferienkurse.
They've held guest residencies at the University of Huddersfield, Harvard, NYU, Columbia, Princeton, Stanford, Northwestern, Royal Northern College of Music, and have been a visiting artist at CalArts (2018) and Stoveworks (2023). Various recording projects, both as a leader and side-person, have been released by HatHut, Sound American, Carrier Records, New Amsterdam, Clean Feed, Anticausal Systems, Dinzu Artefacts, SUPERPANG, Creative Sources, Tripticks Tapes, KAIROS, Lobby Art, Sound Holes, Astral Spirits, Out of Your Head, with upcoming releases on Full Spectrum Records, Hideous Replica, and Pagans. Their latest recording/performance project, Old Time Music, was featured on Bandcamp Daily’s Best Experimental Music of 2022. They are an active member of RAGE THORMBONES, Harmonic Space Orchestra, Ensemblekollektiv Berlin, Apparat, Clone Decay (with Mary Halvorson & Kalia Vandever), The Hollows (with Nick Dunston & Etienne Nillesen), and perform regularly as a soloist and ensemble member on low brass instruments, winds, banjo, organs, and various electronic media.
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