Composition • Sound Design • Audio Technology
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Immersive audio · Kansas City · 2015–present
Composing sound in shapes and motion. A decade of work, culminating at Unicorn Theatre.
I have spent more than a decade working on Sound Mandala: composing for it, mixing sound through it, and developing the software and hardware that make the experience possible.
Much of that work has been about making spatial ideas audible: developing mixing techniques so listeners can discern a shape or follow a specific pattern of motion. At Unicorn Theatre in 2026, those techniques met the most acoustically controlled room we had built—and three distinct shows that Tom and I developed to explore the system’s capabilities.
Composition / Text / Spatial mixing
A voice can speak from somewhere in the room. In Unsound Mind, the room becomes the narrator’s mind.
Three-part work · Sound Mandala, 2024
Written specifically for the 80-loudspeaker Sound Mandala, this piece asks us to step inside a narrator’s mind as she explores philosophy, psychology, and the nature of sound.
Part One
2:40 · Binaural recording · Headphones recommended
Part Two
2:45 · Binaural recording · Headphones recommended
Part Three
1:41 · Binaural recording · Headphones recommended
I wrote the text and composed the piece for recorded voice, electronics, and 80 loudspeakers. Manon Halliburton performs the narrator.
The recording was made inside the environment with a Neumann KU 100 “dummy head” microphone. Headphones convey a binaural impression of the spatial movement; they are a way into the piece, rather than the equivalent of sitting in the room.
Vanessa Severo’s recorded voice performs Chekhov’s play-within-a-play, with my music and sound design. Alongside Unsound Mind, this is one of the works that best represents my sound theatre practice in the Mandala.
Text: Anton Chekhov · Adaptation: Tom Mardikes
Voice: Vanessa Severo
Music & sound design: Jon Robertson
I composed this immersive work for prerecorded clarinet and sound design to feature a particular spatial shape: a whirlwind I had developed through my mixing experiments. The motion is part of the composition itself.
Composition & sound design: Jon Robertson
For prerecorded clarinet and sound design
For Luke “Skippy” Harbur’s beatboxing piece, I made the Sound Mandala mix from a single-microphone recording, distributing the recorded performance through the loudspeaker environment.
Performance & original recording: musicbyskippy
Sound Mandala mix: Jon Robertson
The culmination / Summer 2026
Kansas City · Summer 2026 · 100 loudspeakers
The 2026 run at Unicorn Theatre’s Jerome Stage was the largest and most important presentation of my work with Sound Mandala. We built a new room geometry, with a hexagonal wall arrangement and diagonal ceiling panels. Acoustically, it was the tightest environment we had achieved.
Tom and I also developed three distinct show concepts to demonstrate different capabilities of the Mandala. Signal&Soul, Indie Spotlight, and The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari brought varied programs into the same 100-loudspeaker room, with performances from June 10 through August 1.
Research / Prototypes / Public performances
Sound Mandala grew from Tom Mardikes’s earlier research into moving sound. My involvement belongs to the decade of development that followed, from the first larger prototype through the Unicorn presentation.
A 48-channel installation in UMKC’s Black Box Theatre tested how sound could move through a loudspeaker matrix. Early demonstrations informed the room’s acoustic treatment and the need for consistent loudspeakers.
Tom and I applied Sound Mandala techniques to Satchel Paige and the Kansas City Swing at Repertory Theatre of St. Louis in 2016. Subsequent lab work tested speaker spacing, motion, and tools for making spatial pieces.
At KC Fringe, an enclosure in UMKC’s Black Box Theatre surrounded listeners with loudspeakers in the walls, ceiling, and floor. I wrote Unsound Mind specifically for this version.
A new room geometry, 100 loudspeakers, and three show concepts developed with Tom brought the research and creative work together in the project’s largest presentation.
Read the project’s full history, including Tom’s earlier experiments
Software / Hardware / Acoustic space
Making a shape audible takes more than assigning a sound to a speaker.
I spent years developing mixing techniques that deliver credible shapes and specific motion patterns. The goal was for a listener to hear the shape or follow the movement. The whirlwind developed for my prerecorded clarinet piece is one example of that work.
We built the hexagonal walls, diagonal ceiling panels, and ceiling for the 2026 environment. It was our most acoustically controlled room to date. The room’s construction mattered to the same goal as the mixing: making the spatial detail discernible.
Sound Mandala uses Pro Tools with discrete audio outputs. By controlling which loudspeaker plays each segment of a sound, the mix can define a path, a pace, and a direction. Loudspeaker arrangements include positions above and below the listener, as well as around the room.
Sound Mandala has involved performers, composers, engineers, and students across its different iterations. The project’s program pages credit the people behind each work.
Creating whole worlds out of sound.