Culture
Lisa Bella Donna On the Metaphysical Power of Music, COVID-19, and ‘Night of the Living Dead’
By: Emily Votaw
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Lisa Bella Donna is an audio artist deeply in touch with the magical process at the heart of her practice of transmogrifying sound from her studio nestled in the Appalachian Mountains. The composer, sound designer, modular synthesist, Moog Music representative, and clinician has travelled throughout the US, Japan, and Europe as an educator, bringing with her decades of experience as a multi-instrumentalist with extensive knowledge of analog recording and mixing techniques, musique concrète, microtonal music, orchestration and film composition.
Earlier this year, Lisa released Ascension, a recording influenced by the tumult of the COVID-19 pandemic and the moment we find ourselves in currently.
This summer she is working on composing, with a LP release scheduled for this fall. Listen to WOUB Culture’s conversation with Lisa, embedded above, about her rendering of sound as a work of metaphysical chemistry, her experience of the COVID-19 pandemic as an artist, and the beautiful fearlessness of The Night of the Living Dead soundtrack — especially when heard late at night while traversing West Virginia backroads.