Daniela Cinel O’Fee

Traversing the multisensory landscape, Canadian artist Daniela O'Fee investigates the interplay between the acoustic and visual realm. Daniela has worked as a pianist, director, composer, and educator in British Columbia for over 40 years. In her unique sonic practice, the act of listening extends beyond traditional music. O’Fee’s work is experimental intermedia: she utilizes repurposed instrument parts, reinvigorates obsolete machines, records organic soundscapes, and forges visual scores for the auditory environments she investigates.

In addition to her piano peformances with the Kamloops Symphony Orchestra, O’Fee’s intermedia work has been presented by Vancouver New Music, Kamloops Art Gallery, Radio Stations of BC Universities, Salmon Arm Art Centre, Republic Gallery, TRU Gallery, The Jeffrey Rubinoff Sculpture Park on Hornby Island, Jelly Fish Outdoor Film Festival in Minneapolis and internationally at the Walking Festival of Sound. She has received coaching in conducting through Tapestry Opera’s Women in Musical Leadership program and has recently directed a performance Paul Walde’s Alaska Variations. Her most recent project constitued composing an original piano score of Robert Wiene’s 1920 silent film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, performed live to screen at the Kamloops Film Festival and for the UVic Student Society. Daniela holds a Bachelor of Music from the University of Victoria where she concentrated in Education and was the winner of the school’s concerto competition.

In 2023, O’Fee presented her work Transmissions: Sonic Improvisations on the Sculptures of Jeffrey Rubinoff at the annual JRSP 2023 Company of Ideas Forum. The following year in July 2024, O’Fee returned during to revisit her project in-situ at the sculpture park. During this time onsite, she collaborated with fellow sound artist Jess Conn-Potegal, producing Coaxial: Collaborative Sound Exploration and Field Recordings. During this 2-day collaborative residency, O’Fee explored the sonic environment of the JRSP in conjunction with that of surrounding Hornby Island. This practice yielded a dynamic interplay between Rubinoff’s sculptures and the natural environment at large. O’Fee also produced site-specific graphic scores of works being created in order to transpose auditory media into visual language – a lifelong project of Jeffrey Rubinoff’s.