Daniela Cinel O’Fee

Cinel O’Fee

Residency Focus:
Transmissions: Sonic Improvisations on the Sculptures of Jeffrey Rubinoff

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 sonic practice, the act of listening extends beyond traditional music.

O’Fee’s work is experimental intermedia: she repurposes instrument parts, reinvigorates obsolete machines, records organic soundscapes, and develops visual scores for the auditory environments she studies. In addition to piano performances with the Kamloops Symphony Orchestra, her work has been presented by Vancouver New Music, Kamloops Art Gallery, Salmon Arm Art Centre, Republic Gallery, TRU Gallery, The Jeffrey Rubinoff Sculpture Park, and internationally at the Walking Festival of Sound.

She has also received conducting mentorship through Tapestry Opera’s Women in Musical Leadership program and recently directed a performance of Paul Walde’s Alaska Variations. Another recent project involved composing and performing an original piano score live to Robert Wiene’s 1920 silent film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

In 2023, O’Fee presented Transmissions: Sonic Improvisations on the Sculptures of Jeffrey Rubinoff at the JRSP Company of Ideas Forum. She returned in July 2024 to revisit the project in situ, continuing her study of the park as an acoustic and visual field.

During that residency, she collaborated with sound artist Jess Conn-Potegal on Coaxial: Collaborative Sound Exploration and Field Recordings. Together they explored the sonic environment of the sculpture park in relation to the wider landscape of Hornby Island, tracing resonances between Rubinoff’s sculptures and the natural environment. O’Fee also produced site-specific graphic scores as a way of translating auditory experience into visual language.