Maria Siskova explores new frontiers in interactive music performance

For 24-year-old singer, composer, and sound designer Maria Siskova, music isn’t just something to be heard—it’s something to be experienced. With an impressive portfolio of original compositions, Maria is now pioneering work in gesturally controlled music, an emerging technology that uses digital instruments to let musicians shape and manipulate sound through body movement and dance.

“This concept came from my internal desire to transform my music into a live, interactive, and immersive performance,” Maria explains. “In my new surround performance setup, the body triggers, controls, and navigates sound around the audience. With the movement of my hand, I can augment, harmonize, distort, and manipulate my voice in any possible way you can imagine.”

With support from her Hunter’s Fund grant, Maria will continue advancing her research and developing new performance techniques that fuse music, movement, and technology. Her innovative approach pushes the boundaries of what live performance can be—turning sound itself into a dynamic, visual art form.