Wilson Tanner Smith

Wilson Tanner Smith is a cellist, composer, improviser, and music-theatre artist currently based in Helsinki. His work at the edges between music and theatre often explores the performance of person-ness, mirroring the alienating, absurd, silly or senseless signals we receive from the world around us in order to cultivate an awareness of the relationships we have with the people, systems, and structures we live with. He frequently collaborates across music, theatre, dance, and performance projects, with a musical sensibility informed by free improvisation, free jazz, deep listening, DIY and found sounds, and by many cross-cultural/-genre collaborations in his former hometown, Chicago, and more recently across northern/western Europe.
He has performed as musician, actor, and/or dancer at venues including the Deutshces SchauSpielHaus (Hamburg), the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, Estonia Kontserdisaal (Tallinn), the Ragdale Foundation (Chicago), Kreenholm Factory/Narva Art Center, Victory Gardens Theatre (Chicago), Le Périscope (Lyon), and the Mullbau (Lucerne), and with artists including choreographer Ayako Kato, the Kristina Isabelle Dance Co., and Facility Theatre. Long-term collaborations include the Chicago-based improvising quartet Mad Myth Science, whose debut album was released August 2023 to acclaim from The Wire, Quietus, and Stereogum.