Guest Artist Spotlight: Sam Ferguson
As we draw closer to our end-of-year shows featuring the Fourth Year Acting Class, we’re delighted to be shining the spotlight on all the magnificent guest artists who are making it all happen. Check out our prior articles on Logan Cracknell, Aaron Jan, and Nancy Perrin!
Sam Ferguson (he/him) is an award-winning sound designer/composer from Toronto. After working on The Gull last semester, Sam has returned to the School of Performance as the Sound Designer for Spring Awakening, Knives in Hens and Hookman.
After moving to Vancouver at 17 to study under acclaimed electroacoustic music composer Berry Truax, Sam returned to Toronto where he became involved with theatre. This experience led him to enroll in the Yale School of Drama where he received an MFA for sound design.
“I try to approach sound design from an acoustic ecology perspective,” Sam shares. “I see the soundscape as an ecological system experienced through sound. This is kind of a complicated idea so let me try an example… noise pollution.”
“A few weeks ago, there was a big snowstorm. If one was brave enough to venture outside during this event, they may have noticed a remarkable shift in the city’s soundscape; the constant rumble of cars was absent thanks to the snow filled streets. It’s one of the few times you can experience Toronto without the overwhelming noise pollution we are subjected to everyday, and the result is a much healthier and diverse acoustic ecology. People were talking with their neighbors while their shovels scraped the pavement, you could hear the children playing and the bellowing steam vents of the chocolate factory near my house.”
Listening as Sam ventured through the city lead Sam to consider “how the sounds I create fit in an environment, how they affect and are affected by the characters of the story. In practical terms mostly I’m trying to be dynamic with what is produced in rehearsals, letting it inspire me and offering moments where sounds can interact with what the performers are doing… If anyone is interested in this concept, I strongly recommend Voices of Tyranny, Temples of Silence by Murray Schafer, it’s beautifully written and really changed the way I listen.”
When asked about what the world needs from people in creative fields toda, Sam reflects “the expansion of perspective. I remember hearing that the popularization of novels leads to a general increase in empathy… my guess is this process is true for all forms of storytelling.”