“Don’t make it different. Make it personal. If you’re trying to do something that has never been done, all the audience will detect is strategy. If your work springs from a personal perspective, the art will resonate.” - PSR
UPCOMING:
BLOOM - Improvisation and sound activation for Magdalena Dukiewicz’s BLOOM art installation at Wave Hill Gallery, The Bronx NY October 25th, 2025
NEWS:
DarkBright - solo EP guitar/digitaland electronic sound/percussion
Available @ https://paulstevenray.bandcamp.com/album/darkbright
RECENT work:
DECELERATION 2 (part 2 of the DECELERATION TRILOGY)
WE KNOW NOW/AS CHILDREN WE KNEW THEN - Soundart
THE TICKING - meditations and such
SOME PEOPLE FLOAT - new solo work
https://paulstevenray.bandcamp.com/releases
in progress
CAN I GET A WITNESS - for guitar,bass guitar,cello,digital sound, percussion and field recordings. Responding to the unfamilar.
HOW TO ENTER MIDNIGHT- A Live Multimedia Installation for Sound,movement,text, and visuals.
DECELERATION 3:In The Dreaming Cloud(she was a sine wave) The third phase of a multimedia trilogy exploring a path away from the tumultuous, insistent chaos toward the meditative and ecstatic.
GUEST/GUARDIAN/INTERLOPER: Wordless Graphic/Sonic Strip
Collaboration with Sandy Pliego.
FLAG MUSIC: Sound/Performance art piece.
PAST PERFORMANCES:
RE(space) performs PARABLE DUST(Obscure Geographies) - A Live Multimedia Installation for Sound,movement,visuals navigating themes of cryptic communication, social negotiations, and sanctuary(personal and communal).
@ShapeShifterLab 10/09/24 7:30pm Brooklyn NY
@RHIZOME DC 11/9/24 Washington DC
RE(space) is a project featuring Paul Steven Ray and Triniti Ernest that grew out of Paul Steven Ray’s Deceleration Trilogy. It aims to create site specific live multimedia installations through their synergy exploring sonic, physical, poetic, and visual narrative/non-narrative excursions.
DOUBLE NIGHT WAVE @ ShapeShifterLab Brooklyn NY
11/30 9:30PM
Debut performance of Paul Steven Ray’s new quartet with
Josh Scott-bass guitar, Lim Yang-double bass, and
Yuko Togami- percussion
At This Point In Your Trip@ Le Petit Versailles NYC
a sonic/poetic survey of individual to individual/individual to community microcosms for electric guitar, double bass, electronics, and video.
A survey to be answered silently in the mind while immersed in the sound emanating from the speakers. He will be joined by the dynamic experimental bassist Jeong Lim Yang and visual artist Sandy Pliego.
DECELERATION 2
A multimedia work for 3 voices, guitar, bass, percussion, digital/electronic sound, dance, visuals. Exploring a path away from the tumultuous, insistent chaos toward the meditative and ecstatic.
Center for Performance Research February 3, 7:30pm
361 Manhattan Ave. , Brooklyn NY 11211
Music/Words: Paul Steven Ray *
Visuals: Paul Steven Ray, Joyce Dade, Sandy Pliego
Choreography: Triniti Ernest
Vocals/Spoken: M Paul Steven Ray, Triniti Ernest
Dancer: Triniti Ernest
Instrumental Ensemble
Paul Steven Ray: Guitars/Digital Sound
Josh Scott: Bass Guitar
Lisette Santiago: Percussion
Directed by Paul Steven Ray
Solo guitar as a guest of Theresa Rosas’ Heart Songs and Sounds evening at Greenwich House 6/29/22 8:00pm
46 Barrow St. NY.NY
DECELERATION 1 @SuperSecretArtsSpace 5/1/22
The first part of an extended multimedia work navigating themes of fragility, premature departures, parallel realities, and protective love.to be presented in several stages.
Falling Hearts/Rising Hearts @ ShapeShifterLab:
A multimedia piece focused on perceptions of distance, size, and color with a simple box as the point of meditation. For guitars, electronics, percussion, voice, and digital sound.
https://youtu.be/HHrlxT_Zw1M
PAUL STEVEN RAY/SANDY PLIEGO:
I WISH YOU WERE THERE WHEN I WAS THERE
for WHITE NOISE V @ Il Giardino, Bed-Stuy Mansion
247 Hancock Street Brooklyn NY
October 16th, 2021 7:30pm
SOLO PERFORMANCE: an excerpt from OBSERVER/INTERLOPER/GUEST as part of the SWEET SONG of HARLEM event curated by Juan Puntes for WHITEBOX
09/13/21 6:30pm EST @El BARRIO ART SPACE PS109
215 E 99th Street NYC 10029
PAUL STEVEN RAY/SANDY PLIEGO:
I WISH YOU WERE THERE WHEN I WAS THERE
@ Greenkill Gallery Kingston, NY 10/08/21
LIVE STREAM at 8:00pm EST
BLUEBLACKDREAM LIVE @ SHAPESHIFTER LAB 6.11.21 7:00PM
COMPOSERS NOW FESTIVAL 2021
Thin Walls/Light Speed/Private Tongues
For String Instrument and Electroacoustic Instruments
Paul Steven Ray: Composer/performer
concert streams here Feb.19
Post concert conversation with James Bennett II, staff writer for WQXR streams here.
Looking for the Bells: MultiMedia collaboration with Visual Artist, Sandy Pliego @ Arete Gallery 11/14/19
Ray-Rosas Project with Theresa Rosas @ Greenwich House 6/12/19 7:30 NY, NY
BlueBlackDream with Lisette Santiago @Mirror in the Woods 6/15/19 575 Union St., Brooklyn, NY 11215
Looking for the Bells: MultiMedia collaboration with Visual Artist, Sandy Pliego at HOLO 2/13/19 7:00pm
BlueBlackDream@ ShapeShifterLab
Sept. 13,2018 8:15
Transport: Make Music Festival @ Le Petit Versailles June 21st, 2017 8:00pm
VS2@Knockdown Center March 10,2017 9:30pm Maspeth,NY
AQUIACONVERSE(AKA Ray-Rosas Project) - November 8, 2015/7:00pm at ShapeShifterlab.Brooklyn, NY
VERTICALSON @ TRANS PECOS - January 17, 2016/8:00pm
VERTICALSON @ SPECTRUM - April 1, 2016
THE GOOD NARROW NIGHT -for Soprano,electronics,digital media,guitar-
September 24, 2016 @ Crypt of The Church of The Intercession NYC
July 18, 2015 - What Whispers Ignite : collaboration with Eli Fountain and Kiori Kawai @Le Petit Versailles,NYC
July 9, 2015 - VERTICALSON @ ShapeShifterLab, Brooklyn, NY
October 3, 2014 SPLITROCK Opera/ VERTICALSON with Brandon Ross @ ShapeShifterLab Brooklyn,NY
Paul Steven Ray has been composing and performing in NYC since 1981. He has been heard in a wide range of venues including Issue Project Room, The Stone, ShapeShifterLab, Trans Pecos, KnockdownCenter, The Knitting Factory, HOLO, and Rhizome DC. He has presented his work in such festivals as Noise Festival at Richard Foreman’s Ontological Theater, WHITENOISE V, the International Electro-Acoustic Festival, Cosmoson-Paris,CERF Festival, New York Jazz Festival, and the North River Music Series. Collaborations with other artists include Val Jeanty, Bora Yoon, Vernon Reid, Brandon Ross, Pheeroan Ak Laff, Nate Wooley, Lesley Mok, Reggie Sylvester, Josh Scott, Oblaat, Yuko Fujiyama, Cyro Baptista, Eli Fountain, Theresa Rosas, Nicole Jenkins, Ha Yang Kim, Lisette Santiago, and Kiori Kawai. His compositions for other media include work created for Laura Staton Dance(Judson Movement Research Series) and the score for Sikay Tang’s Phrases/s Lesson 5. He is the leader/composer of BlueBlackDream, VERTICALSON, NineNine, and partner with Theresa Rosas in the Ray-Rosas Project(AKA Aquiaconverse). He has composed four operas: Sally Distance(premiered by Bora Yoon at Galapagos Art Space), Sleeperhold(premiered at Issue Project Room), SplitRock(premiered at ShapeShifterlab), and most recently the Good Narrow Night(premiered at The Church of the Intercession Crypt. Ray’s BlueBlackDream released its debut album, MAPS in 2017. His poetic soundscape multimedia piece I Wish You Were There When I Was There, was performed at The GreenKill Gallery Kingston NY and for WhiteNoise V in Brooklyn in October 2021. DECELERATION 1, the first phase of his DECELERATION TRILOGY(multimedia) was performed at SuperSecretArts in Brooklyn in May of 2022. DECELERATION 2 was premiered at the Center for Performance Research February 2023. Paul has been awarded grants from NEW MUSIC USA and the FOUNDATION FOR CONTEMPORARY ARTS. He is currently working on a new opera, Lila’s Tattoo. He was curator of the experimental concert series PSYCHELOUNGE and continues to pursue his goal of bridging the various camps of creative artists in the city and elsewhere. Continuing through the pandemic lockdown, Paul Steven Ray released two solo recordings: The Ticking and Some People Float available on bandcamp. In May 2022, the album Conjure Steps recorded by his Parallax Trio was released. 5 Days in February, an EP of solos for guitar, voice, digital sound, and percussion was released in March of 2024. The DECELERATION 1, the first part of his multimedia DECELERATION TRILOGY was performed at Super Secret Arts in May of 2022. DECELERATION 2 was performed at The Center for Performance Research in February 2023. He has been awarded grants from New Music USA and the FOundation for Contemporary Arts. PARABLE DUST:OBSCURE GEOGRAPHIES, multimedia piece was premiered in October 2024 at ShapeShifterLab.
Guitar is but a small part of Paul Steven Ray’s creative palette. Percussion, composing for various aggregations including operas, and video also provide outlets for his restless inventiveness. His latest recording MAPS, by Paul Steve Ray’s BlueBlack Dream (one of his many projects), includes guitar, both played and attacked, samples, Theremin, sung and spoken vocals. It is a work of texture and mystery inspired by a wide range of musical influences thoroughly absorbed.- Guitar Moderne