Ellen Fullman

After graduating from the Kansas City Art Institute with a BFA in Sculpture, Ellen Fullman began developing The Long String Instrument in her St. Paul, Minnesota studio in 1980 and moved to Brooklyn the following year. Inspired by composer and instrument builder Harry Partch and Alvin Lucier’s Music on a Long Thin Wire, Fullman's large-scale work creates droning, organ-like overtones that are as unique in the world of sound as her vision of the instrument itself. Through her research in just intonation tuning theory, string harmonics and musical instrument design, Fullman has developed a compositional and performative approach that expands harmonic motion through a focus on upper partial tones. She has recorded extensively with this unusual instrument and has resonated architectural spaces in festivals across the world including Festival d’Automne, Bourse de Commerce, Paris; The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, Los Angeles; Musica Festival, Strasbourg; Tectonics Festival Athens and The Sydney Festival. Awards include: Guggenheim Fellowship, Music Composition (2020); Foundation for Contemporary Arts Award, Music/Sound (2015); and DAAD, Artists-In-Berlin Program residency (2000). Her recordings include: Elemental View (Room40, 2025) with the Living Earth Show, included in The Wire's Modern Composition Top 10 of 2025; and Harbors (Room40, 2020) a collaboration with Theresa Wong. Her work was cited by Alvin Lucier in his book, Music 109: Notes on Experimental Music (Wesleyan University Press, 2012) and by David Byrne in: How Music Works (McSweeney's, 2012).