Odd Instrument Inventor, Walter Kitundu, Awarded $500,000!
Congratulations to Walter Kitundu who is 1 of 24 people to be awarded a $500,000 grant by the MacArthur Foundation. His work in experimental instruments is truly incredible. Walter is a 35 year-old bird photographer, teacher, and oddstrument maker. He is the creator of the phonoharp (a hybrid turntable harp) pictured below.
Check out Walter Kitudu’s website for more fantastic homemade experimental instruments.
San Francisco sound artist, instrument builder and composer Walter Kitundu, best known for his phonoharp, which makes the common record player a stringed instrument, was named a MacArthur Fellow on Monday night.
Kitundu, 35, is the only Bay Area recipient of the annual award, which comes with a $500,000 grant, funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Kitundu, like the 24 other winners in a variety of fields, may use the money as he sees fit. The MacArthur awards are shrouded in secrecy and the surest way to not win one is to apply for it. Nominees are anonymously submitted by leaders in their field, and the only way to know you are up for a MacArthur is when they call to say you have won.
In Kitundu’s case the call came when he was driving his 1984 Honda to the Potrero Hill campus of California College of the Arts, where he is the Wornick Distinguished Visiting Professor of Wood Arts. “I couldn’t respond for several seconds. I had five minutes to digest the news before teaching a class for six hours.”
Kitundu said he had no plans yet for the money but they didn’t involve calling in sick. It is hard to find a substitute for a studio furniture course that focuses on design that integrates wind, water, tides, geologic movement, temperature and animal behaviors.
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“I have a project in mind for Iceland where you make recordings in the lava fields,” he said. “I’m thinking of making 10-foot diameter records and installing them in places where they’re likely to be covered in lava someday. The goal is to play the resulting stone records on 15-foot hand-cranked Victrolas.” There is no timetable on this turntable.
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