Dianne Ballon

Sound Artist

dballon@maine.edu
Brown RCA Radio circa 1952
Brown RCA Radio circa 1952
Dianne gathering audio cords on the rocks at sundown
Dianne Ballon is available for:
Audio & Radio Production
Sound Design    Teaching
Creating Audio Theatre

About

Dianne Ballon is a sound artist from Maine. She spent years as a visual artist before sound caught her ear.  During semester breaks at Massachusetts College of Art, she volunteered in Appalachia.  Listening to the rich story-telling tradition and music from the hills and hollows opened her ears to sound. 

She was awarded a Maine Artist Fellowship from the Maine Arts Commission.  Ten of her sound works have aired on National Public Radio’s All Things ConsideredLost and Found: Sounds of the Maine Coast by Dianne Ballon is on exhibit at the Maine Maritime Museum through November 2024.  Currently, she teaches audio production online through Maine College of Art & Design, SALT Institute for Documentary Studies.

At Shenandoah National Park she was awarded an Artist-in-Residency.  She created a sound portrait of the park, recording the natural sounds and recollections about mountain life.  She produced sound for the national exhibition, The Marines and Tet:
The Battle That Changed the Vietnam War
.  At the Goethe Institute, she presented her sound installation Musical Instrument Dreams.  The lecture was part of a series that featured sound artists from around the world.

At the University of Maine at Augusta, she taught independent study in audio production and a course in radio theatre.  Students were asked to write and perform a script, create sound effects, and record the drama.  The radio theatre work led to the National Audio Theatre Festivals’ Audio Theatre Workshop.  Participants from all over the country gather to learn, create, and perform radio theatre.  For over 10 years, she worked as a member of the teaching and production staff.  She taught digital audio editing and worked to produce live radio theatre that was simultaneously broadcast.

She produces sound for Tactile Images, a company that creates fine art for museums that is accessible to the blind through touch and sound. For the tactile painting, George Washington Crossing the Delaware, she created twenty-seven individual yet thematically connected audio drama mixes.  Both George Washington Crossing the Delaware and
The Marines and Tet: The Battle That Changed the Vietnam War are travelling exhibitions. 

Through the international company VoiceMap, she produced The Eastern Promenade in All Seasons, a GPS-based audio walk for Portland, Maine.  Included are recollections from a local who grew up in the neighborhood.  Users download the walk with a smartphone and as they walk, an audio track triggers each GPS point of interest along the way. 

She has taught many audio workshops and classes to artists, producers, podcasters and students.  This includes: Maine College of Art & Design, PRX Podcast Garage, Harvard Sound Education conference, Harvard Music Department, National Audio Theatre Festivals, California State University Media Studies, Concordia University in Montreal women and sound technology conference and Bridgewater College Theatre Arts.

At several Audubon Societies, she presented her field recordings of bird sounds. 
She was a guest lecturer at the historic Audubon Page Turning at Bowdoin College Archives.  In the 1990s, s
he served as Chair of the Media Arts Advisory Panel at the
Maine Arts Commission. 

For an international radio art competition, she was awarded for her field recording:
Boats Creaking at a Dock in IcelandA more challenging field recording was accomplished farther north in Iceland close to the Arctic Circle. 

Not one tree, bush or stone shielded the blustery wind crossing the tundra.  On a 10-mile hike in the midnight sun, wearing every layer she brought, she recorded the sound of one lone bird singing.   And for a short moment, the wind took a rest.