︎







::2025::

—MAR 28
RISE & RETURN Equinox Festival
w/ Liberation Ecosytem @ Middlebury College (VT)
       [facilitator:: Expanded Listening Practice_sound and map walk]



::2024::

—NOV 1_6:00pm
Community meal and activation of What is your first memory of dirt? centering a Puerto Rican meal prepared by Castro using local ingredients from Nuestras Raíces, a grassroots urban agriculture organization based in Holyoke founded by migrating farmers from Puerto Rico. The meal will center land and remembrance as a collective tool towards liberation. @ A.P.E. Ltd’s Workroom (Northampton, MA)

—OCT 25_1:00pm—10:00pm
Aural archive installation of What is your first memory of dirt? gathers participants’ first memories of dirt in an intimate, analog recording session @ CPR – Center for Performance Research (Brooklyn, NY)

—OCT 16_5:00pm
Storytelling and Aural Archive Event featuring What is your first memory of dirt? centering family, land, and remembrance as a collective tool towards liberation. Local teens interview their families and neighbors about their first memories of land@ Holyoke Public Library with Holyoke Media (Holyoke, MA)

—OCT 6_12:00pm
Activation of What is your first memory of dirt? with community garden members centering land and remembrance as a collective tool toward liberation @ La Huerta Roots & Rays Garden as part of their Autumn Equinox Celebration with refreshments, drum circle with Entera Music & Wellness and a Water Ceremony with Cristina Puzio (Chicago, IL)

—SEP 28_2:00pm—4:00pm (on view —NOV 6)
Activation of What is your first memory of dirt? with tea and dialogue @ The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center part of Historias Launch Block Party (Manahatta)

—SEP 7 (on view —NOV 6)
Activation of What is your first memory of dirt?  followed by a movement score performed by devynn emory with ice pops, limbers de coco y limón, @ The Invisible Dog Art Center (Brooklyn, NY)

—MAY 18-19
24HR Drone Festival ‘24 @ Basilica Hudson (Hudson, NY) ︎︎︎
  [solo audio performance]

—APR 18-21
Blue Ecology for Future Memory presentation for BECOMING FUTURES Festival:      A sound festival dedicated to science fiction, utopias and imaginative futures // Radiophonic Futurities A playlist curated by Mark Vernon of Radiophrenia
@ Radio Papesse at Timespan (Scottish Highlands, UK) ︎︎︎

—FEB
VT Releaf Winter Storytelling Workshop @ Virtual
     [co-facilitated workshop w/ Murphy Barney]



::2023::

—SEP 29-31
Cannonball Festival + Philadelphia Fringe Festival @ FIDGET Space, Philadelphia 
    flooding is what they call it | live sound score for dance w/ Tyler Rai, Maghan Baptiste, Sophia Dunn-Fox, and marion spencer ︎︎︎

—SEP 21
Equinox Festival // Vermont Releaf Collective @ New Suns Space, Thetford VT
    event production, concert, artist curation, workshops

—AUG 23
Radiophrenia 2023
    Blue Ecology for Future Memory  radio broadcast for 87.9 FM  Glasgow ︎︎︎

—JULY 13
WaveForms: A multimedia art occurrence
@ Museum of Science, Boston ︎︎︎
    Co-regulating the Spectrum: Meanwhile the wave︎︎︎ 4.1 presentation (Futures of Listening Spatial Sound Mixtape)

—MAY 21
Sound + Map Workshop for youth
@ Earth Sky Time w/ Vermont Village School and VT EduColor Retreat

—APR 27-30
Radio Preservation Task Force Conference @ Library of Congress_D.C.︎︎︎
    Radio Art Archive Presentation w/ Wave Farm + solo performance of Co-regulating the Spectrum: Meanwhile the wave 

—MAR 21
VT Releaf Oral History + Storytelling Event @ Alchemist Brewery in Stowe, VT
    [co-facilitated workshop w/ Murphy Barney]

—MAR 6-8 [full moon] Blue Ecology for Future Memory radio piece @ Radio Amnion  ︎︎︎
    [radio broadcast]

WGXC Afternoon Show: José Alejandro Rivera's "Blue Ecology for Future Memory" for Radio Amnion @ WGXC 90.7-FM: Radio for Open Ears ︎︎︎
    [radio broadcast]

Visting Artist //  workshop and in-progress presentation @ Mason Gross Dance_Rutgers University
    [radio, sound, dance/movement performance w/ Tyler Rai and Marion Spencer]

Art's Birthday Radio: The Conduction Series ︎︎︎
   [3-hour live collaborative remote performance and broadcast)



::2022::

WGXCAfternoon Show: José Alejandro Rivera and Gregory Whitehead @ WGXC 90.7-FM: Radio for Open Ears ︎︎︎
   [radio broadcast and interview]

Audio Exchange Network:: delay, relay, feedback, loop workshop @ Wave Farm ︎︎︎
   [3-part remote workshop on collaborative radio making]

Unlocking the Air “EXCHANGE” @ A.P.E.'s Workroom Theater | Northhampton, MA 
   [radio, sound, dance/movement performance w/ Tyler Rai]

Tidewater Residency @ Bennington College | Bennington, VT    [sound performance for dance/movement score w/ Tyler Rai, Tatyana Tenenbaum, Marion Spencer, Sophia Dunn-Fox]



::2020::

Violence in Boston Fundraiser / Nonevent @ Virtual
    [solo performance, electronics, field recordings, processing]

NonEvent At Home 7 @ Virtual
    [solo performance, electronics, field recordings, processing]

Electric Streams of Wind CD booklet/object release @ Industry Lab | Cambridge, MA
    [AV 4-channel performance, radio, EM, field recordings, electronics]

Sonorium @ Salem Access TV | Salem, MA
    [custom maxmsp patch, radio feedback, electronics]



::2019::

Grounding Aether @ deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum | Lincoln, MA
    [channel exterior audio performance / field activation, custom software]

Solo Performance :: Variations @ Bromfield Arts Gallery | Boston, MA
    [4 channel audio performance]



::2018::

Solo Performance :: Moon Villian @ Chinatown | Boston, MA
    [4-channel AV performance]

MIT Dissolve Music Conference @ Warehouse XI | Cambridge, MA
    [19.9-channel audio performance]

Solo Performance @ Washington Street Arts Center | Cambridge, MA
    [3-channel audio performance]

Unknown Results // The Perception Of Order Within Group Exhibition @ Aviary Gallery | Jamaica Plain, MA
    [solo & duo audio performance w/ Michael Rosenstien]

Sonic Section Perspectives (For Paul Rudolph) @ CVPA UMass Dartmouth | New Bedford, MA
        [co-composer, technical director, performer, multichannel audio performance for 6 participants]



::2017::

Vespers 08: Seasonalities | Somerville, MA
    [solo audio performance, map notation, field recordings, electronics]

Electric Streams Performance @ Goethe Institut Boston | Boston, MA
    [solo AV performance, radio, field recordings, processing]

Together Boston Festival @ Middlesex Lounge | Cambridge, MA
    [solo multimedia performance, field recordings, processing, electronics]

Solo multimedia presentation @ Washington St. Arts Center | Somerville, MA
    [AV performance, field recordings, processing, electronics]

Xfest 2017 Group Exhibition @ Holyoke City Hall | Holyoke, MA
    [collective audio performances, workshops]

Rare Frequency Podcast 58 @ WZBC 90.3fm | Newton, MA
    [solo radio performance]

Multimedia presentation @ Le Laboratoire | Cambridge, MA
    [solo 4 channel AV performance]



::2016::

The Document @ fortyK Gallery | Cambridge, MA
    [solo AV presentation: MECHAN 32-0, group exhibition]

METAPATTERNS: PROCESSES IN TIME — An evening of experimental sound works by ANDREA PENSADO / FORREST LARSON / JOSE RIVERA / JAKE MEGINSKY / VICTORIA SHEN @ MIT List Visual Arts Center | Cambridge, MA    
    [co-curator, solo 8-channel audio performance]

Multimedia presentation @ Le Laboratoire | Cambridge, MA
    [EM, field recordings, electronics, 4-channel]



::2015::

5 Actions, Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College, 1933–1957 @ ICA Boston | Boston, MA
    [4 experimental music performances, room notations & electronics, workshops, group exhibition]

Reflections of a Thousand Faces @ MIT List Visual Art Center | Cambridge, MA
    [12-channel sound installation & performance, field recordings, electronics]



::2014::

Pangea Project 59 @ Venture Compound | St. Petersburg, FL
    [solo piece for guitar, electronics and vhs data feedback]

Multimedia Presentation @ Seahive | Sarasota, FL
    [solo piece for guitar, electronics and vhs data feedback]


workshops + teaching
                        (in process, check back soon)



Audio Exchange Network::

delay, relay, feedback, loop
2022—FALL
workshop_Wave Farm, Acra NY 



Mondays, November 14, 21, and 28, 2022
5 - 7 pm EST on Zoom

Join Wave Farm Radio Art Fellow José Alejandro Rivera for this three-part, free workshop series taking place on Monday evenings in November.


To sign up for this workshop click here.

*Pending the location of participants, the final session may be an in-person or hybrid listening event.


This series of process-based production workshops explore the ways radio can inhabit, be affected by, or create systems of delay, relay, feedback, and loops. How might particular experiences of multiple users across time and space affect dynamics between sender and receiver? How might qualities of simultaneity, “live-ness” and recorded audio be exploited or utilized? What is needed for access and participation in systems where exchanging live/recorded audio is a tool for artistic radio processes?

Participants will have opportunities to engage with precedents that include, but are not limited to, specific works from the Wave Farm Radio Art Archive︎︎︎, create (and respond to) individual pieces that will contribute to a collective audio work, and consider potential possibilities between “one-way” vs. “two-way” processes, networked systems, net/web radio, broadcasting FM/AM, and other methods of sharing audio/transmission.

Each session will be informed by the experience, skills, interests, and engagement of the participants. The sessions will include brief presentation, precedents, group discussion, interactive experiments, and time to create short (1-2 minute) recordings / audio works. Sessions will also include special guest artist Patrick McGinley (aka murmer)︎︎︎ the producer and host of framework︎︎︎, a weekly radio program dedicated to field recording and its use in composition that airs on over a dozen radio stations around the world.

Prompts will be the basis for the creation of recordings that allow participants to individually respond to one another’s work through sonic means. A series of staggered audio responses will serve as building blocks for the next prompt/response. A possible final result may be a co-created collection of directives, processes, and/or responses that will contribute to an in-person/hybrid listening session and/or broadcast.

Becoming Otherwise

2021—WINTER
Remote Course



I designed, developed, hosted, and co-facilitated an 8-week course exploring individual and communal practices in expanded states of consciousness. Topics and practices included maps, meditation, yoga, herbalism and earth-based ritual, entheogens and psychedelic therapies, breathwork, dreamwork, and integration.

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Throughout the 8 weeks, practictioners, artists, and cultural workers were invited to share deeper wisdom, exercises, and teachings. Guests included brontë velez, Esteban Da Cruz, Bett Williams, and Siedeh Foxie.

Learn more here︎︎︎

Lecturer

2019—FALL
School of the Museum of Fine Arts / Tufts | Boston, MA
The Practice of Everyday Listening examined a variety of conceptual approaches to the role of sound in everyday environments. Through soundwalks, field recording, listenings, readings, and other “ear cleaning” exercises, students developed critical listening and recordings skills. Strategies and techniques were drawn from texts including R. Murray Schafer’s acoustic ecology philosophy and then applied to the students' projects.

︎

A History of Sonic Art examined the historical, theoretical and aesthetic bases of sound, noise, and music throughout modernity. The course took as its point of departure from the development of mechanical media following the stages of industrialization in the early twentieth century. Roughly chronological, the course traced the early European Avant-Garde through to post-war experimentation, and then onto postmodern sampling, laptop culture, and the acceptance and expansion of "sound art" within the institution of art.

SMFA/Tufts 1630AM Wavefarm.org broadcast of student work. Orginal air date 12.18.2019. Produced by José A. Rivera.

Featuring work by Myshko Chumak (Enclosed Seas), Camila A. Sanchez-Longo (Sound of Resistance), Juyon Lee (Train Rides during Morning Rush Hour), David Mansour (The Air Chase), Ben Mertik (untitled), Logan Fang Yee (untitled), Kayla Le Heux (untitled), Jamie Doo (Sonic Kintsugi), and Kaycee Feldman’s Harmony of Disparity. Intro sounds by Proxemia (José A. Rivera, Electric Streams of Wind).

Mobile Subjects

2019—JUN 15
deCordova Sculpture Park & Museum | MA

Mobile Subjects was a workshop I developed around sound and sensory perception, physical movement, and spatial thinking. Participants were encouraged to focus on sounds at particular points on site, and interpret their observations during listening, drawing, and slow movement portions of the program. Maps made from memory were created, shared, and discussed among the group.

The program was 1/3 of my engagement with the deCordova Sculpture Park & Museum, which also included an artist talk on aural cartography and a live performance and field activation︎︎︎ of Andy Graydon’s City Lights Orchestra outdoor sculpture.

Art + Nature Program, Performance + Event, Workshop, Artist Talk