Who is Sonic Escape?

Sonic Escape features Maria Kaneko Millar (violin) and Shawn Wyckoff (flute), a pair of Juilliard graduates whose hyper-instrumentals, stories, moves and original works have landed them on hundreds of stages across 45 North American states & provinces. “Wonderfully imaginative… with a wide-ranging, anything-goes sense of fun.” (The Washington Post)

The Fearless Performer Series

Join Maria LIVE on YouTube from August 13 – 19, 2022 @ 1 pm EST as she discusses the 7 essential elements that will make your performances extraordinary! This free series will feature a talk each day followed by a premiere from Maria’s recent Celtic/Classical show with the Victoria Symphony conducted by Sean O’Loughlin.

Adventures in Music + Film

We spent MANY hours in a forest – not a person in sight – taking turns filming, playing (and swatting mosquitoes) to bring you our latest creation. Canada Council for the Arts’ Digital Originals grant – an initiative spurred by the pandemic to help artists, arts groups, and organizations pivot their work for online sharing – enabled us to purchase the equipment we used to film this (and also livestream). We are so grateful.

Watch Sonic Escape Perform for the Flute Center of New York

We had so much fun putting this performance together for you to enjoy! Dozens of livestreams (and our awesome YouTube audience!) have powered us to capture the best sound + video possible in a single, unedited take. This is the culmination of that hard work! We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts. Click on pic to watch video:

This is our live show

We performed for a couple-thousand audience members at the Florida Music Education Association’s Annual Conference and, as luck would have it, we found a camera crew willing to fly down the aisles alongside us! We are so grateful to them for capturing our show… and to FMEA and Canada Council for the Arts for making this performance and video possible.

Concerts cancelled… so we come to you from our home!

Our March through May concerts have been cancelled, so we wanted to bring some good cheer to you – virtually – in these shared and dark times. We loved performing for the Crescent City Chamber Music Festival in New Orleans last October – today, we join forces once again to bring you this live-streamed performance (our first)!

Maria’s Violin Solos…

Check out Maria’s virtuosic rendition of tango La Cumparsita, now available in Sonic Escape‘s sheet music store! Also available for purchase is Sakura, which was recently published in a first-run printing of 12,400 copies for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM) and is currently sold in 90+ countries. Maria is the only living composer featured in the publication!

Telling a story with instruments…

Humanity is Maria’s response to hearing the cries of children separated from their parents at the US-Mexico border. She chose the violin & flute to tell the story of a mother and her young son – of hope for a shared future that compels them to run, desperately trying to keep a hold of each other in the face of a world that pulls them apart. Thank you to the Ontario Arts Council for making this composition possible.

Our first music video!!!

Of course, the day we decided to shoot our video, it rained!  We took it in stride, though, and even wrested a few dry minutes from the weather gods to whip out the drone!  Frizzy hair, muddy feet, rain-infested instruments… it’s all featured in our collaboration with cinematographer Umit Gulsen.  Without further ado, we proudly present:

Play Harder Series: Saving the Environment with Music (Entry 6)

Staying passionate about climate change is an uphill battle. Show me an image of starving children, animal abuse or yet another shooting and my heart jolts: “This must be stopped,” my brain (or voice) yells as I see red. But climate change? It’s the reverse – a brain-to-heart process of reminding myself, “Yes, this is what I should get fired up about, this is the biggest threat facing mankind!”

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Play Harder Series: Help Me, I’m an Artist (Entry 5)

I have always made my living as an independent performing artist.  A 9-to-5 job is as foreign to me as waking up early, establishing a routine or even teaching a student regularly. We artists share one thing in common – we need help!  Funding, booking, housing, brainstorming, bartering, watching, listening, feedback, encouragement… our success depends upon asking and receiving.

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Front-Page Feature in the Washington Daily News

Today’s Washington Daily News features Sonic Escape’s interview with Vail Stewart Rumley about their upcoming residency in North Carolina.  The 2 mainstage concerts, 11 outreach shows/public workshops and morning news show appearance run from October 3 – 9.  Check it out – SONIC BLAST: Musicians meld cultures in MainStage concert

2014/15 Season Coming Soon

We’re really looking forward to our line up of concerts, workshops and residencies starting in September 2014 – we’ll be touring the South for the first time in addition to returning to the West Coast, Rockies, Midwest, Mid-Atlantic, East Coast and (way) up North!  Keep an eye on our calendar as we’ll be posting dates over the next few weeks…

Debut of the Skiing Flutist

We’ve experienced a lot of winter storms on the East Coast of late and, rather than grumble about it, decided to pack our skis, flute & camera and head to Vermont!  A few tips:

  1. Downhill speed ≠ getting a sound
  2. Stick to the top octave (preferably with one hand to get in some dance moves)
  3. Below freezing temperatures might get you stuck to your flute
  4. Stop playing and throw the flute if you’re going to crash!

Hope you enjoy the video 🙂