Ellen Fullman

Ellen Fullman (born 1957) is an American composer, instrument builder, and performer. She was born in Memphis, Tennessee, and is currently based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is known for her 70-foot (21-meter) Long String instrument, tuned in just intonation and played with rosin-coated fingers.

Fullman studied sculpture at the Kansas City Art Institute before moving to New York in the early 1980s. In Kansas City she created and performed in an amplified metal sound-producing skirt and wrote art songs which she recorded in New York for a small cassette label. In 1981, she began developing the Long String Instrument at her studio in Brooklyn, consisting of dozens of metallic strings played with rosin-coated fingers and producing a chorus of organ-like partials. This instrument has been compared to the experience of standing inside an enormous grand piano. She has recorded extensively with this unusual instrument and has collaborated with such luminary figures as composer Pauline Oliveros, choreographer Deborah Hay, the Kronos Quartet, and Frances-Marie Uitti.

Fullman has been the recipient of numerous awards, commissions and residencies including: a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award (2015); a McKnight Visiting Composer Residency from American Composers Forum (2010), Artist-In-Residence, Headlands Center for the Arts (2008); Center for Cultural Innovation Investing in Artists Grant (2008); Japan/U.S. Friendship Commission/NEA Fellowship for Japan (2007); DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program residency (2000); Artist Trust/Washington State Arts Commission Fellowship (1999); and Meet the Composer, Reader's Digest Consortium Commission (1993). Her recent performance with Austin New Music Co-op at the Seaholm Power Plant was given a Critic's Table Award for Best Chamber Performance, 2009-2010.

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