Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) was alive in December 2011 with the sounds of site-specific compositions flowing through gracefully fluted amplifiers made by SAIC alum Ian Schneller (MFA 1986) at his Specimen Products Workshop in Chicago. First shown at New York’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 2010, Sonic Arboretum included two sold-out performances by Andrew Bird in addition to the exhibition, which ran from December 6–31 at the MCA. Schneller has carved out a remarkable career making instruments and amplifiers first for himself and then for friends and other musicians.