SAY MAYFIRE is a sonic clown, performance artist, and keyboardist from the United States, a contemporary indigenous artist of Chahta Okla. Their artwork has been performed and exhibited in locations such as Boston, Chicago, Cork City, Fort Worth, Oklahoma City, Waco, and various locations in the rural midwest United States. 

their artistic output flows from four creative pools: performance art, clowning, contemporary art music, and sound art. they explore this transdisciplinary practice through both electronic and acoustic sound media while often incorporating theatrical elements of absurdity or humor. SAY’s work is notably marked with numerical process, sudden emotional changes, exhaustion & self-torture, and Experimentalism.  

in addition to solo work, SAY is a collaborator with violist Freya Downey in F.M. Duo, an Experimental and improvisational duo home-based in Oklahoma. Other collaborations/friends are with Trauma Box Collective, an Irish-international group of experimental artists; Latitude49, North American new music ensemble.

SAY is also an avid advocate in the realm of education access and music education reform. They have worked alongside the Hispanic Scholarship Fund in the Gates Scholarship Summer Institute in Dallas and Young Leader’s Summit in Chicago, mentored with CollegeKey Foundation, lectured for Upward Bound, and have coached students across the country into higher education. SAY has taught musical and sonic arts for seven years, teaching piano and listening skills through experimental, collaborative, and meditative practices. They currently hold a position within the piano faculty at Merit School of Music in Chicago, teaching class piano, improvisation systems, and private lessons. Say is also the director of musics at Unity Lutheran Church in Chicago. 

SAY holds a Master of Arts degree in Experimental Sound Practice from University College Cork in Cork City, Ireland, and a Bachelor of Music degree in Performance in piano from Baylor University in Waco, Texas. They hold the prestigious status Gates Scholar and Choctaw-Ireland Scholar. Notable mentors include John Godfrey, Jeffrey Weeter, Karen Power, Mick O’Shea, Danny McCarthy, Scott McAllister, Ben Johansen, Terry Lynn Hudson, Jani Parsons.