Jennifer Hruska

The Underground Forest, the debut CD release from well-known sound designer and electronic instrument designer Jennifer Hruska, is a deep musical journey into the artist’s personal life and creative struggles. A rich blend of alternative pop, rock and ethnic-electronica, the songs are inspired by the book Women Who Run with the Wolves (Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ballantine Books) and is dedicated to all "wild women" traveling in the ancient underground forest of their lives.
The artist, Jennifer Hruska, began her musical career as a songwriter and classically trained vocalist. Soon after music school, however, she relocated to Boston, Massachusetts and joined forces with Kurzweil Music Systems where she could unleash her passions for synthesizers and electronic music production. There she co-developed the company’s award winning electronic synthesizers, namely the K1000, K2000 and K2500 series samplers.
After 9 years of intense sound design, audio engineering and instrument development, Hruska was anxious to get back to her music and left Boston for the Cyber Arts scene in San Francisco, CA. There she joined the electronic percussion performing ensemble D’Cuckoo as a singer and multi-instrumentalist. D’Cuckoo, now disbanded, had huge success performing for large festivals (Bumpershoot, SIGGRAPH) high-tech corporate parties (Industrial Light and Magic, Adobe) and even opening for the Grateful Dead. The band, known for its cutting-edge interactive shows, debuted such inventive performance ideas as giant glowing (hand made) MIDI marimbas, drum controllers, and the MIDI-Ball, a huge ‘beach ball’ retrofitted with wireless electronics and tossed into the audience such when hit, would trigger sound effects. The band would jam along with the audience in their characteristic techno-tribal sound.
Post D’Cuckoo, Hruska moved back to Boston, Massachusetts, where she founded SONiVOX, a music technology company which produces and sells music software for musicians and composers. SONiVOX sound libraries can be heard throughout the industry in major motion pictures, TV shows and commercials, artist CDs and high end music software products such as Ableton Live, Native Instruments KORE, Sibelius Music Products, and many, many others. Her work at SONiVOX has led to many accolades including being listed at one of 56 visionaries in “The Art of Digital Music”, David Battino, Stewart Copeland.
Today, Hruska is once again anxious to pursue her more personal musical voice. The Underground Forest debut CD represents the first chapter in the artist’s newest life chapter. A second CD is currently underway as well as a new interactive performing group, scheduled to debut Summer 2008.