If you want to transform your life, music and technology can help, declares artist and tech adviser Clara Venice. Drawing on everything from the theremin to oracle cards, from deep listening to tech empowerment, Clara is building a world where everyone is a sound designer, where synths come in colors like pink and lilac, and where we all find our healing sonic identity. 

“Your sonic aesthetic is your power,” states Clara. “It's powerful to be able to manifest your mood. It’s powerful to be able to craft a world around you where you feel connected and grounded. When you talk to musicians, you can take this power for granted. I want to make sure everyone can feel connected to this power.”

Clara knows this power intimately. A “theremin prodigy” (CBC Radio) and polymath with a philosophy degree, she has built a creative world from the ground up. As a composer, producer, and independent artist, Clara has opened for Barenaked Ladies and Violent Femmes. Her solo performances use tech to bathe audiences in mesmerizing sound, softly challenging assumptions about tech’s role with all-pink instruments. She regularly advises music gear and tech companies to make their products appeal to more potential creators outside the usual dude-osphere, and she is a trained sound healer. When not creating healing soundscapes, new tech paradigms, or pop meditations, she composes for and contributes to albums, films, and shows—including an upcoming collaboration with the new reboot of Star Trek: The Next Generation. 

Now, she’s unveiling her latest project, Dreamology, and her own online world, the Claraverse, to share her kinder, cozier approach to listening and music production with everyone, even those who have never known they might have an audio engineer inside them. Dreamology’s heartfelt polychrome pop songs form the foundation for the project, but it’s far more than just an album. It’s a world-building starter kit and interactive (non-video) game that unites elements from oracle cards to deep listening prompts, all designed to bring everyone into closer relationship with their inner sonic creator. (The first single, featuring a video by artist Alex McLeod drops February 27, 2025.) 

Dreamology encourages music lovers to engage with music’s technical and emotional sides. “I wanted to create a holistic experience with the songs, to reveal how what you’re hearing and feeling is part of your world, your practice, your comforting ritual,” she notes. “The album and related experiences are just an introduction. The tools you learn, that I’m sharing, can apply to anything. Do you like this sound or this vibe? Get to the next level, and you’ll discover your sonic aesthetic and use that to play.”

This discovery process, Clara believes, needs to be liberated from the confines of our current overly algorithm-driven reality, one built for tech profiteering, not self expression. To free tech for more potential users, we need to rethink the entire cultural context of music tech, right down to the color of synthesizers. “When you walk into a good music gear store and you're greeted with a wall of black, you can’t help but wonder if something about the tools could be keeping people out,” Clara muses. “I was speaking to a friend from Buchla, the synth manufacturer, and he said many of their customers talk about going down into the basement when they’re sad or frustrated to play their synthesizer. It’s therapy. But women don't feel as drawn to that outlet, perhaps in part because of the way tech is designed and presented. There is something about the tools that needs to change.”
 
Clara knows how powerful tech can be in enhancing music’s magic. Trained in classical violin from the age of five, she fondly remembers the synthesizer that always sat in the living room when she was growing up. “I played with the presets and imagined all sorts of stories based on what they sounded like,” she recalls. “When my friends would come over we’d sit around it and play.” This experience taught Clara that music “shouldn’t be cut off from life. If you think about the history of music, people were always making music casually. If they had a few minutes, they’d sit down at the piano.” 

Over time, music making became more than a fun pastime or social activity for Clara; it became a source of self-discovery and healing. She learned that one sure-fire way to grapple with life’s difficult emotions and challenges was to make something. During an extremely trying period of Clara’s life, she discovered that “the main thing that helped when I was really upset was to create. We’ve always been told we should consume in our culture. But that didn’t help. When I create, I can transform and grapple with my emotions. I’m making a soundtrack for my life; I’m making a world. Music doesn’t make your problems go away, but it creates an overlay that can build resilience that gives you a soft place to land.” 

That overlay can heal, connect, and fire up the imagination of anyone, even people who never connected with music production or tech before. Clara is working to bring a new approach to music production, what she calls “cozy producing,” acknowledging that the technical side of recording and mixing is only half of the process. “The other half is about feelings and lifestyle, about recognizing the softer side of making music and having the technology reflect that,” she notes.

To make music production cozier, Clara is working with gear makers and designers to include more options that specifically appeal to young women and girls. The usual look and feel of tech can potentially alienate this group, Clara argues, which is why she encourages companies to think pink (or purple or other fun colors) when creating their products. And manufacturers are listening, as her upcoming all-pink tech performances prove.

The ultimate goal, no matter what the synth’s color, is to bring more people to the healing, thrilling practice of shaping sound as a way to shape their world: “You can find your own sonic identity and create your own soundtrack for your main-character energy. You can turn the challenge and boredom you’re feeling online into something more,” she says.

One part of Clara Venice’s unique sonic identity is the theremin, which appears in subtle and not-so-subtle ways on every track. It’s a charismatic, otherworldly instrument, but it’s also a symbol for how music and tech can make real, enduring magic together--for everyone. “When people see the theremin, they are struck. It can take over the conversation. That’s the thing about the theremin. Even though I know how it works, even though I know the science, it still feels like magic. It’s a symbol of how our energy and intentions can change the world,” Clara explains. “You can create something out of nothing, using this invisible energy.” Energy Clara Venice is bringing to open the world of tech-driven music to all.