When Ela was six years old his father made a deal with him: "I won't buy you any toys, but I'll help you make anything you want." Thus, Ela set out on the path of creating objects, an attitude and a life style that were enhanced by his home schooling and the creative environment of his home in the mountains of Southern Oregon. In 1989, at the age of sixteen, he enrolled in college, graduating from the Atlanta College of Art with a BFA in sculpture in 1993.
While he was a student at ACA, Ela developed a frolicking relationship with sound and form that has resulted in more than thirty sculptures that are musical instruments - or instruments that are sculptures. It was there, too, that he began exploring the interaction between viewer and object that sound-sculpture makes possible - public works that could be played by anyone interested enough to try - and there that he first began performing, both in his own productions and in collaboration with the dance company Moving in the Spirit and choreographer Leah Mann. Since its beginnings, then, Ela's art has encompassed and synthesized sculpture, music and dance/theater into one form.
Ably guided by his intuition, Ela moved to Seattle in 1994, where he began working with the physical theater ensemble, UMO, providing original scores that he played on his unique instruments, collaborating on performance pieces, and creating musical sets for shows.
In 1996 Ela founded the Lela Performance Group (now Lelavision) with long-time collaborator Leah Mann and has since opened Lela Studio. The name of the group is more than a play on the names of the founders; derived from two Sanskrit terms meaning "creation" and "creative spark", with inferences to "play," it denotes the spirit of the performance group. The six- member company combines modern and aerial dance, music, theater, and large interactive musical sculptures to create innovative works of awe and whimsy.
Among other awards, grants, and commissions, Ela has received a grant from the Seattle Arts Commission to create dance-activated, kinetic musical-sculptures for the Soundcycles project; a grant from Artist Trust to create a "musical garden of sculpture" for exhibition and performance; a grant from the King County Arts Commision to develop Kinesis, a concert featuring five performers playing the Longwave, a thirty foot stringed instrument ; and grants from the Jack Straw Foundation where he recorded three CDs: Tone Pond, the newest CD with seventeen instruments; Raga to the River, an extended improvisation in the Dhrupad form of Indian music, and Sculptauralfeaturing fifteen sculptures. Orbitones Spoonharps, and Bellowphones, a book and CD compilation on experimental instrument inventors, not only features Ela's work; it also takes its name from his musical-aerobatic swing the "Orbitone." This book and CD put out by Ellipsis Arts also includes such notables as Tom Waits, Stomp, and John Cage.

Click here to read an article by Ela published in Experimental Instruments Magazine, June 1999.

Click here to find out more about Ela's music, listen to a sample track, and find out how to order CDs.