Tucked up on Bush Street at the edge of Pacific Heights is a fascinating and charming performance venue that's an audiophile's dream. It's full name is Audium-Theater of Sound, and while for decades it served as the instrument and platform for one man's electronic music compositions, it is now being shared with up-and-coming artists via a residency program.

Audium is the creation of 96-year-old composer and spacial sound art pioneer Stan Shaff, and technical designer Doug McEachern, who, with the help of several grants from the National Endowment for the Arts built this unique sound space at 1616 Bush Street in 1976.

Shaff and other electronic composers of his generation often needed to invent their own technologies to achieve their artistic visions. And Audium took shape as a highly controlled environment in which 49 audience members, seated in the dark in two concentric circles, were bathed in multi-dimensional sound performances from 169 speakers installed across floor, ceiling, walls, and in the center of the space.

From a sound-mixing booth in the style of a sci-fi spaceship's command deck, Shaff delighted fans for decades with a series of compositions written for this unique space, which is a kind of instrument unto itself.

These days, son David Shaff is running Audium and featuring the work of three emerging artists at a time — each of whom, through a residency program, is given time to create a work in and for the space. Audium was retooled somewhat for the digital age in 2020 with seven more speakers added, for a total of 176 — father and son David and Stan Shaff began collaborating on sound pieces a few years prior, and Stan Shaff is now fully retired. But the 70s vibe, complete with the theater's red carpeting and overall look, remain intact.

The latest group of pieces, titled New Voices: IV, premiered last week, and it features new works by Philip Laurent, Shanti Lalita, and Briana Marela. Each artist also created visual and/or video pieces to accompany their works which are on view in the lobby — where audience members gather before being ushered into the theater, and where they return between each piece.

Laurent's piece, Remote Viewing, is the only purely musical composition of the three. Created using looping layers of tones from several instruments — bassoon, alto saxophone, cello, pipe organ, and synthesizer — the piece is immersive, sublime, and moving. And Laurent says that it is about "how space can be measured in possibilities."

Lalita's piece, Sense/less, leans more into the performance art realm, featuring themes of immigration, xenophobia, and personal body image. Lalita interacts with the audience prior to the performance, focusing on the physical senses, and the piece features spoken word, sounds of the rainforest, electric cello, and improvisation — as well as a recording of a certain comedian's infamous remarks at a Trump rally.

And Marela's piece, Qué Pena, which is performed last, feels the most deeply personal of the three. It centers on her specific family story and her grief after her father's death, having never become fluent enough in Spanish to bond with him. Marela says the piece "invites audiences to explore and attempt to heal parts of [our] own inner worlds that keep us from living to our full potential," by bearing witness to hers.

David Shaff says that his father doesn't make it out much these days and hasn't yet heard the new series of compositions, but that he's "super excited by what the residents are doing, [and] he feels like it's taking his vision to a whole new level."

Shaff adds that with the theater's multiple updates in recent years,  his dad "likes to joke that he'd have to apply as a resident and attend the orientation a few times to learn how to compose for the space again!"

New Voices IV plays through April 5, and you can find tickets here. The three pieces are performed on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights only. (Be warned, you will be sitting in pitch blackness for the length of each piece, which is about 20 minutes each. But there are glow-in-the-dark arrows on the floor to guide you if you must leave.)

This July, there is going to be a "rewind" event in the space for everyone who wants to have the original Audium experience, hearing one of Stan Shaff's pieces composed for the space when it opened in 1976. Audium VI, which is the title of that composition, will be presented in July, and you can find more details when they're posted here.