Saturday 3 May

“It was my destiny to join in a great experience. Having had this destiny, I have no right to judge whether it was a dream or reality, whether the experience was true or false, whether I was deceived or not. I can only say: it was.”

“We do not see things as they are; we see them as we are.”

Hermann Hesse – Journey to the East

South East North West … All directions unfold within us, mirroring the polarities of our own minds.

We can choose to remain tethered to the notion of belonging to borders, to land or fixed identities, or we can travel through the shifting landscapes that constantly evolve within our own inner map.

Increasingly, in this era of digital connection, the ways we think, perceive, and understand the world are no longer confined to geographical locations. We are all migrating birds, gliding across an endless sea of possibilities.

This piece weaves together voices from a single day of telephone calls. Three migrating collaborators answered the theme: Korean American poet Hayne Kim; American ethnomusicologist Alex Dea, long rooted in Indonesia since the 1990s; and Canadian composer Scott Wilson, who crossed the Atlantic to settle in the UK two decades ago.

A box of unlabelled reels, discovered in the attic of my partner’s grandmother in the coastal Thai town of Srirajah, provides the core musical material. Bangkok-based trombonists Warawut Thomburanawong and Naphat Nooiad, along with saxophonist Yodkhon Suharitdumrong, contribute live acoustic responses that complement and extend the archival sounds.

Biography

Jean-David Caillouët is a sound and visual artist whose work often combines film, music (both acoustic and electronic), field recordings, choreography, and poetry within live performance contexts. Exploring the intersection of tradition and innovation, many of his recent projects incorporate thematic audiovisual collages alongside the evolving aesthetics of digital media.

He has performed internationally at renowned festivals such as Celtic Connections in Glasgow, the Edinburgh Fringe, BEAST FEaST in the UK, the Big Mountain Festival in Thailand, KLEX, SPECTRA, and Soundbridge in Malaysia, as well as Frontières Indécises in Hanoi, among others.

As a composer and producer, he has created sound and music for films, animations, theatre, and dance, showcasing works at venues like the the Royal Opera House and the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. His installation projects have been exhibited in diverse locations, including the historical caves of Kent’s Cavern in the UK, the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris, the Angkor Temples in Cambodia, and the Bangkok Art and Culture Center (BACC).

Dedicated to exploring and promoting awareness of Southeast Asia’s rich sonic cultures, he curated AS{{EAR}}N, an interactive multi-channel installation project that celebrates the region’s cultural diversity through sound. His ongoing film series documents Southeast Asian pioneering figures in New Music, highlighting their connections to local expressions and philosophies. TINIG-TUNOG-AN: The Life and Works of Ramon Pagayon Santos retraces the journey of the Filipino composer, who dedicated his career to connecting cultural expressions and uniting people through the language of music. He has recently completed a film about Otto Sidharta, the Indonesian pioneer of environmental electronic music.

He has studied at Brussels Royal Conservatoire, Dartington College of Arts and completed his PhD at Edinburgh University. He currently lectures in music composition, multimedia and production at PGVIM in Bangkok, Thailand.

Rust and Reverie explores the tension and interplay between the organise and the mechanical, where the delicate rustling of leaves is fragmented and reshaped through artificial processing, meeting the raw, unyielding textures of mechanical force. The piece reimagines natural sonic environments by subjecting them to artificial interventions – leaves crackle, stretch, distort and become metallicized under digital manipulation, while machinery carve through their fragility.

This composition interrogates the boundaries between the natural and the artificial, questioning whether the organic can withstand the imposition of mechanical rhythms or if it is inevitably subsumed. As the sound world unfolds, moments of symbiosis emerge, revealing unexpected timbral blends, harmonies, and tensions. Rust and Reverie invites listeners to consider the transformations of our landscapes – both sonic and physical – as human-made structures increasingly encroach upon the natural world. Can we ever truly listen to something truly natural?

Biography

Holly Gowland is a composer and researcher from Manchester, UK, currently undertaking a PhD at the University of Birmingham. Supervised by Annie Mahtani, Scott Wilson, and Phil Jones, her research explores the intersection of sound, urban space, and performance. She previously studied BMus (Hons) Composition at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire under Andrew Hamilton, Emma Margetson, Seán Clancy, and Joe Wright, before completing an MSt in Music (Composition) at the University of Oxford, studying with Jennifer Walshe and Martyn Harry.

Holly’s work focuses on integrating real and virtual elements, often developing new technologies to facilitate harmonic blending. Her compositions, rooted in field recordings, emphasise spatiality, adapting acoustics and manipulating material to fuse acoustic instruments with electronics. Recently, her work has explored gesture as a means of structuring perception, using visual signals to shape the listener’s experience.

She has received numerous accolades, including the Peter Redfearn Prize for Composition (2019) and the 7th Annual Henfrey Prize for Composition, as well as commissions from NMC (New Music Cassette, 2022). Other awards include the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Composition Prize, John Mayer Prize, Musicians’ Union Bill Warman Award, McQueen Bursary, Carole Emery Scholarship, and Ida Carroll Scholarship. Her music has been performed internationally at the 2023 International Electroacoustic Music Exhibition (Ecuador), Colaboradio (Berlin), and in Milwaukee, US, as well as at UK venues such as Centrala, Retune Festival (Holywell Music Room, Oxford), Sound/Image Festival 2024 (University of Greenwich), and CODA Festival (Royal Birmingham Conservatoire). She has also been commissioned by Molly Welling (in partnership with the University of Birmingham) and Naomi Sullivan (for the International Saxophone Festival).

Beyond composing, Holly is the co-founder of Electra Music, an initiative promoting electronic music and production for women, collaborating with artists such as Linda Buckley, Natalie Holt, and Sarah Belle Reid.

She is also a classically trained double bassist, performing with orchestras and experimental groups at venues including Centrala, Birmingham Hippodrome, Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, and Birmingham Symphony Hall.

This work is built up of noisy material produced using chaotic generators, which is then put through a signal processing patch made up of inter-modulated devices with audio and control signal feedback. This results in slowly changing sounds with ringing high frequencies and a dense spectrum. Multiple versions of these processed sounds are layered and arranged in space, resulting in static atmospheres that develop gradually and produce different micro-rhythms and interference patterns, with special emphasis on spatial and timbral counterpoint. There are also synthetic grain clouds that punctuate some of the gestures, as well as spatialized clouds into which the original material is scattered. The title is related to the sonic metaphor of being surrounded by a dense cloud of slowly moving fog.

Biography

Originally from Mexico City, Hector Bravo Benard studied philosophy and music at the University of Victoria (Canada), and later at the Xenakis Centre (France), the Institute of Sonology and the Royal and Rotterdam Conservatories (Netherlands), the Autonomous National University of Mexico, the University of Washington’s DXARTS center (USA), and the University of Birmingham (UK). He writes sound-based music for acoustic instruments, live electronics, and fixed media, with a focus on timbral and spatial elements. His works have been presented internationally at events such as the ICMC, BEAST FEaST, SEAMUS, Gaudeamus Festival, New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, Sonorities Belfast, Espacios Sonoros, ACMA, and the Kyma International Sound Symposium. Currently lives in the Netherlands, working as an independent artist and music software developer.

Bor(N)eo is an electroacoustic musical work that focuses on processing the sound of stagen looms. Processing of this material is done by recording the sound of weaving which is carried out by several weavers together. Then the recording is processed using a computer device. Here I process the sound material using Ableton and for some additions I use Max Msp to adjust the frequency and tempo randomly. In processing material, I also use a midi controller to adjust the frequency and produce timbre directly. I imagine how the sound of the forest in Kalimantan will develop into a synthetic sound.

Biography

Hery Kristian Buana Tanjung (1989) is a composer from Samarinda, Indonesia, in search of musical experiments. His focus incorporates a variety of environmental sounds and his preference for minimal music led him to electroacoustic composition.

To Folkmar Heine

Five short sections: alleluia, sacred dance, requiem, trance, tutelary voices, unite voices from all the world’s cultures and civilisations through treatments, mixes and spatial settings related to the theme, voices that are above all sacred, with the exception of the last section, which is an expanded variation of the last part of VOX ALIA I (parola volante). In these troubled times of division, fear, grief and the withdrawal of individuals and nations, I felt the need to express a desire for unity, sacredness and generosity through the most human of media: the voice.

“Vox Alia II : Cathédrales” was produced in 2021 at the Musiques & Recherches studio (Ohain, Belgium) and premiered on 30 October 2021 during DEGEM 30 @ ZKM: Verleihung des Thomas-Seelig-Fixed-Media-Musikpreises, ZKM_Kubus, Karlsruhe (Baden-Württemberg, Germany).

Vox Alia II was commissioned by the Thomas-Seelig-Fixed-Media-Award given by the DEGEM, and was awarded the PRIX Thomas Seelig

Biography

• Piano studies, writing technics (Brussels, Mons) composition (J. Absil), electroacoustics (with P. Schaeffer, G. Reibel CNSM Paris), Musicology (ULB). Taught : history of music, harmony, piano, choral singing.
• 1982 She founds Musiques & Recherches, season 5 concerts (Brussels), festival L’Espace du Son, Metamorphoses composition competition, espace du son spatialisation competition, group and acousmonium Influx (100 HP), 3 studios, residences, electrodoc documentation center on electroacoustic music.
• 1986, professor of acousmatic composition (Liège, Brussels, Mons) till 2016.
• 2000, founds the electroacoustic section of the conservatory of Mons, 15 specialised professors. . Performer in spatialization: her works and the repertory. More than 700 concerts, conferences, master classes. International career.
• Prize Sabam 85, 95. Schaeffer 2004, DEGEM Thomas Seelig 2021, Octave for contemporary music Belgium 2021.
• 2022, Annette Vande Gorne Foundation to support acousmatic music, young composers and the preservation of her works. Passionate about : Nature, physics, writing about space, voices, words, meaning, renewing the link with the past of artful music.

The premiere of Jean-David Caillouët’s documentary on Otto Sidharta

Otto Sidharta is widely recognised on the international stage as one of the pioneers of electronic music in Indonesia. His journey began in 1979 when he delved into experimental tape techniques and integrated environmental elements into his compositions. Notably, his 1979 piece Kemelut was entirely based on water sounds. Subsequently, he ventured to Nias Island, the Kalimantan (Borneo) jungle, and the Riau Islands, collecting nature and animal sounds that would later influence his works, such as the 1982 piece Ngendau, shaped by the materials and philosophies of the ethnic groups he encountered. Sidharta’s innovative approach often draws inspiration from natural processes and deeply rooted local philosophies, which find expression in his collaborative projects with choreographers and dancers.

His exposure to new perspectives on music and sound originated from the teachings of Salmet Abdul Sidharta, an influential composer who studied in Paris and introduced radical ideas that revolutionized musical thinking in Indonesia. Born in 1955 in Bandung, Otto Sidharta pursued music studies at the Jakarta Institute of Arts (Institut Kesenian Jakarta) and completed his postgraduate studies at Sweelinck Conservatorium in Amsterdam under the guidance of Professor Ton de Leew. He later earned his doctoral degree at Institut Seni Indonesia Surakarta.

This documentary film explores the philosophical and cultural dimensions integral to Sidharta’s expansive and diverse repertoire, with a specific focus on the Indonesian perspective.

dedicated to Folkmar Hein

A space (or concatenation of spaces) whose qualities we examine, explore and experience in sound… Different areas (sections) of this ‘chamber’ betray their physical sources, but also resonate with references to terms used in electroacoustic music and signal processing – in order: threshold, noise floor, brick wall, windowing, headroom. The final section combines materials from the first four in a kind of ‘free association’, after windowing ends with two further ‘windows’ which offer aural glimpses of ‘beyond’ – outside, to external spaces, but also within, to the internal space of the imagination.

Kammermusik was commissioned through the Thomas Selig Fixed Media Award given by DEGEM.

Biography

Jonty Harrison (born 1952) studied at the University of York between 1970 and 1976, before moving to London, where he worked at the National Theatre and City University. In 1980 he joined the Music Department of the University of Birmingham, where he was Director of the Electroacoustic Music Studios and of BEAST, which he founded in 1982. He retired as Professor of Composition and Electroacoustic Music in 2014 and is now Emeritus Professor. He was Guest Professor of Computer Music at the Technische Universität, Berlin (2010) and Leverhulme Emeritus Fellow (2014-15). He is Compositeur Associé with Maison des Arts Sonores/KLANG! Acousmonium, Montpellier, France.

He has been commissioned by leading organisations and performers (INA-GRM, Bourges, ICMA, MAFILM/Magyar Rádió, Arts Council England, Electroacoustic Wales/Bangor University, Maison des Arts Sonores/KLANG! Acousmonium, BBC) and won several prizes (Bourges, Ars Electronica, Musica Nova, Destellos, Thomas Selig Fixed Media Award/DEGEM, Lloyds Bank, PRS Prize). His music appears on four solo albums (empreintes DIGITALes, Montreal) and on several compilations (NMC, Mnémosyne Musique Média, CDCM/Centaur, Asphodel, Clarinet Classics, FMR, Edition RZ and EMF).

This performance program aims to bring the sound of the Thai live coding scene to an international stage. Sonic content presented in the performance ranges from experimental West Coast Buchla-ish sound art to ambient-driven techno and IDM accompanied by audio visualization through an array of analysis methods and techniques such as video synthesis and oscilloscope arts.

Biography

SKYKYS is the main artistic identity of Sippapas Thienwiwat presenting audiovisual arts through live coding.

Drawing from his roots in progressive rock keyboard training, SKYKYS’s works explore storytelling through audiovisual arts using pure, synthetic sounds without romanticization and extreme black-white visual strobes. Through manipulating technological devices, his works often discuss the everyday struggles of the digitized world and the interaction between man and machine. His sonic palette spans a wide array from West Coast sound compositions to modern-day-IDM-influenced algorithmic dance music.

Shimmer is an exploration of the glinting vitality that threads through the multispecies world. Inspired by the writing of Deborah Bird Rose—who spoke of the shimmer and bling of the living world—this piece celebrates the fleeting beauty, richness, and grandeur of the natural world. In a time of ecological uncertainty, Shimmer leans into joy. As Donna Haraway writes:

It’s not all that hard to play. It’s actually not all that hard to sustain joy if we let ourselves. Joy is not innocence; it is openness to caring. If we let pleasure in, if we let the light in, if we let it seep in, there’s a kind of leaking of the bling of the world. Really we live on an astonishing planet, and we may as well just let the astonishment in.

Shimmer invites listeners to inhabit a sonic world where memory, flow, and presence coalesce. This is not a nostalgia for what has been lost, but an invitation to experience the now more deeply—to find shimmer in the spaces between.

This piece is dedicated to James, Seb, and Nico, companions on field recording adventures, often edited out, always present

Biography

Annie Mahtani is an internationally recognised electroacoustic composer, sound artist, and performer based in Birmingham, UK. Her work spans acousmatic composition, free improvisation, and site-specific installations, often in collaboration with dance and theatre. She explores the sonic identity of environmental sound, revealing hidden textures and characteristics beyond human perception. Annie works extensively with multichannel audio in both fixed media and live performance. Annie is a Professor of Electroacoustic Composition and Practice at the University of Birmingham and co-director of BEAST (Birmingham Electroacoustic Sound Theatre).

Fragments II explores the dynamic relationship between sounds generated by a modular synthesizer. By analysing overtone structures in real time, it audibly shifts timbre. Field recordings serve as the composition’s foundation, contrasting with generative, sequenced patterns to create organic transitions that evolve into new drones before receding. Four static and four moving loudspeakers spatialize sounds, creating resonances and delay patterns within the performance space. Fragments II aims to create a minimal yet complex sound world, blending contemporary electronica, club, and synthesizer influences with an experimental approach to contemporary music.

Biography

Annie Ruefenacht aka Annie Aries is a Swiss-Philippine composer and musician based in Bern, Switzerland. She holds an M.A. in Music & Media Arts from Bern University of the Arts, and studied historical musicology at the University of Bern. She has shown her works at Mis-En Music Festival in Brooklyn NY, New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival (NYCEMF), ZKM Center for Art and Media, IGNM Bern, International Computer Music Conference (ICMC) in Shenzhen, Gray Area San Francisco, Heroines of Sound Berlin, among others.

This piece narrates the tragedy of 36,094.4 hectares of forest in West Papua that are slated to be destroyed to make way for palm oil plantations. This works Audiovisually questions whether the forest will still exist for future generations and its impact on the environment both nationally and globally.

Biography

Patrick Hartono is an Electroacoustic Composer and Audiovisual Artist currently teaching as a Lecturer in Computational Arts at Goldsmiths, University of London.

His creative process integrates technology and practice-based methodologies, exploring disciplines such as 3D sound spatialization, analog/digital synthesis, psychoacoustics, machine learning & creative AI, and visual music.

Beyond his artistic practice, Patrick contributes to the field of computer music by serving as a board member of the International Computer Music Association (ICMA) and the Australasian Computer Music Association.

Metrograde explores the impact of cars on the urban soundscape without allowing the audience to hear them directly. This audiovisual work utilises Spectral Compression to obscure one sound-world with another; with the spectral content of motor vehicles passing through space acting as a control source, tearing distorted lines through the music which surrounds the listener.

Biography

Marty Fisk is an electroacoustic composer from Gloucester currently studying a PhD at the University of Birmingham under the supervision of Professor Annie Mahtani and Dr Christopher Haworth. His research interests focus on exploring the dynamics between performer, audience, and sound: realised through fixed and live multichannel works, novel sound interfacing technologies, and excessive use of distortion.

Munaba is the act of lamentation in Waropen Society (West Papua – Indonesia).

Munaba not only exists for their own people, but also as a form of mourning and respect for nature. This is part of their broader worldview where humans, nature, and spirits are deeply connected. For the Waropen, the death of nature is as tragic as the death of any human

This act of lamentation for nature is rooted in their belief that nature has a soul and spirit, meaning that when nature is harmed, it is not seen only as physical loss but also as a spiritual imbalance.

Biography

Otto Sidharta is a composer of electronic music from Bandung – Indonesia, whose work explores the blending of the sounds of Indonesia and elements of traditional Indonesian music into electronic works.

His work frequently explores the relationship between sound and its environment, reflecting his long-held interest in field recordings. Sidharta has been involved in various projects that aim to highlight the cultural significance of sound in Indonesia, often recording in remote areas to capture unique acoustic ecosystems.

In addition to his compositions, Sidharta has served as an educator, sharing his knowledge of music theory, composition, and sound exploration with students. His studies abroad, particularly in Amsterdam, have enriched his musical perspective, allowing him to combine local traditions with international techniques. Sidharta has formerly served as Chairman for the Music Committee of Jakarta Art Council and the Indonesian Composers Association.

His portfolio of compositions also includes orchestral works, chamber music, and pieces that utilise traditional instruments, showcasing his versatile approach to sound.

Through his music, he emphasises cultural heritage, experimentation, and a deep appreciation for the auditory landscape.

Life Cycle of Rice traces the transformation of rice through Japan’s ancient traditions and rhythms of life. Beginning at Izumo Taisha Grand Shrine, where echoes of the past still resonate, the piece moves from the rice fields to steam-filled breweries. Blending natural and industrial sounds, it captures the duality of rice in its solid and liquid forms, reflecting the delicate balance between tradition and transformation. The auditory journey portrays the seasonality, craftsmanship, and landscape of Japan.

Biography

Heu’s sonic journey began in Japan’s historical jazz and audio cafes, leading to her first book, Sound Chronicle — a compilation of personal experiences with jazz cafe owners and pioneers, such as Terry Riley, Akio Suzuki, and Toshiko Akiyoshi. Now based in Helsinki, she explores the possibilities of sonic narratives, ranging from bookbinding to spatial audio. While her work centres on capturing the essence of fading cultures, Heu is passionate about bringing her projects to life in new and evolving forms.

Mashine* (2023) is a composition that is part of a PhD context-based portfolio of music. The aesthetic direction and foundations of the composition explore soundscape experiences and expectations through a feminist lens, particularly women’s fear of sexual harassment in buses in Nairobi, Kenya.

Mashine focuses on the bus engine as a key transient sonic marker and how it interplays with the rest of the soundscape (external) and internal emotions arising due to fear of being sexually harassed (internal). In addition to narration, the composition contains snippets of in-situ soundscape field recordings that I captured in 2019, pre-COVID-19 pandemic.

*Mashine is a Swahili word meaning “machine”.

Biography

Esther Kiburi is an upcoming electroacoustic composer with feminist leanings. Her current research focuses on soundscape experiences and expectations through a feminist lens. Her pieces have been played at Sound/Image Festival (2023), Sharing Feminist Research and Practice Conference (2020), rediscoveries xi (2019), The Sound of Memory Symposium: Sound-track/Sound-scape (2017), and Noisefloor (2017). She is in her final year and is currently pursuing a practice-as-research PhD in Music at the University of Kent. She enjoys pushing the boundaries and expectations of captured sound with the goal of inviting the listener into her interpretation of “things” sonically.

Marées draws inspiration from the rhythm of ocean tides, reflecting the cyclical patterns of change and balance that permeate our ecosystems. This composition explores the profound interconnection between our environment and our inner lives, inviting us to experience the resonance that is an intrinsic part of existence.

Biography

Sound and image composer, and professor in digital/audiovisual music composition at the Université de Montréal (CA), Myriam Boucher merges the organic and the synthetic in her mesmerizing videomusic installations, immersive projects and audiovisual performances. Her sensitive and polymorphic work explores the intimate dialogue between music, sound and image, transforming everyday landscapes into fantastical, living phenomena. Elements in her skin-tingling pieces can move in synchronization with waves of sound, and very fluidly shift from solid to liquid, fragment to flood, plastic to plasmic. Her research in videomusic composition proposes a classification of image/sound relationships as a building block towards an eventual grammar of the genre. Boucher approaches video much in the same way as she did music composition, through a visual interface that sees her fleshing out digital timelines.

Her commission list is varied and distinguished and includes the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal (OSM), Ensemble Contemporain de Montréal (ECM+), Ars Nova, Nouvel Ensemble Moderne (NEM), Magnitude6, Collectif9, 5ilience and Architek Percussion. As VJ, she performed with many artists/DJ such as Mind Against (IT), Medasin (US), Deadboy (GB), POLE (GE), Ayesha (US), Automatisme (CA), Equiknoxx (JM) and DJ Lag (ZA). Her work has been presented at many international events and places, including Mutek (CA, AE, ES, JP, MX), Kontakte (DE), Igloofest (CA), Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois (CA), Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain de Strasbourg (FR), and Akousma (CA). Her research work is published by Routledge (UK).

Her research-creation activities integrate musical composition, improvisation, deep listening, sound ecology, site-specific creation and immersive experiences. Her research aims to understand and analyze the mechanisms of perception in audiovisual works and multidisciplinary concerts integrating sound, music, image, and performers, with the perspective that art is a practice capable of transforming reality and generating new forms of sensitive representations.