Day One: Thursday 6 November
Bathway Theatre
8.30-9.30pm: Concert 2 – Acousmatic
Nikos Stavropoulos – Par une belle fin d’apres-midi
The work is contrasting aural places of intimacy and enclosure with expansive spaces and propagates through their interaction. The title is borrowed from a painting by René Magritte, depicting two coffins seated in a mountainous landscape. The source materials for the work have been recorded with an 18 channel microphones arrange in a globe shape, encoded in Higher Order Ambisonics. The work was completed with the support of Musiques & Recherches at the Métamorhose d’Orphée studio during in the summer of 2024.
Nikos Stavropoulos (Athens, Greece, 1975) is a composer of predominantly acousmatic and mixed music. He read music at the University of Wales (Bangor, Wales, UK), where he studied composition with Andrew Lewis and completed a doctorate at the University of Sheffield (England, UK) under the supervision of Adrian Moore.
His music is performed and broadcast regularly around the world and has been awarded internationally on several occasions. His practice is concerned with notions of tangibility and immersivity in acousmatic experiences and the articulation of acoustic space, in the pursuit of probable aural impossibilities.
Since 2006, he has been a member of the Music, Sound & Performance Group at Leeds Beckett University (Leeds, England, UK), where he is a Professor in Composition and lectures on Electroacoustic Music. He is a founding member of the Echochroma New Music Research Group, a member of the British ElectroAcoustic Network (BEAN) and the Hellenic Electroacoustic Music Composers Association (HELMCA).
Boyi Bai – Exploring Silence – Japan
This soundscape composition originated from The Sound of Adventure, a commissioned project curated by Cities and Memory in collaboration with Exodus Adventure Travels in celebration of the latter’s 50th anniversary. The project invited field recordists to capture the “sense of adventure” experienced when encountering a place for the first time.
Rather than approaching adventure through dramatic or exotic sonic events, I chose to explore silence as an adventure. This decision was inspired by R. Murray Schafer’s concept of hi-fi and lo-fi soundscapes. I sought to uncover, within lo-fi urban soundscapes, those rare sonic moments that R. Murray Schafer would recognise as hi-fi—delicate, meaningful sounds that manage to surface through layers of noise. I defined this journey as “the struggle of silence.”
In Japan, I deliberately avoided planning specific recording sites beforehand, allowing myself to experience the country with the ears of a curious wanderer. My goal was to discover and document spontaneous sonic encounters, especially those where “silence” asserts itself in environments typically dominated by sound: bustling streets, crowded tourist sites, and vibrant restaurants.
The field recordings captured during my trip were later transformed into a soundscape composition, blending ambient music with location-specific sound materials. These fleeting, delicate sounds embody an adventurous spirit of their own: they do not demand attention but quietly hold space against the weight of their surroundings.
Exploring Silence – Japan invites listeners to engage with the overlooked layers of everyday acoustic experience. It is a sonic meditation on fragility, presence, and the quiet resilience of silence in a noisy world.
Boyi Bai is a composer and sound artist whose works explore the intersections of soundscape composition, field recording, and VR immersive audio. His pieces have been showcased at various international festivals and events, including BBC Radio 6, Radiophrenia (Glasgow, 2025), Radio Suyai TV (Chile, 2025), Sonic Arts Forum (Maynooth, 2025), Sound Junction (Sheffield, 2024), Sonic Sculptures 3 (Nottingham, 2024), San Francisco Tape Music Festival (2024), River Radio (Exeter, 2024), and The Royal Institution’s Theatre (London, 2024), Sound Junction (Sheffield, 2023). Through a blend of environmental sound and electroacoustic techniques, Boyi’s work aims to create immersive listening experiences that challenge perceptions of space, memory, and auditory storytelling
Wei Yang – ní nán
The title spells the Chinese word 呢喃, which means speaking in a low voice and can be roughly translated to murmur, whisper, or mutter. Hidden behind the simple description of the sonic property, the word itself is often associated with a constellation of sentiments – nostalgia, intimacy, tenderness, to name a few. The piece is based on a studio recording of bowing the viola near the bridge with the strings damped. The composition draws from its rich expression, resulting from the physical effort implied in producing the sound, as well as the sonic oscillation between noise, tone, and silence, which in the piece are sometimes kept distinct, but other times transform from one to another, generating ambiguity echoing the title.
The source material was generously provided by Melia Watras (www.meliawatras.com/).
This work was made possible by the support of the Department of Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS), University of Washington.
Wei Yang is a composer/sound artist from China. He works with different mediums, through which he often contemplates the body’s role in sound production, sound in space, as well as the integration of various data from the performance environment (reverberation, light, etc.). Wei composes both instrumental and electronic music, and often incorporates various sensors and physical computing to build performative systems that allow dynamic interaction among different actors within the system. His works have been performed internationally, at occasions such as BEAST Festival, NUNC!, ICMC, ISAC Sonosfera, Tomeistertagung, ORF Musikprotokoll, San Francisco Tape Music Festival, SEAMUS, Espacious Sonores, Festival Atemporánea, Nucleo Música Nova SiMN, Sound Image Festival, and Ars Electronica. Wei received his Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Washington under the supervision of Joël François-Durand. He is currently a PhD candidate at the university’s Center for Digital Arts and Experimental Media, working closely with Richard Karpen and Joseph Anderson.
Daniel Pakdel – Black Marsh Sun
As part of a collaboration between the Universidad Austral, Valdivia, Chile, and the University of Arts London, a trip to the WWT London Wetlands Centre was organised by lecturer and programme director, Adam Stanovic. All students and staff who partook were required to take a number of field recordings, creating an archive from which they were able to draw from, in order to create individual, original compositions of the wetlands. This was based on the Universidad Austral’s SoundLapse project, where a five-minute recording was made, every hour for 365 days, at five different locations throughout the wetlands around Valdivia: https://soundlapse.net/. Members were then given the opportunity to publish their productions on German record label for field recording, soundscapes and sound art, Gruenrekorder, compiling all works into a comprehensive album.
Programme Note of my personal composition:
“The mechanical thrum of planes overhead the London Wetland Centre pulls an all encompassing veil of sound over its avian inhabitants. Every trill, tweet, and warble is accompanied by the prolonged roars, and almost perpetual rumble of noise pollution. Though these reservoir-transformed wetlands symbolise human solidarity against capitalist destruction, a tension remains palpable. Sitting in the hide, looking out over its manufactured vastness, the sonic landscape tells a different story. Plane tones collide, and compound, cutting through the surface of the water, reverberating into the recesses of its aquatic ecosystems; a sonic eclipse. In this mythopoetic retelling we imagine a world slowly submerged in darkness. Birds fly blind. Fish swim deaf. The layered drones of passing planes build amidst dense orchestration, masking presence and erasing nuance. The wetlands become a stage for the collective shadow of humanity, and invites the listener to ponder on the shadows they too cast.”
Daniel Pakdel is a field recordist, composer, experimental video artist and workshop facilitator whose work lies at the intersection of eco-phenomenology, mytho-poetics, and soundscape ecology. Their research and creative practice investigate the nature of perception and psychological self-inquiry in relation to the more-than-human world, synthesising mythic recreation with archetypal symbolism. Through this, they aim to explore relational ontologies and interspecies subjectivities, to offer new ways of being, in critique of prevailing anthropocentric rationale.
By drawing attention to non-human voices, Daniel aims to give them expressive power in his work. As of late, he has expanded into the interactive domain, using Arduino-based technologies to experiment with participatory soundscapes as catalysts for pro-environmental behaviour.
Deniz Dortok – Kingdom of Dolls
Kingdom of Dolls emerged from a close collaboration with violinist Mira Steenbrugge as part of the RCM Chamber Festival. This was both a compositional and performative project, rooted in trust, experimentation and theatrical exploration. The piece reflects a shared process of discovery where sonic materials, movement and spatial awareness were developed collectively through improvisation.
Deniz Dortok is a London-based composer specialising in electronic and instrumental music, as well as film and theatre. He graduated from the University of Manchester with first-class honours and is now studying for a Master’s in composition at the Royal College of Music under Ken Hesketh and Nick Moroz. He received the Andrew Downes Prize for the highest mark in composition midway through his studies.
Deniz’s work explores the crossovers between poetry, storytelling, theatre, and music, focusing on word descriptors in contemporary notation. Influenced by Satie, Cage, and Fluxus, he aims to create a dialogue between composer, performer, and audience. His scores have become more text-based and narrative-driven, shaped by Hugo Cole’s ideas on descriptive and directive language, highlighting the tension between expressive freedom and precise instruction.
His works have been performed at venues including the London BFI, St James’ Piccadilly, the Wallace Collection, and the Anthony Burgess Foundation in Manchester. His electroacoustic piece Babel was recognised at the 2023 International Petrichor Music Competition, while his brass work Rhonabwy’s Dream, written for the Band of the Prince of Wales, won second place at the Brass Composition Competition. Deniz has also developed his practice in film and theatre. His score for Toffee (2023) was selected for BFI London and won the Straight 8 competition. His theatre score for Catfish the Cabaret (2023) ran at the Edinburgh Fringe, and The Practice (2025) was praised for intensifying the atmosphere and sense of claustrophobia on stage.
Outside of composing, Deniz teaches music in schools and volunteers at the Venus Blazing Musical Trust, providing creative workshops for children and young people with SEND.
Jiajing Zhao – FOMO
FOMO is an AI-aided acousmatic composition inspired by the experience of “Fear of Missing Out (FOMO).” Composed in 3rd order Ambisonics, the piece’s live performance investigates diffusion practices for Ambisonic fixed media works.
Zhao Jiajing (family name-given name, b. China) is an electroacoustic composer, sound designer, and interdisciplinary artist based in London.
Zhao Jiajing’s artistic practice encompasses sound, installation, and new media, exploring themes such as temporality, technology, digital cultures, and nature. Since 2019, he has been deeply engaged in spatial sound, creating multichannel compositions and installations. His works employ space as both an expressive medium and a responsive instrument.
Zhao Jiajing’s works have been presented internationally at venues and events such as the IRCAM (FR), ZKM Karsruhe (DE), Soundcinema Düsseldorf (DE), Barbican Centre (UK), Sound/Image Festival (UK), Espacios Sonoros (AR), ICMC (Intl./US), NYCEMF (US), ISCM New Music Miami (US), Musicacoustica (CN), among many others. He has received awards and finalists from The Engine Room (2025), Musicacoustica (2024), Luminous by LG Display and RCA (2022). As a multi-skilled composer and sound designer, he has collaborated with pioneering theatre groups, performers, and visual artists, creating projects that captivate audiences worldwide.
Zhao holds an MA in Information Experience Design from the Royal College of Art and is currently pursuing a PhD in Electroacoustic Music at the University of the Arts London (CRiSAP) under the supervision of Adam Stanović. He is also a mentor and visiting lecturer for the MA in Designing Audio Experience at University College London.
Brona Martin and Chris Sciacca – Sound Mirror Reflections
Sound Mirror Reflections is a collaborative ambisonic soundscape composed by Brona Martin and Chris Sciacca. Field recordings were taken on location in Dungeness, at the site of the iconic concrete “Sound Mirrors”, an acoustic early warning system to detect enemy aircraft in WWII. The work features a minimal blend of natural location sound within the now frequent commercial and military flight paths, as well as experimental, interactivemicrophone techniques capturing the resonance from within the site’s decaying architectural “ruins”.
Brona Martin is an electroacoustic composer and sound artist from Banagher, Co. Offaly, Ireland. Her compositions explore narrative in electroacoustic music, acoustic ecology, oral history, sound and heritage and spatial audio techniques.
Her works have been performed internationally at EMS, ACMC, ICMC, NYCEMF, ISSTA, ZKM, BEAST, Balance/Unbalance, Sonorities, MANTIS and the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. She has been guest composer at EMS, Stockholm and Associate Artist in Residence at Atlantic Centre for the Arts, Florida.
Brona is a Lecturer in Music and Sound at the University of Greenwich where she teaches post production sound and composition for film and games.
Chris Sciacca is an American sound artist, musician and practice-based researcher based in Brighton, UK, specializing in sonic ethnography and soundscape composition. His works explore the theme of space, place, and cultural identity through sound.
His recordings have been featured on NTS Radio’s Field Recording: Infinite Mixtape series and Resonance Extra, BBC3, BBC6 and exhibited at Fort Process Festival in Newhaven, UK,South Downs National Park, and Fabrica Art Gallery in Brighton.
Chris is a post-graduate researcher at the University of Greenwich utilizing e-waste to document the soundscapes of waste collection and processing across the southern UK.http://www.chrissciacca.com