Sonorities, Northern Ireland’s premier festival of digital and contemporary music, digital arts, sound art, video & installation, returns from Tuesday, 9th April to Saturday 13th April 2024 with an essential programme of 41 events featuring 98 acts from over 20 countries.
Organised by Queen’s University Belfast, Sonorities is a biennial festival of sound and music, making a joyful commotion in Belfast since 1981. For over forty years Sonorities has led the way for musicians, composers and sound artists from around the world to make and present work for curious listeners.
This year, Sonorities will welcome the huge number of 14 Italian artists. Check the full programme HERE.
Andrea Laudante – 12th perception of Prakrti
Andrea Laudante (Napoli,1993) is an Italian composer of electroacoustic music and multi-instrumentalist. His aesthetic is influenced by the study and practice of oriental spiritual traditions, which are strongly manifested in works such as the cycle “Perceptions of Prakṛti”. Andrea’s music has been presented in festivals such as Akousma-INA GRM (Paris), Festival Futura (Crest) Totem Èlectroacoustique (Montréal), CIM XXIII (Ancona), In-sonora (Madrid), Martini Elettrico (Bologna), Atemporanea (Buenos Aires) and broadcasted on national radios such as Radio 3, Radio France, Radio WDR. Andrea has also been awarded the first prize of INA GRM Découvertes 2021.
Domenico De Simone – CHANCE
Professor of Electroacoustic Composition at the Music Conservatory of Foggia. Graduated in Composition, Electronic Music, Piano and Jazz. Graduated in Composition at the Accademia Nazionale of Santa Cecilia and in Electronic Music with honors at the Conservatory of Santa Cecilia. He was awarded with the diploma of merit in Film Music by Ennio Morricone and in Composition by Franco Donatoni at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena. His compositions have been performed in more than one hundred concerts in Italy and abroad (China, Latvia, Canada, Chile, Argentina, Romania, Malta, USA, Ireland, UK, Spain, Austria, Brazil, France, etc.) and broadcasted by RADIOTRE.
Enrico Dorigatti – hyperobject::01 and Cryoconite
Enrico Dorigatti is an experimental sound artist and creative technologist. He is especially interested in the interaction between audio and visuals, generative systems, and shared agency between humans and machines in the artistic creation process. He is currently a PhD candidate in sound art at the University of Portsmouth (UK).
Francesco Santagata – Overthinking – listening to music and not talking is the best, I think
Francesco Santagata is an electroacoustic composer/improviser, a multi-instrumentalist, author of music for theater. After a level I diploma in ‘Electronic Music’ at the San Pietro a Majella Conservatory of Music in Naples, Italy, he is currently studying for the Level II. He has focused his research on synthetic sound, the use of digital scrap sound and the relationship between sound and word. He is a permanent member of the electro-acoustic orchestra OEOAS, of the Napoli Totale Elettronica collective, and of other experimental music experiences. He is also involved in the relationship between sound and theatrical staging for various companies. He totaled hundreds of live performances throughout Italy.
Giuseppe Pisano, Paolo Montella and Andrea Laudante – Non è un compendio di etologia numerico-digitale
Giuseppe Pisano is a composer and performer of electroacoustic music. His work is characterized by the use of field recording as a means to investigate space and as his primary compositional.
Paolo Montella is an electroacoustic composer, multi-instrumentalist and a programmer. He focused his research on the relationship between sound and source, meant as a complex phenomenal system.
Andrea Laudante is an Italian composer of electroacoustic music and multi-instrumentalist. His aesthetic is influenced by the study and practice of oriental spiritual traditions, which are strongly manifested in works such as the cycle “Perceptions of Prakṛti”.
Leo Cicala – “VOCI SOTTOVUOTO” a stereophonic electroacoustic piece
Electroacoustic composer, acousmatic performer, live performer, teacher. He studied Band Instrumentation at the Conservatorio “Tito Schipa” in Lecce and graduated with honours in Electronic Music from the same institution; he also studied drums and jazz music and graduated in Biological Sciences. Winner of the first prize in electroacoustic composition “Bangor Dylan Thomas Prize” in the UK, has been a finalist in several international competitions, his compositions are performed in major festivals in Italy, France, Belgium, Sweden, Japan, UK, Germany, Cyprus, Montecarlo, Argentina, Chile and in the USA (Florida, Louisiana, Oklahoma and New York).
Marco Ferrazza – Relative Present
Marco Ferrazza is a non-traditional training composer, creator of electroacoustic and audiovisual works, as well as a performer of experimental music. He composed several acousmatic pieces which have been performed on various exhibitions and international festivals. In his work he combines electronic music, visual explorations, experimental soundtracks and free improvisation. One aspect of his sound research is aimed at recovering the basic electroacoustic techniques for the processing of concrete sounds, as well as the search for interpretative potential linked to the use of multiple field recordings released from the space-time context of reference.
Mattia Benedetti – drifting
Mattia Benedetti is a composer. He lives in Perugia. He’s trying to create music that resembles an open world, without a centre but full of internal connections and ambiguous self resemblances. He’s trying to create music that resembles an island, isolated from everything, an extreme habitat where only endemic organisms lives. His pieces have been presented in Perugia (Segnali 2018), New York (ICMC 2019 e NYCEF 2020), Buenos Aires (Atemporánea 2019), Salta (Espacios Sonoros 2019), Città del Messico (Muslab 2020), Madrid (In-Sonora 2020), Santiago (ICMC2020), Taipei (WOCMAT 2020), Madrid (IN-SONORA 11) and Paris (en Chair et en Son 2021). He took part in Premio San Fedele 2019 (Milano).
Michele Del Prete – Contrafacta Doppelrohr 2’
PhD in Philosophy from the Freie Universität Berlin. He studied composition in Graz with Beat Furrer and electronic music in Venice with Alvise Vidolin. He has played his own electronic works with complex spatialisation settings in Graz (IEM Cube) and Madrid (Auditorium Museo Reina Sofía). He is currently working on his artistic PhD (Composing for organ and electronics: spaces and practices) at the Orpheus Institute Gent-ACPA Leiden University. He is the artistic director of Registri, an international sound-art, organ, and electronic music festival dedicated to the 1745 Nachini organ of San Servolo, Venice, Italy. He is professor of Aesthetics at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice.
Nicola Cappelletti and Nicola Fumo Frattegiani – PNX
Nicola Cappelletti is an electroacoustic sound artist, performer and composer. He graduated in electronic music, with honors and honorable mention, at the Conservatory in Perugia. Winner of the XV National Prize of the Arts, his artistic research focuses on the relationship between acoustic sound and electronic treatment in relation to audiovisual works, theater and contemporary poetry. As a performer his activity ranges from popular music, with forays into rock and club music, to concerts of radical improvisation for prepared violin and live electronics. He is a member of the Opificio Sonoro ensemble.
Nicola Fumo Frattegiani is an electroacoustic and audio-visual composer living in Perugia, Italy. His works have been presented at various national and international festivals. Author and performer, his research deals with electroacoustic music, sound for images, video, art exhibitions and compositions for theatrical performances. He is a Subject Expert in “Electroacoustic” and “Computer Music” at the Conservatory of Music of Perugia. He held the chair of Electroacoustic Music Composition at the Conservatory of Music of Messina. He is currently professor of Sound design at the Academy of Fine Arts in Macerata.
Paolo Montella – Cairo backwards
Paolo Montella is an electroacoustic composer, multi-instrumentalist, and programmer. Field recording and radical improvisation practices are central to his aesthetic. He focused his research on the relationship between sound and source, meant as a complex phenomenal system. His education arises from both self-taught and academic experience. He graduated in Electronic Music at the Naples Conservatory with M° Elio Martusciello. His works have been performed in festivals such as Sonic Cartography (Chatham, UK), XIII CIM (Ancona, IT), Interferenze (IT), Supersonique Festival (Marseille, FR), Martini Elettrico (Bologna, IT), Fixed Room – Tempo Reale (Firenze, IT).
Paolo Pastorino and Claudio Sanna – Pietre di una esposizione
Paolo Pastorino (1983) is an Italian multimedia composer, specialized in music informatics and sound technologies. He explores acousmatic, electroacoustic, and audiovisual compositions, presented globally. His research focuses on musique concrete, field recording, and audiovisual expression.
Claudio Sanna (1985) is a pianist, composer, and visual artist. He excels in contemporary repertoire, performing with ADM soundscape and Praxodia trio. Notable works include “Studies on ninths” and “Hatikvah” for his Composition thesis. In 2015, his debut album “Ammentos” was released under Hat Hut Records. In 2022, he unveiled “Contemporary Sardinian Composers,” showcasing Sardinian music.
Stefano Catena – Travelling without Moving
Stefano Catena is an Italian composer and researcher: he specialises in acousmatic music, ambient and multimedia installation, sound synthesis, spatialisation and sound programming. His works have been included and performed in some of the most important international conferences such as Sound and Music Computing (SMC) and Colloqui d’Informatica Musicale (CIM), New York Electroacoustic Music Festival (NYCEMF) and many others. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Music, Technology and Innovation from De Montfort University in Leicester under Peter Batchelor, Leigh Landy and Scott Wilson.
VacuaMoenia – Plasma
VacuaMoenia is an independent research project which this year celebrates ten years of activity. Its subject is the sound of the sicilian abandoned villages.
VacuaMoenia attended the “Sonorities Festival”, the “Sound and Memories”, the Symposium on Acoustic Ecology (UK), “Invisible Places – Sounding City” (PR), and the “KlingtGut!” (DE) , the Nuit Blanche in Paris (FR). It tooks part in DAAR “Difficult Heritage”, in “:After – Festival Diffuso di Architettura”, in Manifesta12, in the Eterotopia festival, in Liminaria, in “Sound Corner ” at the Auditorium Parco della Musica.
Its electroacoustic works are published for Cronica Electronica and Tempo Reale.
In two Listening Rooms, more than 30 fixed-media works are presented simultaneously, playing back over a 9.1.4 (Listening Room 1) or 8-channel (Listening Room 2) speaker configuration. The Listening Rooms are found in the lower ground floor surround studios of SARC (Sonic Lab at SARC, Queen’s University Belfast, Cloreen Park, Belfast BT9 5HN).
Info & tickets HERE.