Sonic Writing & Soundings

A project by Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt (IMD)
in cooperation with Goethe-Institut

The electronic music of artists from the Global South is still largely unknown in Europe today – despite the increasing reception of musical practices from this region in recent years. In 2019, we therefore decided to curate a project to address this desideratum together with the German musician, producer, label operator and conceptual artist Antye Greie-Ripatti (AGF Poemproducer), who lives in Finland, and Cedrik Fermont (C-drík, Kirdec), who was born in the Republic of Congo and who, in addition to his various musical activities, also founded and now runs the large online platform Syrphe. The premiere of Sonic Writing & Soundings was originally planned for the Darmstadt Summer Course 2020, but then had to be postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic and took place as a purely digital project at the 2021 Summer Course: The artists met daily with the curators and staff of the Summer Course team on Mastodon and worked on various pieces of electronic music in close workshop exchanges, exchanging tools and files, which they continued to work on and which ultimately resulted in a joint longer track.

The group, which remained in touch even after the end of the Darmstadt Summer Course 2021, consisted of five artists: Linda Mudimba (Zimbabwe), the duo Sarana (Indonesia), PHER (Iran) and [MONRHEA] (Kenya). With the extremely positive experience of the digital workshop, the artists were invited to continue working with both curators for the next edition of the Summer Course in 2023. For the concert as part of the Summer Course, the ensemble was joined by the musicians Mira Tulenova (flute) and Zelal Ekinci (accordion). Thanks to the intensive collaboration of the network, which had existed for three years at the time, it was possible to consolidate practices that also flowed back to the musicians‘ home countries. The text by Sophie Emilie Beha and Friedemann Dupelius published at the end of 2024 in the Darmstädter Beiträge zur Neuen Musik (vol. 26) provided documentation of the group’s working methods.

In order to further develop and expand the project, five new electronic music musicians largely from the Global South will be invited to the Darmstadt Summer Course in 2025: Michael Augusto Magán Palomino (Peru), Padmanabhan – beatnyk (India), Firmansyan Risman – Methclass (Indonesia), Maria Gabriela Rubio Hernández (Colombia) and Josef Tumari (Uzbekistan). The artists will work together during the first week of the Summer Course (20-27 July), presenting their projects and working methods to each other and sharing them with the Summer Course community. The residency program provides for the artists to get to know and use the diverse offers of the Darmstadt Summer Course academy and festival program, to actively participate in it and to take advantage of the exchange with the international community.

The five artists will perform on two evenings as part of Spatial Spheres, the 3D Audio Art Lab, a two-week project at the Bessunger Knabenschule under the artistic direction of Brigitta Muntendorf, Aaron Hollowway-Nahum and Lukas Nowok: At “Sonic Beats” (https://internationales-musikinstitut.de/de/ferienkurse/festival/programm/sonic-beats/), Methclass and beatnyk will meet the German duo Hauptmeier / Recker from Leipzig on July 25; one evening later (July 26), María Gabriela Rubio Hernández, Michael Augusto Magán Palomino and Josef Tumari will create a “Sonic Listening” evening (https://internationales-musikinstitut.de/de/ferienkurse/festival/programm/sonic-listening/).