Sonic Arts Forum held at DMU 18 April 2026

The Sonic Arts Forum, a national/international UK workshop for electroacoustic and experiemental sonic arts was held at DMU on Saturday 18 April. 

The event, organised by Leeds-based composer Coryn Smethurst, has run for over 20 years at many different UK venues and is an opportunity for creative people working with sound and technology as a significant element in their practice to introduce their work and receive feedback from an audience in a friendly, supportive environment.
This was the first time it has been hosted by DMU, giving participants the opportunity to hear their work in the PACE Studio 1 immersive audio space, including a number of ambisonic and audiovisual works.

Participants:
Tom Williams – Clouds and Clocks
Matt Brombley – Collaborative improvisation
Salma Ahmad Caller – Counter Sonic archives
Jonty Harrison & Pete Stollery – Aides… mémoires… project
Holly Gowland – Natural vs artificial
Sibylle Pomorin – Colour sound flow
Tristan Kersten – Process based composition
Bruno Quast – Acousmatic film sound design
Andrey Chugunov – Astrophysical sonification
John Biddulph – Digital and analogue microtonality

Book chapter, published score, conference lecture and a premiere from Edward Clijsen

PhD candidate Edward Clijsen has a chapter in a new book Innovation in Music: Innovative Creative Practice, just published by Routledge. The book’s contents have been developed from selected papers given at the Innovation in Music 2024 conference in Oslo.

Clijsen’s chapter, titled “Redividing the Octave for Expanded Tonal Spaces: Preliminary Practical Explorations of Formalised Approaches to Microtonal Composition”, discusses the outcomes and implications arising out the compositional process for an early version of his piece Geïsoleerd (2024) which represented an exploration of methods for intuitive utilisation of microtonally-informed extended techniques on the Kingma System alto flute, to provide insight on the location of new affective potentials. The score for Geïsoleerd is now also available via Tetractys Publishing.

Clijsen also delivered a lecture at the recent Hyperchromatic Music Festival at Goldsmiths, entitled: “Redividing the Octave for Expanded Tonal Spaces: Reflections on Recent Practical Explorations of a Formalised Approach to Microtonal Composition”. The lecture reflected on the development of a formalised approach to microtonal composition by tracing its development through the portfolio of works encompassed within his PhD.

The festival's Saturday evening concert also premiered Clijsen’s Äußern (2024) for “19-div” and “Quarter-Tone” Microtonal Trumpets in 38-/48-divisions of the octave, written in collaboration with, and performed by, Stephen Altoft of Microtonal Projects.

 

MTIRG Symposium April 2026

Members of the Music, Technology and Innovation Research Group met for a one-day symposium on 17 April.

Presenters included
Robert Chafer: Foundations, Potentials, and Practice of Mixed Reality Spatial Audio Composition.
Edward Clijsen: Redividing the Octave for Expanded Tonal Spaces: Reflections on Recent Practical Explorations of a Formalised Approach to Microtonal Composition.
Matthew London: The Integrated Soundtrack: An Analytical Exploration of the Soundtrack Elements of Music, Sound Design, and Dialogue Within Horror Cinema.
Samvaran Rai: Is dramaturgy an invisible locus of control? An enquiry on dramaturgy and what it could mean for ambiguity in electroacoustic music.
Joanna Cogle: Hypersourced Scoring Practice And Expanding The Integrated Soundtrack In Contemporary Media Scoring.
Conor Snape: Navigating the Oddverse: Adaptive Audio and Interactive World Design.

Symposium participants: Front row (L-R) Pawel Wietrzykowski, Matthew London, Samvaran Rai,
Bret Battey. Back row (L-R) Edward Clijsen, James Andean, Simon Atkinson, Robert Chafer,
Joanna Cogle, Conor Snape, John Young