1–2 April 2023
The eavesdropping festival concludes with a weekend-long forum, giving an opportunity for local and visiting artists to reflect together on the topic 'Experiments in Defiance'. Weighty talks given by our guest speakers sit alongside shorter provocations gathered through an open call, and the programme is punctuated by roundtable panels and discussions. The vibe is low-key and friendly, whilst definitely being thought-provoking.
KATE MOLLESON is a journalist and broadcaster who presents BBC Radio 3’s New Music Show and Music Matters. Her documentaries (BBC Radio 4, BBC World Service) have investigated music in Greenland, opera in Mongolia, lost recordings of Arabic classical music and the Ethiopian nun/pianist/composer Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou. Her articles are published in The Guardian, The New Statesman, Prospect, The Herald, BBC Music Magazine, Opera, Gramophone and elsewhere. She grew up in various parts of Scotland and the north of Canada and studied clarinet performance at McGill University (Montreal) and musicology at King’s College London. Her book Sound Within Sound, a global history of radical composers in the 20th century, was published by Faber in 2022. She lives in Edinburgh.
SONIA ALLORI is a composer, performer, researcher and community music therapist. Her PhD in composition explored interactions between words and music through the lens of gender and the influence of Italian contemporary classical music post-1900. In 2019 she performed in Sound Symphony (IAP/ Oily Cart) and The Lost Thing (Royal Opera House/ Candoco). Sonia was Artist-in-Residence with Drake Music in 2020 and is currently Artist with Sonic Bothy, an inclusive experimental music ensemble based in Glasgow. She toured the UK in Spring 2022 as performer with the second production of Sound Symphony (IAP/Oily Cart) and is currently Artist with The Sensory Collective at Independent Arts Projects researching sensory arts. Sonia is deaf, a wheelchair user and insatiably curious. She is a multi-instrumentalist and her practice continues to have words and music at its core. In 2022 Sonia was part of Sound & Music’s ‘New Voices’ cohort.
FATHIMA ZAHRA is an Indian poet and performer based in London. She is a Barbican Young Poets and Roundhouse Poetry Collective alumna. Her poems have won the Bridport Prize, Wells Fest Young Poets Prize and Asia House Poetry Slam. Her debut pamphlet Sargam / Swargam (ignition press, 2021) was selected for PBS pamphlet choice.
