Listening Room 2

Fixed Media | Program Overview

Crown Shyness
Jeonghun Hyun

Entomology#2
Thanos Polymeneas-Liontiris

Jetlag – Time Difference
Ray Tsai

Lazy whirls of glow
Juan J.G. Escudero

Pumma
Emilio Casaburi

Quivering Silk
Yi-Hsien Chen

Sonic Echoes of Ink
Pingting Xiao

The Luminosity of the Yugen Mist
Xiaoyu Su

Vocalise
Pak Hei Leung

 

About the pieces & artists

Jeonghun Hyun: Crown Shyness

This work is inspired by crown shyness, a natural phenomenon in which the canopies (branches and leaves) of trees grow while maintaining a consistent distance without touching one another. Although individual trees exist separately, they are perceived as a single forest when viewed from a distance. In this sense, the piece musically explores the idea that individuals and others may feel divided due to conflict and discord, yet from a broader perspective, they form a harmonious whole. The diverse sounds used in the work reflect the characteristic behavior of tree canopies that avoid encroaching upon one another’s space. Each sound is therefore designed to occupy a distinct position within the stereo field, maintaining its own spatial identity. Additionally, just as a tree extends from thicker branches to progressively finer ones, the sonic material evolves from dense, large-scale textures into increasingly subdivided and delicate sounds. This spatial and morphological development metaphorically reveals both the independence of individual entities and their coexistence within a larger structural framework. Through these compositional strategies, the work seeks to musically reflect on human relationships formed within a social context, and to contemplate the sense of distance, respect, and attitudes of coexistence required within those relationships.

About the artist

Jeonghun Hyun is a composer specializing in electronic music, with a keen interest in the convergence of acoustic tradition and technological innovation. Having studied under Jinwoong Kim and Shinae Kang, he explores the intersection of instrumental performance and digital sound processing. His works often employ custom programming and real-time sound manipulation techniques. Recently, his creative research was recognized at ICMC 2025 in Boston, where his work was presented. Committed to expanding the boundaries of contemporary music, Hyun continues to refine his expertise in the evolving landscape of electroacoustic composition.

 

Thanos Polymeneas-Liontiris: Entomology#2

Entomology#2 (2025) is an acousmatic work dedicated to the secret life of insects. It follows on Tettix-A’ (2022 – inspired by the song of cicadas) and Entomology#1 (2024 – an acousmatic miniature based on the voice of a single imaginary insect). Entomology#2 invites the ear to a bustling landscape: an imaginary pond, a hyper-realistic dense forest, a place where countless microscopic flying voices weave their own world. The material of Entomology#2 derives from recordings of a prepared grand piano (in German Flügel, in Dutch Vleugelpiano: i.e. piano with wings). The piece is based on the navigation of a corpus made of these recordings, processed to such extent as to be stripped from any obvious piano connotation: metaphysically the notion of “wings” is the only association kept from those original prepared piano recordings. The corpus of these processed sounds unfolded into a layered and multi-dimensional field, inspiring an exploration similar that of spatial-sonic explorations of a filed-recording. The result of such explorations is a soundscape filled with densities, like countless flying beings swarming and coexisting. Entomology#2 draws the listener to immerse into a synthetic, living-like system of microscopic organisms, where communication, competition, and adaptation unfold collectively in an endless dance.

About the artist

Thanos Polymeneas-Liontiris is a composer, sound artist and Assistant Professor (Music & Interactive Media), at National & Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece. His practice comprises computer-aided compositions, interactive audiovisual installations, immersive audiowalks, generative art, interactive music for dance, theatre and intermedia performances. He has obtained a BA in Double Bass, and a BA in Electronic Music Composition from Rotterdam Conservatoire, while following courses at the Institute of Sonology (Royal Conservatoire of The Hague) and at IRCAM. He completed two MA degrees, both with distinction: in Art and Technology (Polytechnic University of Valencia) and in Creative Education (Falmouth University). In 2019 he concluded his PhD research aided by a fully funded CHASE-AHRC scholarship at University of Sussex. He has taught in Higher Education since 2011 (Falmouth University, University of Sussex, University of Brighton, Ionian University and National & Kapodistrian University of Athens). His works have been presented, among others, at Tectonics Festival, Modern Body Festival, Athens and Epidaurus Festival, Holland Festival, Todays Arts, Attenborough Centre, Kalamata International Dance Festival, The Athens Concert Hall, Onassis Foundation, Biennale of Young Artists from Europe and the Mediterranean. His publications encompass subjects related to Pedagogy, Technology and Aesthetics.

 

Ray Tsai: Jetlag – Time Difference

Jetlag – Time Difference is a fixed-media electroacoustic work that explores the relativity of time perception and relational temporality through sound. The piece juxtaposes three overlapping yet unsynchronized temporal systems: biological time represented by heartbeats and bodily rhythms, social time shaped by daily routines and notifications, and mechanical time articulated through clock mechanisms and pulses. Through processes of temporal displacement, fragmentation, reversal, and spectral transformation, these functional temporal references gradually lose their stability and dissolve into textural sonic states. Beyond individual perception, the work also reflects intersubjective temporality—how differing rhythms and internal clocks remain subtly connected through traces of memory, anticipation, and interaction, even under temporal dislocation. Rather than resolving into synchronization, Jetlag – Time Difference presents time as a fragile, shifting network of relations that persists in misalignment.

About the artist

Ray Tsai (Tsai Yi-Jui), born in Hsinchu and currently studying at National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, is a DJ, music producer, and new media artist. His work spans sound art, electroacoustic music, and video installation, using experimental sonic structures to explore the relationship between technology and perception. Under the alias †Egothy†, he is active in the underground electronic music scene, performing noise, deconstructed electronics, and other avant-garde styles that shape sensory experiences oscillating between chaos and order.

 

Juan J.G. Escudero: Lazy whirls of glow

The combinatorial structure of a triangulated dodecahedral three-manifold is used in the formal design of this work. This type of spaces is considered for modelling the spatial structure of multi-connected universes. The basic sound materials were recorded in an acoustic piano which, due to certain circumstances, remained in silence for a long time.

About the artist

Juan J.G. Escudero is a composer and researcher based in Madrid (Spain). He received his musical education at several centres and conservatoires and studied composition with Francisco Guerrero Marín in Madrid. He has carried out research and teaching activities in mathematics, physics and music technology at various universities. The results of his research in the fields of algebra, geometry and astronomy -published in scholarly journals and books- have been some of the main guides to formalization procedures. Harmonizations of aperiodic ordered temporal sequences, which are on the basis of the formal and rhythmic structures play a major role in several of his instrumental and acousmatic works. More recent formal approaches are related with the analysis of the topological invariants of aperiodic tiling spaces and the construction of singular hypersurfaces in algebraic geometry. Extramusical influences are connected mainly with philosophy, poetry and visual arts.

 

Emilio Casaburi: Pumma

The past is no longer forbidden: through technology, lost relationships and forgotten spaces can be revisited. ‘Pumma’ seeks to narrativize this experience, drawing on old VHS recordings of my family as its sonic foundation. The piece unfolds a journey across space and time, in search of renewed connections with lost ones. It blends acousmatic syntax, sonic imagery and textual fragment. An attempt to harness the full potential of the acousmatic condition to project a narrative of memory, distance, and re-discovery.

About the artist

Emilio Casaburi (b. 1999) is a sound artist and composer from Italy. His artistic output includes acousmatic compositions, field recordings, audiovisual works, and installations. He graduated in Electronic Music under the guideship of Alessandro Cipriani in Frosinone and is now studying at the Institute of Sonology in Den Haag.

 

Yi-Hsien Chen: Quivering Silk

Quivering Silk is a fixed-media electronic work, currently realized in stereo, with the possibility of diffusion in an eight-channel format. All sound materials in the piece are captured from the Chinese 21-string zither (guzheng). The guzheng is capable of producing a rich spectrum of timbres through a wide variety of plucking, sliding, and glissando and sweeping techniques. In this work, these instrumental sounds are used to electronic transformation, layering, and distortion, gradually unfolding into large-scale waves of sound that intends to immerse the listeners. Within these sonic waves, traces of identifiable guzheng techniques occasionally emerge; at other moments, however, the causal relationship between hand gesture and sound becomes ambiguous. This shifting perceptual boundary invites the listeners to reimagine the instrument beyond its physical constraints and to imagine new possibilities for its vibrational behavior. In this work, the title Quivering Silk refers to the vibration of the guzheng strings, which is not limited to the physical vibration produced by finger gestures, but also refers to an electronic vibration shaped through digital sound processing and transformation.

About the artist

Yi-Hsien Chen is a Taiwanese composer. He has received degrees from Taipei National University of the Arts and National Taiwan Normal University. In 2016, he began to pursue Ph.D. with major in music theory and composition at UC San Diego where he studied with Katharina Rosenberger, Chinary Ung, and Lei Liang who is his advisor and committee. He was awarded with full scholarship from UC San Diego for five years. He is currently teaching at the Department of Music in National Sun-Yat Sen University. Chen engages in composing for a wide variety of musical styles and involving multi-disciplinary collaboration. He has created music spanning across various instrumentations including orchestra, ensemble, electroacoustics, theater music, and soundtrack. His works has been selected and performed by renowned ensembles at festivals, such as Mivos Quartet in “June in Buffalo,” National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra in the competition of “Voice of the New and Brilliant – The Sound of Formosa,” and “Weiwuying International Music Festival.”

 

Pingting Xiao: Sonic Echoes of Ink

This composition, Sonic Echoes of Ink, explore in the theory of embodied music cognition. It focuses on the relationship between body movement, piano performance, and sound manipulation. All sound materials are recorded from the piano, including traditional keyboard playing and string plucking, constructing sound traces reminiscent of ink painting through variations in single notes, chords, and resonant timbres. Additionally, the work incorporates EMG (electromyography) sensor data, collecting changes in muscle tension in the performer’s forearm and mapping the data to sound parameters. This allows the tension, release, and movement continuity to directly participate in the generation of musical structure. In this way, music is no longer merely the result of being “played”, but a process of co-writing by the body, movement, and sound.

About the artist

Pingting Xiao, a PhD student at the University of Manchester. I’m interested in embodied music cognition interacts with cultural heritage and creative technology to create motion-responsive performance and visual works. She is dedicated to integrating Chinese traditional culture with music interaction, exploring how ancient cultural elements can be harmonized with modern interactive technologies. She also seeks to inspire and lead a community of like-minded composers in China, encouraging collaboration and participation in creative endeavours.

 

Xiaoyu Su: The Luminosity of the Yugen Mist

“The Luminosity of the Yugen Mist” is a fixed media (acousmatic) work that constructs a surreal sonic architecture from the organic timbres of flute, bamboo flute, and piano with extended techniques. Divorced from live performance, the piece focuses entirely on the spectral transformation and spatial reshaping of these acoustic sources. Rather than depicting a clear narrative, the music remains suspended in an unstable perceptual state—sound is continuously perceived but never fully resolved. Informed by the Japanese aesthetic of Yugen (subtle grace and mysterious depth), the work approaches sound as something partially concealed rather than fully revealed. The recorded materials function as indistinct traces of the physical world, heard through a sonic haze rather than presented as fixed representations. Through granular processing and spectral resynthesis, these concrete sounds are gradually destabilized, dissolving into a luminous, synthetic texture. The piece does not seek a final resolution; instead, it oscillates between obscurity and clarity, leaving the boundary between the acoustic and the electronic deliberately ambiguous.

About the artist

Xiaoyu Su is a composer and researcher currently based in Japan. He is a first-year Master’s student in the Composition Course at the Graduate School of Showa University of Music, where he also works as a Teaching Assistant for Harmony. In March 2025, he graduated with honors from the Digital Music Department of Showa University of Music (Junior College Division). His musical training began with electronic organ studies at the age of five, followed by pop vocal training during adolescence. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the School of Media and Design at Zhejiang University Ningbo Institute of Technology. Prior to relocating to Japan in 2022, he worked as a music teacher at Ninghai County Experimental Primary School while engaging in sound design and music production activities in China. His recent works focus primarily on electronic and acousmatic music and have been presented at events including the Showa Digital Music Live (2023, 2024), the 28th Composition Concert (2024), and the Inter-College Sonic Arts Festival (ICSAF) 2024. In 2024, he was selected as one of two presenters for the Graduation Concert at Showa University of Music. He has studied composition under Daisuke Okamoto and Masatsune Yoshio. Currently, his practice centers on the creation and academic research of electronic music.

 

Pak Hei Leung: Vocalise

Vocalise (2026) serves as an exploration on the meaning of the voice in the digital age. The piece utilizes SoundID VoiceAI, an AI voice changer, to generate audio from the software’s vocal and instrumental packages, based on my recorded vocal input. What is heard in the work is a compilation of human vocal recordings, as well as various snippets of audio clips generated from the tool as a response to the recordings. The vocal clips recorded, varied between around 10-40 seconds, include free improvisation that explores extended vocal techniques (e.g., vocal fry and mouth sounds), as well as some gestures or phrases. After generating them, I selected specific snippets and clips to compile a musical work. In addition to the quality of the sounds, I am interested in moments that sounds particularly digital: either that there are artifacts or glitch in the sounds, or that what is being “sung” or “played” is almost impossible for a human performer. Various Digital Signal Processing tools, such as reverb and tremolos, are added as suited. As snippets of human voice are integrated as part of the piece alongside AI-generated audio, it is expected that audience might not be able to distinguish between the two. This resonates with the artistic goal of the piece being to explore the voice – something I perceive as highly connected to one’s identity – in the further digitalized world. This piece also explores possibilities of using the voice (or audio signals in general) to form musical gestures and shapes in different timbres with the aid of AI tools like this. Remarks: according to Sonarworks’ website, voices that are used in SoundID VoiceAI are from artists who voluntarily worked with them and were compensated.

About the artist

The compositions of Pak Hei (Alvin) Leung have been presented in various places in North America, South America, Europe and Asia. His music has been performed by music groups including Mivos Quartet, Transient Canvas, Rosetta Contemporary Ensemble, Trio Mythos, Duo Antwerp and Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra. His works have been featured in occasions including the ICMC, International Symposium of New Music, International Review of Composers, Seoul International Computer Music Festival, MUSLAB, SEAMUS National Conference, CMS National Conference, SCI National Conference, NSEME, Electric LaTex Festival, VIPA Festival, June in Buffalo, CMS Great Lakes Conference, EMM and Hong Kong Contemporary Music Festival. Alvin is currently a PhD candidate in Music Composition at the University of North Texas. He received a Master of Music degree at Bowling Green State University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Music from the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). His principal teachers include Joseph Klein, Panayiotis Kokoras, Marilyn Shrude and Wendy Wan-ki Lee. www.alvinleung.com/