Listening Room 2
Fixed Media | Program Overview
A Voice Intolerable to Heaven and Earth
Faming Qin
Collapse
Varun Kishore
Paper Wreck
Chun-Han Huang
RedDeadRouletteReconstruction
Nattakon Lertwattanaruk
Singularity
Silvia Matheus
Spawn
Paul Oehlers
Tekstil
Nayaka Adinata and Muhammad Welderahmat
The Unfinished Drum
Keming Zeng
The Voice of the Tree
Yufen Qiu
The Lake Bell
Jing Li
Barnabas
Lluis Guerra Recas and Olivier Jambois
About the pieces & artists
Faming Qin: A Voice Intolerable to Heaven and Earth
A Voice Intolerable to Heaven and Earth is an electroacoustic music that explores the instability and reconstruction of order through sound. The piece unfolds within a fluctuating space between reality and illusion, where sonic materials repeatedly emerge, fracture, and reassemble. Composed in four sections, it employs the Kyma system for sound synthesis and transformation, combined with additional processing tools to shape evolving textures. Through cycles of creation and collapse, resonance is treated not as a fixed outcome but as a temporal trace—an echo that extends beyond linear causality. The work rejects stable form and rule-based structure, instead allowing sound to drift back into broader currents of time and space. In doing so, it reflects on sound as both a primordial force and an enduring presence, probing origins while opening toward indeterminate futures.
About the artist
Faming Qin (Populian) is an electronic music composer and sound designer born in 2005 who is currently pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Electronic Music Composition at the Xi’an Conservatory of Music, China。His creative approach blends elements of realism and impressionism, transforming everyday sounds into expressive musical narratives.
Varun Kishore: Collapse
“There is no punctual moment of disaster; the world doesn’t end with a bang, it winks out, unravels, gradually falls apart [. . .] and all that is left is the consumer-spectator, trudging through the ruins and the relics.” – Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism Collapse draws on aesthetic influences from Brutalist architecture, the large-scale concrete and metal artworks of Anselm Kiefer, Urs Fischer’s excavated gallery floors, and Mark Fisher’s Capitalist Realism. Sonic materials include field recordings of metal drums, pipes, cinderblocks, concrete slabs and other detritus; these were used to generate a collection of phrases via a performable Max patch (a “drunken” Euclidean sequencer of my own design). These phrases were heavily and meticulously chipped away at, like a sculpture emerging from a solid block of concrete, forming gestures that transport the listener through sonic ruins falling apart around them. Additional materials include judiciously filtered electric guitar and noise textures, modular synthesis, and a single drum machine sample.
About the artist
Varun Kishore (b.1990) is a guitarist and composer from Kolkata, India. His work explores interdisciplinary approaches to music technology, with a focus on building frameworks for composition and improvisation to investigate maximalist methodologies and what he sees as the ‘apocalyptic’ nature of creative practice. Varun’s work has been performed at SEAMUS, NYCEMF, Arts Electronica, and others. Varun is a PhD candidate in Composition & Computer Technologies at the University of Virginia.
Chun-Han Huang: Paper Wreck
Paper Wreck is a fixed media electroacoustic composition constructed primarily from the sounds of paper materials. Utilizing Foley recording techniques—such as tearing, friction, and the destruction of cardboard and paper sheets—combined with vocal elements, the piece explores the sonic potential of “soft” matter. Through digital signal processing techniques including granular synthesis and cepstral morphing, these raw, noise-like textures are transformed into a cohesive musical structure. While the work explores complex spectral textures, this version is presented in stereo format.
About the artist
Chun-Han Huang (b. 2002) is a composer and sound artist based in Taiwan. He is currently a graduate student majoring in Computer Music at the Institute of Music, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University (NYCU). His creative practice focuses on electroacoustic composition and sound design, exploring the intersection of organic sound sources and digital signal processing.
Nattakon Lertwattanaruk: RedDeadRouletteReconstruction
Everything heard in RedDeadRouletteReconstruction is reconstructed from either of two sources: the mechanical churn of revolvers sampled from the video game Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018), and fragments from Korean pop outfit Red Velvet’s 2016 hit title track Russian Roulette. In their original contexts, these sounds suggest play—stylized video game violence, catchy bubblegum pop hooks, glossy surfaces. Here, they are recast: disassembled, distorted, and folded into a dark irony where the same little details are relentlessly repeated and saturated until they collapse into a violent mess.
About the artist
Nattakon Lertwattanaruk (b. 2006) is a composer and performer originally from Bangkok, Thailand. His works often engage with the reconstruction of cultural and musical phenomena abstracted from their original contexts, instruments as a site of physical exploration and extension, and the integration of multimedia in dialogue with the concert setting. He is a recipient of the Distinguished Prize at the SCG Young Thai Artist Award (2022, 2024) and has collaborated with ensembles including Tacet(i), the Thai Youth Orchestra, Orkest De Ereprijs, OSSIA New Music, Duo Dubois, and more. His work has been presented at numerous international festivals, such as the Thailand New Music and Arts Symposium, IntAct Festival, Thailand International Composition Festival, Princess Galyani Vadhana International Music Festival, and the China-ASEAN Music Festival. Nattakon is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Music in Composition at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, where he studies under Dr. Evis Sammoutis. Previous mentors include Piyawat Louilarpprasert, Daniel Pesca, and Mikel Kuehn.
Silvia Matheus: Singularity
Singularity seeks a point of convergence within a field of instability. A central melodic line, generated with a Buchla system, carries traces of early electronic sound. Around it, resonant metallic textures emerge and recede. Silence shapes the form, allowing the melody to fragment and drift into distance. Sound is activated through breath, using the Kyma system to connect physical gesture and electronic response. The piece moves not toward climax, but toward disappearance. Singularity seeks a point of convergence within a field of instability. A central melodic line, generated with a Buchla system, carries traces of early electronic sound. Around it, resonant metallic textures emerge and recede. Silence shapes the form, allowing the melody to fragment and drift into distance. Sound is activated through breath, using the Kyma system to connect physical gesture and electronic response. The piece moves not toward climax, but toward disappearance.
About the artist
Silvia Matheus is a Brazilian composer, sound artist, and performer based in the United States. Her work centers on electronic and electroacoustic music, interactive performance, and embodied sound practices, exploring themes of temporal trace, time, and physical gesture through live electronics, sensor-based systems, and acoustic instruments. She holds an MFA in Electronic Music and Recording Media from Mills College and studied interactive music and performance at the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (UC Berkeley). Her early training in Brazil included composition studies with Hans-Joachim Koellreutter, whose experimental approach strongly influenced her artistic development. Since the 1980s, Matheus has worked at the intersection of score, instrument, and technology, developing interactive systems where physical gesture, breath, and movement directly shape sound. Her work has been presented internationally at festivals, conferences, and art spaces, including the International Computer Music Conference (ICMC) in Hong Kong, New York, Havana, Japan, Denmark, and Canada. Through solo and collaborative projects, she continues to create immersive works for improvisation.
Paul Oehlers: Spawn
Commissioned to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the University of Illinois Experimental Music Studios, Spawn celebrates the legacy of the studios and explores creative ground through its completion.
About the artist
Paul A. Oehlers is most recognized for his “extraordinarily evocative” film scores. (Variety) Films incorporating his music have won the Grand Jury prize at the Hamptons International Film Festival, the Atlanta International Film Festival, and the Indiefest Film Festival. In addition, films with his music have screened at dozens of festivals in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia. Paul A. Oehlers’ compositions have been performed in the United States and abroad including performances at the Society for Electro-acoustic Music in the United States national conferences, the International Computer Music Conferences, the Gamper New Music Festival, the Seoul International Electro-acoustic Music Festival, the Institut für Neue Musik und Musikerziehung in Darmstadt, Germany, and the VII Annual Brazilian Electronic Music Festival, as well as a 1987 command performance for former United States President Ronald Reagan. He was the first composer ever commissioned by the Nature Conservancy to compose a concert composition about prairie conservation. Paul was named the Margaret Lee Crofts Fellow by the MacDowell Colony for the year 2006. He is currently Associate Professor of Audio Technology at American University in Washington, DC.
Nayaka Adinata and Muhammad Welderahmat: Tekstil
Tekstil is a fixed-media sound work by Nayaka Farrell and Muhammad Welderahmat is made entirely from everyday sounds recorded in the artists’ surrounding environments. The recordings are not used to document specific places or events, but as raw sonic material shaped by how each artist listens, selects, and arranges sound. Coming from different regions and backgrounds, the two artists bring distinct approaches to everyday sound, which are combined to form a shared yet varied sonic vocabulary.
About the artists
Muhammad Welderahmat is a composer, live coder, songwriter, and improviser born in Palu, Central Sulawesi (2002) and raised in Parigi Moutong. Active since 2018, he works across experimental music, free improvisation, soundscape, ambient, and live coding. He studied with Edy Subianto, Talis, Irwan Kurniawan, and Rangga Purnama Aji. Environmental sound is central to his practice, engaging with empirical experience, cultural contexts, social phenomena, and critical expression. He has released three albums: Phenomenon (2023), Senyap (2025), and Menuju Beranda (2025), and is an active member of Paguyuban Algorave Indonesia (PAI).
Nayaka Farrell Adinata (b. 2005) is a composer studying at Pelita Harapan University under Stevie Jonathan Sutanto. Trained in classical guitar from an early age, he studied at Sekolah Menengah Musik (SMM) Yogyakarta before focusing on composition. He has participated in ARTJOG, OMCM, and Jogja Noise Bombing, and received awards including 1st Prize at The Papandayan International Jazz Competition (2023) and the Best New Young Talent Award (2023). His electronic work Lost Contact premiered at the 2025 Immersive Festival in Lisbon.
Keming Zeng: The Unfinished Drum
The Unfinished Drum is an electroacoustic work born from a core philosophical inquiry: what is the ultimate destination of the sound of a drum that is perpetually struck yet never “finished”? The piece deconstructs traditional rhythmic pulses into continuously evolving sonic entities through extreme electronic transformation and spatial reconstruction of acoustic drum sources. These sounds constantly morph on the boundary between “formation” and “dissipation,” between “signal” and “echo,” creating an immersive sound field that is both oppressive and meditative. It invites the listener to confront the very existence and evaporation of sound in its absolute state, experiencing an acoustic ritual without end.
About the artist
Keming Zeng, 2002.1.7, first-year graduate student at the Wuhan Conservatory of Music.
Yufen Qiu: The Voice of the Tree
The Voice of the Tree is a fixed media work composed using recorded performances of shakuhachi, piano, bass drum, and timpani. Taking the tree as its central metaphor, the piece explores the idea of an “inaudible voice”—forms of natural presence that do not produce sound directly, yet become perceivable through relationships and attentive listening. The work is structured around three interconnected sections corresponding to a tree’s physical form: roots, trunk, and branches/leaves. Rather than following a linear narrative, the composition develops through a mapping between physical morphology and sound strategies. Structural and tactile qualities associated with each element—such as rooting and spreading, structural support and inner grain, and extension with breath-like motion—are abstracted and translated into instrumental writing that shapes timbre, density, and temporal flow. In the compositional process, recorded performances of shakuhachi, piano, and percussion are further transformed and used as the primary sound materials of the work. As the piece unfolds, clear instrumental characteristics and compositional traces are retained, while the sound gradually emphasizes continuity, internal resonance, and slow temporal change, allowing the presence of the tree to emerge through transformation rather than representation. Presented in stereo, the work maintains melodic contours in the shakuhachi and rhythmic momentum in the piano and percussion, while placing them alongside sustained resonance and subtle shifts in texture. In this way, melody and rhythm function both as structural cues and as materials that can be extended and reshaped in post-production, creating a listening experience that evokes processes of natural growth and flow. Through The Voice of the Tree, the composer invites the audience to reconsider the relationship between sound, silence, and perception, and to attend to overlooked forms of natural existence.
About the artist
Yufen Qiu is a graduate student specializing in electroacoustic music and sound design. Their work focuses on the interaction between acoustic instruments and electronic processing, exploring immersive spatialization techniques and experimental sound textures. Currently, they are developing a series of works centered on environmental themes, using instruments to mimic natural sounds and investigate new sonic possibilities. Through this approach, they aim to deepen the connection between music, nature, and ecological awareness. While continuing to refine my artistic practice, they are actively seeking opportunities to present and further develop their work in both musical and academic contexts.
璟 李 (Li Jing): The Lake Bell
This fixed media acousmatic work is crafted based on audio signal processing, drawing inspiration from the legend of “the ancient bell summoning springs” at Honey Spring Lake. The piece integrates three core sound elements: resonant bell tones that evoke the mythic narrative, rhythmic drum beats mirroring the laborious digging pace of the people in the legend, and authentic field recordings of the lake’s surrounding environment to construct a vivid sense of time and place. Through digital signal processing techniques—including spectral distortion, phase modulation, and fragmentary deconstruction and reassembly—these acoustic materials are transformed beyond their original forms. By blurring the boundaries between natural soundscapes, traditional instrumental timbres, and processed electronic textures, the work attempts to let sound itself carry the weight of history and collective memory, even as the physical traces of the legend fade over time.
About the artist
Li Jing (b. 14.02.2006) is an undergraduate student majoring in Music Acoustics Direction (Electronic Music Production) at Wuhan Conservatory of Music (enrolled 2024). His creative focus lies in the artistic application of audio signal processing in electronic music, exploring psychoacoustics and auditory illusion experiences. He constructs experimental and immersive electronic music language through spectral shaping, phase modulation and other technologies.
Lluis Guerra Recas and Olivier Jambois: Barnabas
Improvisatory work where a pianist and an improvising guitarist interact with the Biofeedback Suite (BFS), a multimodal system that maps real-time physiological and gestural data to sound. GSR, motion, and facial cues drive electronic parameters, creating a reactive sonic environment that mirrors the performers’ embodied state. The guitarist uses extended techniques, pedal effects, and PD processing; audio signals are also used and transformed alongside BFS-generated material. The piece explores how biofeedback-informed electronics can function as a dynamic extension of acoustic performance, documented through exploratory sessions that demonstrate the integration of physiological sensing, motion analysis, and real-time processing in collaborative improvisation. Further technical and conceptual details underlying this performance are discussed in a companion paper [reference omitted for double-blind review] submitted to ICMC 2026.
About the artists
Lluis Guerra Recas is a researcher, composer, and educator working at the intersection of artistic research, interactive systems, and embodied music cognition. He holds a PhD Cum Laude in Art: Production and Research (UPV, 2021) focused on emotions and interactive systems in video game music. His work spans orchestral and chamber music, film scoring, jazz, pop, and contemporary digital composition.
He is Academic Director of Music & Sound at ENTI–UB (Barcelona) and Visiting Researcher at CESEM–NOVA FCSH and ITI LARSys (Lisbon). His practice-based research focuses on biofeedback-informed music systems, real-time audiovisual interaction, and the use of physiological and gestural data in performance. He is the designer of the Biofeedback Suite (BFS) and an active performer in piano and improvisation.
Guitarist/Improviser: Olivier Jambois
Olivier Jambois is a French-Catalan guitarist and composer working across jazz, improvisation, and experimental music. He received the Rezzo–Jazz à Vienne and Jazz(s)RA awards (2011), and his debut album (Naïve) was acclaimed by Jazz Magazine. In 2020, he was artist-in-residence at La Marfà (Girona), collaborating with drummer Jim Black on Eclosió (Underpool).
He maintains an active solo practice exploring pedal-based textures and real-time Pure Data processing, performs at major European jazz festivals, and teaches composition and electric guitar at ENTI–UB (Barcelona).