Immersive acoustic experiences through programmed concerts of multichannel sound design and electroacoustic music
We frequently host concerts, screenings and talks showcasing the work of students, staff and international experts in the field. These concerts are open to the public and give our students the opportunity to be heard alongside world leading artists.
The Loudspeaker Orchestra shares immersive listening experiences in diverse venues, via curated concerts of sound arts and contemporary music.
Our 2022/23 concert season will transport you via an eclectic programme of sound and audiovisual works, through an array of unique and compelling performance spaces across Greenwich, South-East London and beyond. We invite all who listen and are curious about the medium of sound, to join us for this unique programme of events!
Dates:
- 22 September 2022: Dynamical Systems and Natural Environments, St John’s Waterloo, London
- 26 October 2022: Reconfiguring the Landscape, Greenwich Market
- 18-20 November 2022: SOUND/IMAGE 22, University of Greenwich
- 14 December 2022: Volstarfel, The Amersham Arms, London
- 25 January 2023: CeReNeM, St Alfege Church, Greenwich
- 25 February 2023: Interrogating the Noise: Gallery Sound, Stephen Lawrence Gallery
- 17 March 2023: Climate Words, Blackheath Halls, Blackheath
- 17 May 2023: Resonant Chamber, Brunel Museum, Rotherhithe
- 21 June 2023: Sonic Habitats, Crossrail Place Roof Garden, Canary Wharf
- 15 July 2023: Disruptive Frequencies, Kings Place, London
22 September 2022: Simon Knighton curates: Dynamical Systems and Natural Environments
with nonclassical
Venue: St John’s Waterloo, 73 Waterloo Rd, London SE1 8TY
Time: 7.30pm
Entry: £12 advance, £8 concessions, £15 on the door
A pendulum swings, water flows, the air particles around us move. You may not know it, but these are all examples of dynamical systems – mathematical processes of change which surround us in everyday life. But what happens when you take these patterns and translate them into sound? Nonclassical Associate Composer Simon Knighton explores this question with a curated programme of music and sound art inspired by the intersection of nature, maths and sound.
nonclassical is a music promoter, record label and events producer presenting new classical, experimental and electronic music. Crossing genre and defying convention, nonclassical develops, produces and promotes innovative music, supporting emerging artists and bringing new music to new audiences.
26 October 2022: Reconfiguring the Landscape
with NMH Oslo and IRCAM Paris
Venue: Greenwich Market, London, SE10 9HZ
Time: 7pm
Entry: £5, booking is required
“Reconfiguring the Landscape” is an international collaborative partnership which investigates how 3-D electroacoustic composition and sound-art can evoke and provoke a new awareness of our outdoor environment via four complementary strands - Layering, Enhancing, Relocating, Modifying.
Led by Prof. Natasha Barrett (Norwegian Music Academy, Oslo) in partnership with Dr. Nadine Shchütz (ETH Zurich, IRCAM Paris) and Dr. Andrew Knight-Hill (SOUND/IMAGE Research Centre, University of Greenwich) the project explores the creative potentials of working with technology which can capture, analyse and synthesise 3-D sound spaces.
Higher-order ambisonics offers access to the precision of our spatial hearing, such that electroacoustic composition now has the potential to address, and be enriched by, the full dimensionality of the sonic landscape.
18-20 November 2022: SOUND/IMAGE 22 Festival
Venue: Stockwell Street, University of Greenwich
Entry:
- Festival (3-day) pass: £50, £25 students
- Day pass (Saturday or Sunday): £25, £15 students
- Individual Loudspeaker Orchestra Concert (Trevor Wishart and KMRU): £5
- Workshops*: £75, £50 students
Time: Click here for preliminary schedule
Greenwich SOUND/IMAGE festival presents a series of exhibitions, workshops, talks and activities showcasing leading audio-visual art that investigates relationships between sound and image. The University has hosted a SOUND/IMAGE conference since 2015, inviting international world-leading artists to share their work and practice, in an open and accessible environment.
This festival brings together artists and experts exploring the relationship between sounds and images, and the images which sounds can construct by themselves. Engaging in a rich complementary programme of talks, screenings, loudspeaker orchestra concerts and workshops – we hope to stimulate discussion, debate and to engage diverse perspectives and new insights on sound and audiovisual practice.
Featuring special guests: Nina Hartstone (Oscar Winning Sound Editor), Trevor Wishart (Electroacoustic Composer), George Vlad (Sound Designer and Recordist) and KMRU (Sound Artist).
Take part in workshops, concerts and talks, visit our exhibitions and explore a diversity of audio-visual practices.
For further information on the festival please click here.
14 December 2022: Volstarfel
Venue: The Amersham Arms, 388 New Cross Rd, London, SE14 6TY
Time: 7pm
Entry: £5, booking is required
[sobbing and moaning]
An evening of experimental live sets and new audio-visual collaborations, including Territorial Gobbing, 0jon & Jim Hobbs, Richard Whitby and more.
25 January 2022: CeReNeM
with University of Huddersfield
Venue: St Alfege Church, Greenwich Church St, London, SE10 9BJ
Time: 7pm
Entry: £5, booking is required
Join us for an evening of music with the Centre for Research in New Music (CeReNeM) at the University Huddersfield. Featuring works by Aaron Cassidy, Pierre Alexandre Tremblay, Eddie Dobson, David Vélez, Geoff Cox, Sam Gillies and more.
CeReNeM is a community of world-leading artists and scholars who bring innovative and interdisciplinary perspectives to research in composition, performance, sonic arts and multimedia, music technology, improvisation, analysis, and new music studies.
25 February: Interrogating the Noise: Gallery Sound
Venue: Stephen Lawrence Gallery, University of Greenwich
Time: 7pm
Entry: £5, booking is required
A cacophony of rhythmic stutters polarising with brutal deep bass – a performance / installation and interrogation of the artists and gallery space will take place. The gallery is White and the sound is Black corroding noise from the tapestry of Dirty Electronics and abrasive harsh noise, and penetrating glitches of Dushume.
Dushume and Dirty Electronics collaborate and perform with hardware mash-ups and speculative sound circuits, creating work on the fluid Studio Bench: a space where making circuits and performance co-exist. Their “makes” results in a series of short episodic absurd pieces that explores DIYness and Noise.
The performance forms part of the Noise III Exhibition running from the 25 February - 26 March 2023 in the Stephen Lawrence Gallery.
17 March 2023: Climate Words
with Trinity Laban Conservatoire
Venue: Blackheath Halls
Time: 6pm
A concert of spoken word-derived works based on interviews and aural histories connected to climate issues, fusing Trinity Laban's Contemporary Music Group and the University of Greenwich Loudspeaker Orchestra. Join us to hear the world premiere of new works by Trinity Laban Composition students for the Daryl Runswick Competition.
This unique collaboration between the SOUND/IMAGE Research Centre at the University of Greenwich and our neighbours at Trinity Laban provides students a unique opportunity to compose for ensemble and immersive audio system. These new compositions have been developed over the past 9 months part of our ongoing collaboration and partnership.
17 May 2023: Resonant Chamber
with Aproxima Arts
Venue: Brunel Museum
Time: 7pm
Entry: £5, booking is required
Deep underground where the water crosses land, we enter a subterranean space of brick, concrete and iron. This industrial artefact, he world's first caisson, offers an echo of labours, of sweat and of ambition stands as a silent monument, a reverberant void.
Resonant Chamber explores the power of combining architecture, live performance and recorded sound to create immersive site-specific experiences. Brunel’s tunnel chamber will be transformed into an immersive listening space featuring the premiere of a new work by Bede Williams and Andrew Knight-Hill for trumpet, electronics and the Brunel Caisson; a performance of the music from critically acclaimed ‘Over Lunan’ - composed by Andrew Knight-Hill as an Aproxima Arts commission for the 2021 immersive beach performance in Arbroath (for marimba, conch shell, choir and electronic sound); and a percussion and electronics performance by Second Citizen, Angus Farquhar (creative director Aproxima Arts, ex-NVA, ex-Test Dept.) and Cameron Sinclair (Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Philarmonia, Glyndebourne Orchestra).
24 May 2023: SOUND/IMAGE Intersections
Venue: Leeds School of Arts
Time: 7pm
On Wednesday 24th May 2023 Leeds School of Arts presents an exciting performance from SOUND/IMAGE. The programme includes a selection of works by artists Andrew Knight-Hill, Brona Martin, Dushume, Emma Margetson, Jim Hobbs and Richard Whitby, including:
* Avartan by Dushume – A low frequency work exploring how noise and sound induced music should be felt as vibration, rather than heard with the cochlear.
* For Want of (not) Measuring: Hxy/Vz =ø by Jim Hobbs – A series of loosely linked moving images and graphics which in turn create a type of hallucinatory experience.
* Frogland by Brona Martin – A exotic soundscape of pulsing rhythmic and static musical patterns exploring night-time field recordings from Florida and Brisbane.
21 June 2023: Sonic Habitats
with Touch
Venue: Crossrail Place Roof Garden, Crossrail Place, London E14 5AB
Time: 7pm
Entry: Free, however booking is required.
An evening with Touch, listening to the IKO loudspeaker amongst exotics plants in the Roof Garden’s amphitheatre. Join sound artist Bethan Kellough as we follow motions and contours of winds, waves and other atmospheric and geological processes, responding to their vibrancy, the spaces they reveal, and the moments we can spend immersed in timescales that expand beyond our lived experience.
Since 1982 Touch has been a label that embraces experimental electronic music, and has created audio-visual productions and live events across the world. Artists include Philip Jeck, Phill Niblock, Claire M Singer, Chris Watson, Jana Winderen and many more.
Sound artist Bethan Kellough weaves together musical and environmental sound-worlds to create immersive installations, performances and compositions. Her album Aven (Touch, 2016) has been described as “a film you watch with your ears” (Tiny Mix Tapes), “earthy and fantastical” (Norman Records) and “sometimes magical and sometimes terrifying” (Rolling Stone).
15 July 2023: Disruptive Frequencies
with nonclassical
Venue: Kings Place, 90 York Way, London, N1 9AG
Time: 7pm
Entry: £7.50-£15.00
Nonclassical presents the launch party for “Disruptive Frequencies” release. An evening of experimental sounds by Black and South Asian artists NikNak, Dhangsha, Nikki Sheth, Poulomi Desai, Gary Stewart and Dushume.
This is a collective celebration of the music produced and created as part of the Exploring Cultural Diversity in Experimental Sound project, which will be released on Vinyl through Nonclassical.
About Exploring Cultural Diversity in Experimental Sound:
This AHRC funded project aims to challenge institutional whiteness in experimental sound practice by investigating the creative identities of contemporary Black and South Asian composers working in the UK.
Previous Events:
Loudspeaker Orchestra Concert Series 2021/22
The Loudspeaker Orchestra shares immersive listening experiences in diverse venues, via curated concerts of sound arts and contemporary music.
Dates:
- 4-6 March: IKO @ Deliaphonic, Coventry Cathedral
- 23 March: Polish Radio Experimental Studio, St Alfege Church, Greenwich
- 13 April: Composing Space, Royal Observatory, Greenwich
- 11 May: Constructs, St Alfege Church, Greenwich
- 15 June: Diverse Frequencies, IKLECTIK, London
4-6 March 2022: IKO @ Deliaphonic
Venue: Coventry Cathedral, CV1 5AB
Times: Friday 4 March, 10am-6pm / Saturday 5 March, 10am-5pm / Sunday 6 March, 10am-5pm
Entry: Free, no booking is required
Celebrating the life and work of BBC radiophonic pioneer Delia Derbyshire, we’re delighted to bring our unique IKO instrument to Coventry for the Deliaphonic Festival.
Presenting a programme of works by the artists and composers of the SOUND/IMAGE Research Group, this sound installation projects beams of spatial audio into the iconic space of Coventry Cathedral.
For more information on the Deliaphonic Festival visit: https://www.deliaphonic.co.uk/.
23 March 2022: Polish Radio Experimental Studio
Venue: St Alfege Church, Greenwich, SE10 9BJ
Times: 6.30pm Pre-concert Talk / 7pm Concert
Entry: £5, booking is required
Join us for an evening of experimental music crafted by the world’s first radio studio devoted to the creation of electroacoustic music, the Polish Radio Experimental Studio (PRES). This concert will be accompanied by a pre-concert talk from 6.30pm with Michal Libera, producer of Bôłt Records, a Polish label founded in 2008 as a medium for experimental music practices in Eastern Europe.
About PRES: Founded in 1957 to create musical 'illustrations' for movies, radio and television, Polish Radio Experimental Studio (PRES) was a place of artistic freedom across three decades between 1960s to 1980s. Being one of only a few studios in Eastern Europe with electronic music equipment, PRES was a center of research into the possibilities of tape music and saw the creation of many original electroacoustic works, by composers such as Krzysztof Penderecki, Elżbieta Sikora, Włodzimierz Kotoński, and Bohdan Mazurek.
13 April 2022: Composing Space
Venue: Peter Harrison Planetarium, Royal Observatory Greenwich, SE10 8XJ
Time: 7pm
Entry: £5, booking is required
Transporting the audience to other worlds, this concert presents a constellation of compositions and audiovisual works that unite the forces of the Royal Observatory and the SOUND/IMAGE Research Group from the University of Greenwich.
Featuring a programme of works that explore spatial immersion in both sound and image within the Peter Harris Planetarium.
About SOUND/IMAGE Research Group and The Royal Observatory Partnership: Composers from the SOUND/IMAGE Research Group are currently collaborating with colleagues from the Royal Observatory to develop how spatial audio and sound-based composition may be used to underscore and communicate educational and scientific knowledge activities within live planetarium shows and educational events.
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Lee and the PHANGS-HST Team, Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt
11 May 2022: Constructs
Venue: St Alfege Church, Greenwich, SE10 9BJ
Time: 7pm
Entry: £5, booking is required
Celebrating the role of women in contemporary electronic music, this concert of works for IKO loudspeaker features new compositions from five female composers: Brona Martin, Emma Margetson, Angela McArthur, Nikki Sheth and Giulia Vismara.
Come and hear works reconstructing, recontextualizing and re-presenting environments through the unique IKO loudspeaker instrument in the iconic musical church of St Alfege Church, Greenwich.
About IKO Loudspeaker: Generating immersive 3D soundfields, the IKO uses an array of twenty speakers to project Higher Order Ambisonic sound spaces. Projecting outwards, the IKO enables genuinely sculptural compositional possibilities, embracing and seamlessly integrating room acoustics into the constructed sound space. In so doing sound and space merge to create shifting planes of rhythms, frequencies and intensities.
15 June 2022: Diverse Frequencies
Venue: IKLECTIK, Old Paradise Yard, 20 Carlisle Ln, London SE1 7LG
Time: 7.30pm
Entry: £5, booking is required
Join us for an evening of diverse experimental sounds by Black and South Asian artists, NikNak, Dhangsha, Nikki Sheth, Poulomi Desai, Gary Stewart and Dushume. A collective celebration of music produced and created as part of the project, Exploring Cultural Diversity in Experimental Sound using the sound system, AMOENUS.
About Exploring Cultural Diversity in Experimental Sound: This AHRC funded project aims to challenge institutional whiteness in experimental sound practice by investigating the creative identities of contemporary black and South Asian composers working in the UK.
About AMOENUS: AMOENUS is an art organisation that facilitates, educates, curates and promotes immersive art centred around 3D sound.
Previous Events
 | Loudspeaker Orchestra Concert Series 2019/20 A programme of immersive acoustic experiences celebrating the European community through contemporary music, welcoming leading international artists to the historic musical church of St Alfege in Greenwich. |
 | Loudspeaker Orchestra Concert Series 2018/19 A diversity of musical styles and approaches from an international array of leading composers. |
 | Loudspeaker Orchestra Concert Series 2016/17 Presenting works created by Composers and Sound Designers at the University of Greenwich alongside special guest Erik Nyström. |