Cities And Memory

"Listening to the field recording and reading about it immediately evoked associations with the sound of movement, electricity, power plants, moraines and the surrounding fauna and flora. First I did slow down the original recording to different speeds, listening closely while allowing the data and contextual information inspire me for my further process."I then divided the field recording into several segments created rhythmic processed elements from the original file. Inspired by this evolving sound environment and my research, I did improvise over the soundscape on multiple tracks with midi controllers, experimenting with different sonic textures and gestures."After returning to my composition some time later, I made further adjustments, adaptions and refinements in speed, volumes and movement. Through this process, I tried to shape a composition that follows and reflects the Lech river."Section of the river Lech reimagined by Steffi Baron-Neuhuber. -------Flow is a creative exploration telling the story

"At this segment of the Lech, the river has left its Alpine origins – its wild and icy rapids are just a memory. Data suggest that the Lech is “heavily modified” by human intervention (i.e., channelization, hydroelectric stations). However, at this point in its journey to the Danube, the river Lech (described as “widely lacking natural geomorphic dynamics”) does not merit restoration plans. Here, it seems to be considered nothing special or remarkable. Yet I was drawn to the “humming of the power station” in the field recording. This hypnotic sound highlights the nearby human activities that draw power from the Lech’s steady flow. "The Wasserkraftwerk’s low drone beneath the lively rush of water awakened my examination of the relationship between nature and technology. In creating “Sink, Surface,” I imagined timeless naiadic spirits becoming entranced by the incursion of human technomagic. Their chaotic, playful noises settle into harmonic relation with the device’s drone. "When I first heard that drone, I a

"Gregory Scheckler’s composition for Flow draws from field recordings at Epfach, where the Lech River bends beside the village. The recording’s distant church bells of St. Bartholomäus and fluttering water evoked memories of the composer's studies in nearby Innsbruck during 1987-88. "Through deep listening, he found the recording's natural rhythm at 104 BPM and created a "Flow Snare" using granular synthesis from the field recording, which he also layered several times to find sonic variety. The composition unfolds as a round—layered voices representing generations along the river—while its form mirrors the river's geography: the middle section broadens like the bend itself. A snippet from the upstream segment connects to earlier waters, and the finale unites the instruments in unison, like waters flowing together downstream. "Bells, waterways, synthesizers, percussion, and layers come together for an adventurous, uplifting palette."Section of the river Lech reimagined by Gregory Scheckler. -------Flow is a

"The combination of the church bells and textural water currents exhibited the relationship to the river from the community, building close to the river one assumes the ongoing relationship to the river. The water sounds shallow, passing over stones. I chose to bounce and defragment these sounds using 1/4" analog tape, a response to the water passing and breaking past stones. "Breaking and disjointing the elements with ambient melodic vibraphones. The piece wanders and intensifies to a textural dissonance of low tones and glitchy static. It resolves with solely the sounds of the river as it leaves beyond the town. The piece was edited together then processed back as a final mix onto 1/4" tape before digitizing to a final version."Section of the river Lech reimagined by Nick Kuepfer. -------Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. E

"My process was pretty straightforward. I studied the photos and data of the river, attempting to get a handle on some of the terminology, history, and science. I then focused on my segment, specifically the reservoir and the surrounding forest. I didn’t feel the need to deconstruct the field recording, as there’s both mystery and clarity in it that I wanted to embrace. The heavy modification of the river segment via the channel and dams factored heavily in how I determined the movement, pace, and dynamics of my piece. The music was created with analog synthesizers and several delay pedals."Section of the river Lech reimagined by Eulipion Corps. -------Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.

"This is an eco-poetic/mythic piece, a kind of swan song. Named after a line in the film IO, where, in a toxic environment, in a post apocalyptic time, you can no longer see swans. I was particularly inspired by the quietness of this segment of the river, and the description for segment 15 by the person who recorded it, that it was as if they had come upon a secret and secluded place, hiding in a dense stretch of forest, where one man pushes off on a boat, barely rippling the tranquil waters. "You can hear mute swans taking off. I re-imagine this lone man as the Swan Knight, or Knight of the apocalypse. I wanted to convey this feeling, of a separate mystical and magical place, as both real and not real. A place of myth but also as place of illusions and deceptive tranquility. I wanted to sonically disrupt that magical flow, of time and the sound of a lone rower, with the reality of climate catastrophe, water and sound pollution. Especially contrasting the clean waters of Germany with the sewage filled water

"The river inspired the piece as a dreamlike walk. This composition focuses on birds as the first carriers of musical entities. The sound is shaped into an ancient story, told through evolving pads that mirror the gentle life surrounding the current. "Influenced by the figure of David in the Old Testament, where music is discovered through nature and spirituality, the composition unfolds as a quiet revelation, as if the birds themselves were guiding the emergence of music. It evokes an intimate promenade along the river, tinted with magical mirages."Section of the river Lech reimagined by Angela Tisner. -------Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.

"Viewed from above, on maps and in satellite imagery, Litzauer Schleife (‘Litzau Loop’) appears as a gracefully looping meander. Sonically, on the ground, the field recording makes a similar gesture with the sounds of gently flowing water and the calls and wingbeats of birds. We were intrigued to learn this section of the River Lech is protected by conservation legislation and is one of the very few remaining parts of the river that approximates a ‘natural’ riverscape. We dug a bit into the history of this place and learned about past times and people that both inspired and troubled our contribution."In the decades following World War Two, Litzau Loop was saved from being turned into a reservoir while under incredible pressure from powerful industrial interests seeking to develop entirely the Bavarian section of the River Lech. The word ‘pressure’ and sound of water rushing through a power plant in Ilaria Boffa’s preceding piece for Section 13 thus resonated for us and we brought it into the our opening."Ano

"The field recording and the satellite timelapse I chose speak of hydro-power, energy and discontinuity, they tell the story of a voice fragmented, amplified and impeded. There is magic and mystery in the life of these ancient water-beings. Is a river a portal? Is the myth still alive?"Artist and researcher Elizabeth Gallon Drosde introduces us to the submerged at the beginning of the composition. Rivers are story tellers, they are memory. If we deep listen, we might commune with ghosts and tune our bodies to their whispers, we might become a vibration."The sound of wind accompanying this first part and the end of the piece is played on violin by violinist Ida Di Vita (Quartetto Indaco). A long whistle, the primordial element of air swirling and hissing."Later on I join the flow and embody the river, its deep ancestral sound. My poem and my pitched voice in English are there to remind us of the history of this more-than-human being, its force and path, its hunger. "Mystery and magic, and the Lech rivers in r

"Entrophony — fusing 'entropy' with '-phony' (sound) — transforms a hydropower plant's acoustic signature into a meditation on energy dissipation. The project captures the plant as an entropy generator, extracting rhythm and noise from a single field recording through granular synthesis and sampling techniques. "Hovering at the threshold between music and industrial noise, the composition positions both the power plant and the river it harnesses as technologies within an inexorable entropic system—each converting organized energy into increasingly dispersed forms."Section of the river Lech reimagined by Louis Möckel. -------Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.

"Submerged is a music piece that focuses on the perspective of living organisms in Forggensee Reservoir. The work incorporates field recordings capturing gentle water surfaces, subtle shifts in currents, distant passing vehicles, and the faint presence of aquatic life. The field recordings are used throughout most of the piece as raw material with minimal processing. The composition is structured in three sections, each representing different layers and temporal states of the lake."The opening section evokes shallow waters, suggesting aquatic animals and the shimmering surface through minimal and delicate sonic textures. Through layered sounds representing both visual and auditory phenomena, subtle changes in the environment are expressed."In the middle section, the perspective moves deeper underwater, where darker and shifting sonic textures emerge. These sounds reflect movement and tension within the ecosystem. This section is also informed by human activity, such as tourism and recreational boating, as we

"After reading about the Lech and looking at the images, my first impulse was to change or add nothing - just let the sound be - like it is... It took a while until i thought: Ok Lech - I'll "visit" you and bring some silent sounds - like the sounds that might show up in your head, when you are in nature. "So I layered, spoken word, singing of different melodies that did not necessary fit, a bit piano and let it meet the Lech - but so, so silent that you can hardly hear it - is there something? or not? Did I hear something else? what was that? "I did not change the recording of the Lech, it is exactly like it was recorded, just a bit shortened, because I wanted this piece to be an instant, like a blink of an eye. Section of the river Lech reimagined by Judith Mann. -------Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full pr

"Some years ago, when we were still living in Poland, my partner and I drove to Füssen to collect a second-hand canoe that we had found online. Its name was Tukan. I’m fairly certain it had frequently travelled the River Lech with its previous owners who were keen canoeists and most likely knew their way around the water."These days, Tukan sometimes glides along the tidal rivers around Southampton, carrying those earlier journeys quietly within."In this piece, I used a field recording from the workshop in Füssen, alongside the sound of Tukan itself, which I captured with a contact microphone. I blended these textures with gentle synths and pads — small sonic currents filling the spaces in between. I guess my aim was to evoke a sense of interconnectedness: how places, objects, and moments echo through time, and how sometimes certain sounds, or memories, resurface." Section of the river Lech reimagined by Canis Arboris. -------Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sou

"Assigned the section of the Lech that crosses from Austria into Germany, I decided to travel to the area (near the city of Füssen) to listen to the river myself. I visited on the last Saturday of January, when the sun was shining over the (still very present) snow on the banks of the river. "With a few microphones, two recorders, and lots of time to be with my thoughts, I recorded in six locations while walking south along the river. I began at the bridge over the Lech Falls, found a few spots to capture along the way until I made it across the border into Austria, where the river was calm and flat - but the slick snowy bank was not - and the battery cover from my recorder decided to slide down and join the river. Alas. I'd like to think it's made it well past Augsburg by now:). "In composing the piece, I knew I wanted to structure it geographically--starting in Austria, and ending at the falls. Further, I wanted the piece to capture a bit of the contemplative mood that persisted within me throughout that d

"In composing Segment No. 9 for the Flow project, I explored how to translate the satellite imagery into sound and blend it with the provided field recording. I began by converting the imagery into raw data, which I then mapped to MIDI to trigger synthesisers."Listening to the field recording, I felt it told its own story, capturing the contrast between the free flowing River Lech and the sound of gravel at the extraction factory site. I composed a tertiary piece in a bid to combine these elements, feeling that my part was one of creating an emotional space where a conversation could take place between them."With this in mind, I reached out to the artist and curator of the Flow project, Riccardo Fumagalli, to see if he and his colleagues would be willing to share their personal reflections on the river. Both he and Dr. Martina Cecchetto of the University of Padua kindly provided moving voice messages. Their words inspired me to weave their voices into the piece conversationally, providing the final cohesion

"I approached the River Lech as a memory machine: wide air and landscape, close water detail, and the river’s vibrations. These hidden resonances became the harmonic spine of the piece. "The composition stays faithful to the original source while drifting into abstraction: selective time-stretching and spectral sculpting reveal submerged textures; granulation turns droplets and foam into a fine acoustic dust; site-shaped reverberation merges perspectives into one blurred, dreamlike space. "What begins as a recognisable current slowly becomes a palimpsest: the river as presence, then as afterimage."Section of the river Lech reimagined by Giuseppe Cordaro. -------Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.

"A data sonification of the Lech River - the river as score"A river does not compose. It erodes, carries, deposits. Over centuries it traces a shape into the land — a shape that is the accumulated record of rainfall, geology, seasonal flood, and human intervention. This project begins with a simple question: what does that shape sound like?"Using computer vision applied to satellite imagery, I extracted the geometry of a segment of the Lech river. From this geometry I simulated 300 trajectories — triplets of coordinates describing the paths that small stones might travel as they roll along the water flow. Each triplet becomes a pair of pitches, derived from comparing the point's position within the river's width and the segment's length to a given musical scale. The data does not illustrate the river. It becomes the river's voice — oblique, distributed, never quite repeating.Listening like a river bank"The musical material is deliberately modest: long tones, broken arpeggios, pizzicatos. These are not interp

"A crowded procession of singular figures, images and imaginaries, possible futures "“Figures” is built upon a field recording of a threshold zone where the mountains begin to yield to the plains, and where the river itself is divided since a part of its water is withdrawn into a side channel for hydropower production.The underlying approach draws on Steven Feld's proposition that attentive listening is itself a rigorous form of research. Given time and attention, sound ceases to be the object of study and becomes its instrument, a means by which human, natural, hybrid, and alien figures can be identified within the landscape, and within the constant flow of water. "Isn’t culture a constant flux? "Isn’t transmission/tradition a constant flow?"The matter is: inquiry of this kind is subjective. Its situatedness is not incidental to Figures: it is its method. My personal geography is deeply intertwined with the river systems of Veneto: I was born on the river Brenta in Bassano del Grappa, I live in Rovigo betwe

"What stood out for me in the data about the segment as well as in the sounds themselves, were two things: (1) the fact that the river was channelized at that segment, (2) the distant factory siren, very reminiscent of the sirens I have heard on my visits to Kyiv in these last years. The starting point was thus the anthropic forces, i.e. modifications of the banks, part of channelization processes, as invasives into the intricate and fragile riverine ecosystem. For me this meant that I wanted to hear staccato, and broken rhythmical elements. "I sampled several pieces of the original recording to construct rhythmical patterns, synthesized the sound, and used granulators to break down and spread the bits and pieces. I also generated a sound at the same frequency as the siren, to give a hint of a sense of unease when I think about extractivist approach with which humans treat the landscape."Section of the river Lech reimagined by Daina Dieva. -------Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river th

"For the Flow project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the University of Padova, and the University of Würzburg, I composed an original piece of music based on a field recording made by researchers along the Lech River near Höfen, Austria."Titled “A Sense of Place”, the composition brings together history, atmosphere, geography, and memory, reflecting the moment when the listener arrives inside the landscape. Ambient and restrained, the work carries a quiet archival weight, its textures shaped by the crackle and patina of early 78-rpm recordings. Rather than describing the river directly, the piece allows sound itself to function as a record, letting meaning emerge slowly and intuitively."The Lech is one of the last largely free-flowing rivers in the northern Alps. Its mineral-rich waters and shifting gravel banks have shaped both the surrounding landscape and the cultural identity of the Lechtal for centuries. This continuity—between past and present, place and memory—forms the emotional core of