Orpheus Sounds

Welcome to Orpheus Sounds! We are Magno Caliman and Arabella Pare, and we are excited to introduce this series of snapshots of Orpheus Instituut, a research center where we explore the making and understanding of music. Here, we are going to invite the researchers, colleagues and guests of Orpheus to come and tell us about why they are so passionate about their work. The curtain is rising, and you’re invited to join us behind the scenes, to get the inside perspective on what makes music matter, how it works, and why these questions captivate some of the most curious minds in our field: Artistic Research in Music.

You can find more information about us here:

• Orpheus Instituut
• Magno Caliman
• Music, Thought and Technology research cluster
• Arabella Pare
• Fragment: Accordances - Enactments research cluster 

You can get in touch with us via podcast@orpheusinstituut.be

In this episode we’re talking to our doctoral researcher Alicia Reyes about her work exploring what music means in a world which is not only focussed on humanity. How do we create a more equitable environment, and what can the otherworldly and half-organic shape of plastics formed over decades by the power of the sea bring to a musical and theatrical experience?

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References:

• Donna Haraway - Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene
• Plastigomerates 
• ‘Plastics of the Mediterranean’ by Matteo Guarnaccia and Teresa Fernández-Pello
• Heiner Goebbels - Aesthetics of Absence: Texts on Theatre
• Matthias Rebstock and David Roesner - Composed Theatre: Aesthetics, Practices, Processes
• 'Re/Making Plastiglomerates' by Allie E.S. Wist

Find out more about Alicia's work:

• https://www.aliciareyes.net/
• https://www.instagram.com/hallo.aliciareyes/

Today, we are having a conversation with Ton Koopman, who shaped the sound and the intellectual position of the movement to discover how the musicians of the past might have performed the music of their time. Orpheus Instituut is very grateful for the acquisition of the Ton Koopman collection, now integrated into the work of the Resounding Libraries research cluster.

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References:

• Charles Burney - A general history of music, from the earliest ages to the present period
• John Hawkins - A general history of the science and practice of music
• Dieterich Buxtehude

On today's special episode, our host Magno Caliman presents Sound Arguments, an innovative laboratory-atelier for creative artists and researchers dealing with sound. Magno is one of the coordinators of the series, and registrations are open for the 2026 edition. Sound Arguments is hosted by Orpheus' research cluster Music, Thought and Technology and the Academy of Creative and Performing Arts at the University of Leiden.

Today we are speaking with John Chowning and Juan Parra Cancino. Without John Chowning’s work on FM Synthesis in the 1970s, music as we know it today would sound very different. Starting with the most well-known (and apparently very heavy) result of his research, the Yamaha DX7 synthesizer, our conversation moves through why the sound of the 80s was defined by “the first button you press” and an explanation of sound synthesis based on Magno’s talent for whistling.

Speaking with John Chowning is Juan Parra Cancino, our colleague at Orpheus Instituut. Juan is a musician, composer and performer specialising in live electronic music and vintage materialities.

John Chowning is a composer and researcher, and taught computer-sound synthesis and composition at Stanford University's Department of Music. In 1974, with John Grey, James (Andy) Moorer, Loren Rush and Leland Smith, he founded the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), which remains one of the leading centers for computer music and related research. In 2019, he initiated with an international team, a long-term project to recreate, by computer modeling, the acoustics of the Chauvet Cave in France.

On today's episode, part one of two, we are speaking with violinist Laura Andriani about her work with the nineteenth century composer and virtuoso Paganini and her relationship with the physicality of playing. Performing some of the most difficult repertoire ever written for her instrument, Laura tells us about rediscovering the history of her instrumental technique and the importance of letting go.