SPARC Symposium Talks

A  day of talks exploring the themes of the 2026 SPARC Symposium, Sound(ing) Bodies.

Free to attend, but space is limited, so please register in advance.

Please note, separate bookings are required for each Symposium event. To see all events (27-31 May 2026), please visit the Symposium overview page.

Sound[ing] Bodies symposium talks programme, Saturday 30th May 2026

13:00 – 15:00 Provocations (AG09)

Helen Anahita Wilson: How might we better understand our bodies through non-lexical sound and music? How might the pursuit of creative corporeal acoustemologies influence not just compositional practice but encourage reparative and relational modes of listening? This talk introduces theories and methodologies for composing the body, transducting both biomedical and experiential information, and exploring ideas around non-lexical sonic life writing. While sound and music are often associated with therapeutic practices and creative health activities, the objective of this practice-based research is to extend beyond these applications, positioning sonic artworks and musical compositions as significant psychosocial resources and interventions in their own right which, in turn, present opportunities for authentic and alternative understandings of the body, health, and illness.

Iain Chambers: Iain will discuss producing collaborative work with people who experience voice-hearing for Hearing Voices. Through workshops with participants experiencing voice hearing, Iain co-produced audio works reflecting the lived experience of voice hearing, and how specific sounds and environments affected the way the voices manifested.

Rosie Middleton: Performer brain—hidden risk in performance. Performer brain is my term for a heightened, compulsive, psychological state I have repeatedly experienced in performance where the only thing that matters is delivering the most compelling or effective performance, regardless of risk to mental or physical wellbeing. This is an exciting and immediate state to perform in, but also increases performer vulnerability as it reduces our capacity to assess risk. I will share examples from my practice research, considering how performer brain interacts with vulnerability, precarity and risk in performance. I will also consider other possible linked psychological states and cultural phenomena including ‘flow’, ‘Dr. Theatre’ and ‘hysterical strength’.

Aki Pasoulas: Composing Conditions for Listening: This talk explores how two electroacoustic compositions, Wetlands and Irides, may be understood in relation to creative health, through their potential to invite deep, embodied, and restorative modes of listening. Although differing in approach, both works create immersive sonic environments that can shape attention and perception, while creating space for emotional and perceptual reflection. The presentation considers how particular compositional strategies may create conditions that encourage listeners (and composers) to engage with sound as an embodied and reflective experience. Drawing on ideas from acoustic ecology, immersive listening and attention restoration, the talk reflects on how sound-based artistic practice can contribute to broader conversations around wellbeing, environmental connection and creative health.

15:00 – 16:00

Iain Chambers Hearing Voices installation (Performance Space Foyer throughout the day)

Hearing Voices - a co-produced soundworld: Through workshops with participants experiencing voice hearing, Iain Chambers co-produced audio works reflecting the lived experience of voice hearing, and how specific sounds and environments affected the way the voices manifested. This work received support from the Centre for Public Engagement Participatory Research Fund, Queen Mary University of London

16:00 – 17:00

Tim Rutherford-Johnson reading from Schubert Dub

Schubert Dub is a work-in-progress memoir about a life listening to and writing about new music, and a life living with cystic fibrosis. It is also about how both those stories became unexpectedly haunted by the music of Franz Schubert. This reading features two episodes from the middle of the book: one about the author's attempts to learn Schubert's C minor Impromptu, op. 90, no.1; the other about the role of listening in the diagnosis and treatment of CF. Within the larger context of the book, these two episodes act as the pivot along a journey towards understanding both Schubert and CF, arriving at the roles of resonance, reverberation, bodies and friction as a means of connection and self-realization.

17:00 - 18:00

Iain Chambers Hearing Voices installation (Performance Space Foyer throughout the day)

18:00 – 19:00 Reception (Performance Space Foyer)

Biographies

Iain Chambers is a sound artist, composer and producer whose work explores the musical potential of place, material, and memory through field recording, electronic composition, and sound design. Iain’s practice reimagines the built and natural environment as a source of sonic creativity, transforming found sound and obsolete technology into immersive, emotionally resonant works. He is a founder member of multiple groups, including the British electronic music ensemble Langham Research Centre; and Rubbish Music, a duo with Kate Carr creating new sound-worlds from discarded objects. In 2019 Iain launched the independent record label Persistence of Sound, presenting new musique concrète and field recordings. Between 2015-2019 Iain staged the first ever concerts inside Tower Bridge's cavernous Bascule Chambers, transforming London’s iconic structure into a giant musical instrument and music venue.

Tim Rutherford-Johnson (b. 1977) is a writer, speaker and teacher on contemporary music. His first book, Music after the Fall: Modern Composition and Culture since 1989 was published in February 2017 by University of California Press. His second, The Music of Liza Lim, a detailed study of the works of the Australian composer, was published by Wildbird in 2022. Tim also co-authored, with Tom Perchard, Stephen Graham and Holly Rogers, the undergraduate textbook Twentieth-Century Music in the West for Cambridge University Press.

His new edition of the Oxford Dictionary of Music –  updated with entries on modern composition, world music, and pop, rock, jazz and electronica – was published in 2012 by Oxford University Press. It has been translated into Spanish and (simplified) Chinese. Tim has taught at Goldsmiths College and Brunel University and he sits on the artistic board of the Riot Ensemble. He has appeared as a speaker at Gaudeamus Muziekweek (Netherlands), Only Connect (Norway), hcmf// (UK) and the London Contemporary Music Festival. He has written programme essays for the Salzburg, Aldeburgh, Rainy Days (Luxembourg) and BBC Proms festivals, as well as for all major venues in London. He has provided sleevenotes for many record labels, including Coviello,  Dacapo, Delphian, Kairos and World Edition. Recent subjects of his writing include Michael Jarell, György Kurtág, Anna Meredith and Ian Wilson.