“Tuning In”

This project started when I travelled to Turkey to participate at the Festival Klassik Keyifler in September 2023.. In Stoa, a beautiful centre of studies at the city of Sirinci, I had the opportunity to meet amazing musicians and learn about Turkish Folk songs, Persian music,  play with different people and blend with traditional instruments.Turkey has always fascinated me with its diverse people and cultures and the way everything blends together. This was especially clear in the folk songs, which reminded me of Mongolian singing. Both use similar throat techniques to create deep, layered overtones, achieving a rich and resonant sound. It’s very likely that many traditions from the East—such as those from Nepal and Mongolia—traveled to Europe through Turkey. As a country bridging the Orient and the Occident, Turkey embodies a unique blend of diverse traditions and cultural influences. At this festival I became interested in resonance in space and how sound travels and influences cultures and people.

I started exploring how the environments around us shape our connection with one another and the space. Alongside this curiosity, I was introduced to the viola d’amore by Garth Knox. This instrument, with its similarities with the Sarangi ( Indian Instrument) and other ancestral instruments, sparked my interest in the origins of sympathetic strings and how different cultures influence one another. It also sparked my curiosity about resonance, sound diffusion, and vibration, leading me to build a project called “Tuning In”—a long-term goal of attuning myself to each place I visit.

Recently I found an instrument that allows me to continue with this project, the Campanula Quinton, which has sympathetic strings. With it, I interact with overtones and observe how sound interacts with different spaces.

"Tuning In," explores the tuning not only in the traditional sense of tuning the instrument but also in relation to the spaces I perform in. Just as we tune instruments before a performance, I believe it is also important to attune ourselves to our environment—the acoustics of a room, the temperature, humidity, architecture, and even the objects around us.