Sonitus Sound Art and Synthesiser Symposium

Sonitus was founded in 2016 to promote sonic arts in Suffolk and beyond. We want to include traditionally under-represented groups in electronic music and sound art. We have held open jam sessions, a synth meet and run community workshops to try and reach beyond the usual sonic arts audiences.

We believe that deep immersive music positively impacts humanity. Becoming immersed in sound, learning to create your own sound environment and messing about with electronics all have huge benefits: for example, mental health (creative activities are great for relieving stress and patching a module or making drone music is particularly meditative) and education (sonic arts are a fun and accessible entry point into science, technology, engineering & math subjects).  Our mission is to promote this message and include as many people at possible.

Project Timeline

The first two Sonitus gatherings took place on October evenings in 2016. First at Asylum Studios in Suffolk with a second event three weeks later in the gallery space at The Island, Bristol. Both events ran alongside the Corrumpo exhibition and featured open electronic jam sessions involving a number of other musicians – Slim Chance, Laurie Micro Rave, Dave Stitch – and had visual elements: Nick Diacre provided live projections for the Bristol session.

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On 17 February 2018 a larger two-room day-long event took place at Old Jet Studios in Suffolk with special guests Mira Calix, Luke Sanger, Nina Richards and Zoe Blade. One room hosted talks and performances, another held a sonic jumble sale and modular set-ups.

In Spring 2019, Sonitus was commissioned to run a 6-week sonic arts course for people with access needs at the Smokehouse, Ipswich. Read more.

Sonitus LIVE!

In Spring 2020, in response to C-19, Sonitus moved online to provide a fortnightly livestream performance opportunity to people working with handmade, hardware and hybrid electronics. See streams on YouTube here.

Like everyone who’s new to streaming, we’re ‘learning on the job’ so we expect the Sonitus LIVE! concept to grow, adapt and evolve over time.

To date, we only have two parameters: we prompt audiences to make donations directly to artists; and, to include those living in areas with poor internet provision, we’re happy to stream video as long as it’s been pre-recorded for Sonitus.

Our end goals are to build a platform with an engaged audience that supports paying all contributing artists a fee, and to be actively reaching out to performers from under-represented backgrounds to make sure performance opportunities aren’t just benefitting one group of people. At present, we don’t have much to offer beyond a stream key 😃 so we’re concentrating on Phase 1 – delving into our list of contacts to establish the platform and build an audience. So, thanks for watching! And to those we’ve asked to play so far, thanks for being involved.