Finding Song Home is the new sonic bike opera made for Brussels by Kaffe Matthews and the Bicrophonic Research Institute (BRI) with tech development by Tom Keene.

 
It is a work that explores the injustices of birthright and the power of nations governments to enable or prevent the free movement of its citizens. Through meeting and sharing with often illegal non-European Brussels immigrants, Matthews has gathered a mass of their stories which, intimately told through the voices of the tellers, create a multi-threaded libretto to be revealed by audience cycling the GPS linked sonic bikes through and beyond Brussels centre.

 
The routes the opera takes pass between La Monnaie plaza, the canal border and Molenbeek squares, re-defining these areas as sonic cyclists can pedal through, songs and narratives recontextualized as they unfurl through the shifting street’s soundscape and Matthews electronic counterparts. With sounds triggered by where and how fast the bike goes, so each participating cyclist can define their own experience.

 
Finding Song Home is the BRI’s 8th sonic bike opera. It was commissioned by La Monnaie du Munt and Q-02 and has also made and developed eight new sonic bikes in Brussels with cyclo. These bikes will remain in Brussels to be used to make and perform new works.

 
Finding Song Home was made through Matthews’ residency with Q-02 and La Monnaie during which she explored the city, met and worked with residents she met through local community groups Globe Aroma and Vaartkapoen, as well as running route composition workshops for children at La Maison des Cultures, Molenbeek with Flemish theatre director, Ivan Vrambout.

 
Image documentation

 
The cast:
Louiza Amghizar – 
Rasmia Zaaza – 
Fatiha El Mrabet
 – Souad Khelifa
 – Malika Mderreg
 – Claudine Musaniwabo – 
Fatima Kamlichi – Saddie Choua

 
Conté Morlaye
 – Maati Lhabib – 
Erik Gonzalez Brinck – Prince – Ibrahim – Jimmy – Moune

 
Adult chorus Met-X / Lucy Grauman

 
Girls chorus / La choraline

 
Musicians / oboe: Florent Buchel – trumpet: Ivan Vrambout – accordion, electric piano: Moune electronic processings, keyboards: Kaffe Matthews

 
Software / David Griffiths, Tom Keene
Hardware install / Ludo Engels
Audio assistance / Samson Pignot
Production assistance / Lisa Hall

Finding Song Home (2015)

 
sonicbikes.net

 
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