In this presentation, Nirantar discusses his research around information theory, indeterminacy, oral transmission, and tone. In particular, he problematizes euro-centric notions of oral transmission where such methods are seen as fulfilling a purely conservative function: to what extent is the process of transmission itself inseparable from the articulation of the material that is transmitted? Drawing from various cosmologies of tone such as rāga, Vedic/Buddhist chant, Tibetan chant, maqam, whale songs, Noh theatre, the works of Éliane Radigue, and his own work, Nirantar presents his perspective on how direct engagement with indeterminacies (noise) in processes of transmission open up strange possibilities for tonal organization, practice, and listening. He will be joined by Clara Levy for a short demonstration of their upcoming collaboration, illustrating an angled approach to the notions discussed in the presentation.

Nirantar Yakthumba is a musician and composer from Nepal, based in the Hague, the Netherlands. He is the artistic director of the Kali Ensemble, a collective of musicians and composers based in The Hague which focuses on cultivating long-term collaborations and diverse collective practices. He holds a Bachelor of Music in Music Composition at the Royal Conservatoire the Hague, graduating with distinction, and a Master of Music at the Institute of Sonology, also awarded with distinction. For his master’s project, he was awarded the Konrad Boehmer prize for an outstanding and original final presentation, which included his artistic work and his written thesis. In his research, he investigated the production and organization of tone, questioned the material-discursive boundaries of ‘instrumentality’, and explored the implications of information theory in collective musical practice.

In his current work, Nirantar continues exploring his interests in tone, instrument building, and collective practice from an information oriented perspective. In particular, he explores how variations in informational constraints—structure, redundancy, noise, (in)determinacy—are articulated with and within a work, and how such a practice of variation can be a technology for prompting transindividual introspection, challenging preconceived notions, and making space for difference in relational configurations.