UTOPIA More and more is inspired by Thomas More's book Utopia written in 1516. Fusing old and new text fragments and contrasting it with a live improvised musical score this interlaced audio piece creates a rich tapestry that plays with perception, form and genre.
UTOPIA More and more won 1. Prize at the UK International Audio Drama Festival, 2025.
Gabriele and the musicians will be present to share insights into their unique collaboration combining improvised music and audio drama.
13th of December 2025, 2-4pm at Cobalt Studios, Newcastle, UK.
I have dreamed about you so much, 2025, by Roxane Ca'Zorzi, Belgium.
The magic of the waves, 2025, by Eve-Marie Bouche, France.
I have dreamed about you so much is an award winning audio drama based on the poetry by surrealist writer and early radio explorer Robert Desnos. Brussels 2024, Ondine writes to French poet Robert Desnos, whose words she feels have become ingrained in her. His poetry fascinated me. As early as 1930, Desnos discovered radio, seeing it as "an instrument for dreaming and making people dream". But reality caught up with the dreamer. In occupied France, he joined the active resistance. In 1944, arrested by the Gestapo, he set off on a journey from which he never returned.
The magic of the waves won first prize in short form category at the Grand Prix Nova 2023 and third prize at the UK International Audio Drama festival. "I discovered that I had magical powers, the powers to transform the world's soundtrack, to make it a better place to live..."
The magic of the waves is an English adaptation of "La magie des ondes".
Roxane Ca'Zorzi will be present to discuss her work and give insights into the early surrealist radio movement by Robert Desnos and french radio pioneer Paul Deharme.
31st of January 2026, 2-4pm at Cobalt Studios, Newcastle, UK.
A Mermaid's Song, 2025 by Alexandru Sincu, directed by Attila Vizauer, Romania
Waves Of Resistance Tonnta Friotafochta, 2022 by Magz Hall, UK
A Mermaid's Song undergoes the process of a retrospective understanding of surveillance, abuse and manipulation. Looking back to an era where snitching on people was justified even by the whirlwind of a passionate and heart wrenching young love. Attila Vizauer's adaptation of this short story follows the labyrinth like trail of recovering the truth. The original music score, by Tom Bânduș, conveys the oppressive feeling of anxiety quickly turning to terror on discovering the true identity of the former girlfriend.
Waves Of Resistance Tonnta Friotafochta is about how radio can help us during times of isolation. Radio waves can cut through forced isolation and invisible boundaries as an act of resistance. This radiophonic poem draws on experiences of enforced isolation first through Brexit and then in lockdown. In the spirit of transnationalism it sends a broadcast from the phantom but once mapped island of Hy Brasil off the Irish coast, relaying a message of peace, hope and unity across all borders.
21st February 2026, 2-4pm at Cobalt Studios, Newcastle, UK.
Words and Silence, 2021, by Paul Rooney, Italy/Germany.
babblesnatch, 2023, by Leona Jones, UK
Words and Silence is about a call centre worker, cold-calling to sell insurances. One of her calls goes to an answer machine. Instead of hanging up, she leaves a message: she tells stories about silence, distance and time. Words and Silence is part of Rooney's record Surface Industries I, the first in a short series of records inspired by service industry jobs - "particularly the transient vocal interactions of everyday call centre work".
babblesnatch is an immersive sonic 'snowglobe' in which voices dart and fly. It invites the listeners to use imagination and consider what it might be like to experience the usually non-audible digital voices enveloping us. The 8-channel sound installation is created entirely from recordings of two voices performing an original script, cracking open conventional language to weave together sonic colour, texture, and non/sense.
babblesnatch won the Sczuker Grant Price in 2023.
14th March 2026, 2-4pm at Cobalt Studios, Newcastle, UK.
Empty words, 1974 and Roaratorio, 1979 by John Cage, US and Germany.
The Political Music Show, 2024, by Cristian Fierbinteanu, Romania.
Empty words,1974 is a marathon text drawn from the Journals of Henry David Thoreau. This is one of Cage's most sustained and elaborate moves toward the "demilitarization" of language. Roaratorio, based on Joyce's Finnegans Wake, is an audio art piece composed by Cage in 1979 for Klaus Schöning of West German Radio. The piece realises Cage's indeterminate conceptual score "_____, _____ Circus on _____", which provides instructions on translating any book into performance.
Roaratorio won the Karl Szcuker Prize in 1997.
The Political Music Show is a playful deconstruction of the cultural, social, and political relevance of art, an oblique ode to the beauty of contemporary culture. Even more, it is an experimental poem about all of us, built as a quirky late night show. The ultimate confrontation between politicians, experimental musicians, intellectuals and art critics.
The Political Music Show won several awards at European audio festivals.