Launch of the Centre for Electronic Music

Come to Pan--Pan on 3 June to celebrate the launch of the University of Birmingham's Centre for Electronic Music.  

The launch will celebrate electronic music research and creative practices from the Centre and across Birmingham, including workshops, graduate student presentations, panel discussions and musical performances. 

At the workshop, you will learn how to make music with live-coding, using the software Strudel (requires registration, tbc). The graduate presentations will showcase research from our PhD students studying the cultures and practices of electronic music from across the world and within Birmingham. The panel will feature researchers from the Centre, along with musicians and industry professionals from the city, discussing the history and current landscape of electronic music in Birmingham. The evening programme will feature a diverse set of performances by musicians from the Centre and the city, including electroacoustic music, live-coding performances and DJ sets.

Schedule

• 16.45-17.30: Postgraduate research presentations, with George Edmundson and Tamara Batty 
• 17.30-18.15: Panel discussion on Electronic Music in Birmingham (including Annie Mahtani, Luis Manuel Garcia-Mispireta, Antonio Roberts, Jayson Wynters) 
• 18.15-19.45: Break
• 19.45-8.15: Performance 1 – Teddy Hunter 
• 20.30-21.00: Performance 2 – Antonio Roberts  
• 21.15-23.15: DJ set – Jayson Wynters 

Programme

Live-coding workshop using Strudel 

Time: 14.30-16.30

This workshop requires registration due to limited spaces!

• Register for workshop  

In this workshop Antonio Roberts aka hellocatfood will introduce you to the basics of live coding music using Strudel.  

Strudel is a live coding environment for making music with algorithmic patterns. It is based on TidalCycles, but works in the browser and shares similarities in syntax to javascript. 

During the workshop you will learn the basics of using Strudel's "mini-notation" to create melodies, drum patterns, and manipulate samples. Strudel's live audio and visual feedback will help you to understand the code as you write it. 

By the end of the workshop you will learn the skills needed to create your own music and performances. If you've ever been curious about using code to make music and have aspirations to perform at live coding events and Algoraves then this workshop will is for you.  

To participate you will need: 

• A laptop (Linux, Mac, or Windows) with Firefox or Google Chrome installed 
• Internet connection 
• Headphones 

No prior coding or music knowledge required!  

Postgraduate research presentations, with George Edmundson and Tamara Batty 

Time: 16.45-17.30

Presentation 1: Between spaces: listening and co-making sound-art as ethnography.  

This presentation explores how collaborative sound-making can act as a form of ethnography. Focusing on ongoing work with Birmingham-based community groups, I’ll reflect on how sound art methods can foster collective listening, shared authorship, and context-specific local understandings— with reference to parallel work in other diasporic and translocal settings. 

George Edmondson is a sonic artist and PhD researcher at the University of Birmingham, whose practice-based research investigates sound as a participatory mode of ethnographic inquiry. His work engages with community groups in Birmingham and translocal contexts to co-produce experimental compositions that foreground listening, situated perception, and collective modes of sonic knowing.  

Presentation 2: Gool L’ah!: analysing the resurgence of ṭarab in electro-tarab and 21st century Arab electronic music 

In this presentation, I discuss my PhD thesis which explores how the aesthetic notion of ṭarab manifests in 21st century Arab electronic music in comparison to its 20th century counterparts. I utilise various research methods ranging from textual analysis of secondary literature to in-depth music analysis to ethnographic fieldwork. I offer a close analysis of 'Fog Alghaim' [Above the Clouds] by Hello Psychaleppo to demonstrate how ṭarab manifests in this novel musical context. 

Tamara Batty is a PhD Music Candidate at the University of Birmingham, U.K. specialising in the ethnomusicology of Arab music with a particular interest in manifestations of ṭarab in the 21st century. Her thesis explores the resurgence of ṭarab in Arab electronic music, and how musicians and their audiences engage with the cultural tradition. She also aims to propose a new analytical framework for ṭarab in the 21st century in response to new, emergent genres such as electro-tarab. 

Panel discussion on Electronic Music in Birmingham

Time: 17.30-18.15

Panellists: Annie Mahtani, Luis-Manuel Garcia, Antonio Roberts and Jayson Wynters

Chair: Maria Witek  

Luis Manuel Garcia-Mispireta is an Associate Professor in Ethnomusicology and Popular Music Studies at the University of Birmingham (UK). His research focuses on urban electronic dance music scenes, with a particular focus on affect, intimacy, stranger-sociability, embodiment, sexuality, creative industries and musical migration. He is a member and resident DJ of Berlin’s queer intersectional rave collective, ‘Room 4 Resistance’. Garcia-Mispireta is currently developing a project on “grassroots” activism and queer nightlife collectives; he also has a new monograph out, entitled Together Somehow: Music, Affect, and Intimacy on the Dancefloor (Duke University Press, 2023).  

Annie Mahtani is an internationally recognised electroacoustic composer, sound artist, and performer based in Birmingham, UK. Her work spans acousmatic composition, free improvisation, and site-specific installations, often in collaboration with dance and theatre. Annie works extensively with multichannel audio in both fixed media and live performance. Annie is a Professor of Electroacoustic Composition and Practice at the University of Birmingham and co-director of BEAST (Birmingham Electroacoustic Sound Theatre).

Antonio Roberts (aka hellocatfood) is a Birmingham-based musician and visual artist. Working primarily with TidalCycles and Pure Data, he employs algorithmic methods to make music that is both rhythmic and glitchy. Since 2019 he has been building a reputation for his live performances, fusing genres ranging from ambient, footwork and IDM to drum and bass. He complements this with live visuals made using live coding software and hardware video synthesisers.  

Jayson Wynters is “a tough artist to pin down” (FACT magazine). As a dance music producer and DJ, he has ventured in many directions: one minute he’s on a deep excursion at Berghain (Berlin) or FreeRotation Festival and the next, he’s in an art gallery giving a talk about storytelling in reggae music—or curating culture at the multi-concept space Artum, which he co-founded in Birmingham. His releases for labels such as Delsin and Don’t Be Afraid oscillate between house and techno, pressing the outer limits of electronic music while drawing on sound system culture, soul, jazz, hip-hop and the martial arts.  

Performances

• 19.45-20.15: Teddy Hunter 
• 20.30-21.00: Antonio Roberts
• 21.15-23.15: Jayson Wynters 

Teddy Hunter is a Cardiff-based audio-visual artist and electronic musician whose work explores the intersection of sonic arts, ecology, and immersive audio. Her practice uses field recordings, voice, and site-specific compositions to create ambient electronic soundscapes that reflect multi-species relationships and environmental awareness. Hunter’s current research focuses on forest ecologies and sound, drawing on work in three UK forests to explore the forest's voice across time. 

For bios of Antonio Roberts and Jayson Wynters, see above.