Phonurgia Nova Awards 2024
Deep listening and sonic explorations with the French radiophonic arts association Phonurgia Nova
Last weekend I attended the annual Phonurgia Nova Awards at the Centre National de Création Musicale in Marseille (GMEM).
These annual awards present a wonderful opportunity to engage with a wide selection of radiophonic works and creations from all corners of the globe. Split conventionally across five prize categories covering sound art, sound fiction, spoken word archives, field recording and a recognition for young creatives - dedicated to the late French pioneer of musique concrète - Pierre Schaeffer.
It was Pierre Schaeffer’s approach that inspired the creation of Phonurgia Nova. Founded in 1983, the organisation dedicates itself to accompanying and supporting sound and radio creation works and projects. Proud defenders of the ideology that radio is an art form, affirming the power of sound staging as a vehicle for the singular vision of its authors, and refusing to be dissolved into a single audiovisual - or digital - entity. It is a house of sound writing committed to perpetuating a tradition of research and experimentation in the medium of sound.
When I settled in France in 2019, it was the great influence and mentorship of Phonurgia Nova’s founder Marc Jacquin who accompanied me along my first few steps navigating new sonic and geographic territories. His kind manner and ability to build bridges between universes and unite creative practices and disciplines to all those interested in exploring the dimensions of sound, art and radio have provided me with a constant resource of inspiration and guidance since!
If you are reading this Marc - thank you for all the work you do!
In 2022, I submitted my own work - Haguro Shugendō - composed with recordings made by myself during my time visiting the Yamabushi monks of Mount Haguro in Yamagata Prefecture of Northwestern Japan.
Working with field recordings and soundscapes to form compositional works has been at the centrepiece of my practice for quite some time. As I have drifted slowly between the realms of the musical and the abstract — it is the sounds that I have collected and captured through my explorations in the field which guide the first brushstrokes across the canvas.
I recall attending the listening sessions of the Phonurgia Nova Awards that year for the first time (that year, 2022, they were held in Paris). Discovering my work auditioned before a crowd alongside a collection of works from artists I have long admired inspired me greatly. As I listened passionately to the reflections of the jury, ruminating over the different sonic qualities and nuances of each work, I felt a profound connection. A simple sensation of warmth from belonging to something shared — a recognised appreciation of sound, the world that surrounds us and how ultimately these two universes converse and collide to form such wondrous and fantastical creations.
I didn’t end up winning the grand prize, that accolade rightly went to this phenomenal work Las Voces Del Bosque Madidi by Iga Vandenhove. An organic, meditative and disorientating journey through the forests of the Madidi National Park in Bolivia.
Sitting there listening to this year’s submissions, I once again found myself reconnected with that familiar feeling of warmth. Comforted by the sounds of strange new spaces and environments…
This year’s field recording prize winner Delhi Polyphones by Bariya — the transdisciplinary artist duo of Pratyush Pushkar and Riya Raagini from New Delhi, India — truly took my ears to a different universe!
Composed solely of Delhi’s undertones, overtones, and many other polyphones, various recordings from around Delhi, including tombs, railway stations and tracks, lakes, atmospheric virtual tones, parks, industrial areas, bridges, underpasses, universities, and ultrasonic environments – synthesised with the captured soundscapes. These many strands form the multidimensional structure of a polyphonic environment that can be decomposed into an infinite number of harmonics, give us hints into the metaphysics and a larger resonance of the city – a resonance in which they converge in the form of virtual tones made by the interaction of all the elements of Delhi in a decentralised sonic atmosphere. Aural auroras of an everyday city.
https://www.bariyastudio.com/thedelhipoly
If you are interested in submitting your own work for consideration, I highly recommend you check out the Phonurgia Nova website.
There you can listen to various playlists composed of previous submissions and nominations and read up on the rules and conditions for entry.
Don’t worry, you still have plenty of time… the next submissions period will open in Summer 2025!
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Mat
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