Sounding the Archive: The Emily Penrose Diaries.
17-18 October 2026, Conway Hall, London. Presented by Bloomsbury Festival
Ilenia Cipollari weaves archival text with medieval and Mediterranean polyphony to investigate memory, erasure, and the living voice.
Developed during a research residency at the British School at Athens, this performance focuses on the 1887 diaries of Emily Penrose, investigating how women's voices appear, disappear, and re-surface within institutional histories. Treating the voice as both archive and encounter, the piece is a minimalist, seated reading interwoven with vocal work. Archival fragments are braided together with Corsican and Epirote polyphonies, Italian songs of migration, and 12th-century chant by Hildegard von Bingen. Supported by the grounding drone of a shruti box, this trauma-aware work asks audiences to value presence over polish, creating a temporary commons for shared respiration and listening across time. Emily Penrose was an historian, academic, a principal of three colleges and instrumental in the University of Oxford's admission of women in the 1920s.
Sounding the Archive: Fragments in Emily Penrose’s Own Voice
24 November 2025, 6:00–7:30 pm EET (4:00–5:30 pm UK time)
British School at Athens, Upper House, 52 Souedias Street, Athens, Greece (hybrid event)
Ilenia Cipollari: Live reading & soundscape of Emily Penrose’s travel diaries—voice, Mediterranean field recordings, and audience reflections.
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Tuning Dimensions: a polyphonic exploration of Mediterranean heritage
18 October 2025, 6:00–6:30 pm GMT+1
Holy Cross Church, 98 Cromer Street, London WC1H 8JU
Performance of polyphonic Mediterranean singing featuring Ilenia Cipollari Ganucci and guest artists, part of Bloomsbury Festival’s New Wave music programme
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Loré Lixenberg Residency: Berberiana! A Celebration of Cathy at 100
17 September 2025 7:30pm
Café Oto, 18–22 Ashwin Street, Dalston, London, UK
A series celebrating Cathy Berberian’s legacy with performances including avant-garde voice, film (Lethe by Lixo), and collaborations with Musarc
May 11 2025
Vanishing Voices, 7:45 pm, Norwich Cathedral
Norfolk and Norwich Festival 2025
Following our sell-out London success, Idrîsî Ensemble brings a mesmerising concert to the Norfolk and Norich Festival, featuring rare music from Corsica, Greece, and Mallorca.
With world-leading traditional performers and early music specialists, this special concert celebrates human imagination and a powerful encounter with sounds on the brink of extinction.
December 7 2024
Experience the full forces of the Idrîsî Ensemble as our choir and instrumentalists unite to bring ancient traditions to life.
With world-leading traditional performers and early music specialists, this is a celebration of human imagination and a powerful encounter with sounds on the brink of extinction. Doors open at 6:30pm and the concert begins at 7pm.
Vanishing Voices, 7 pm, St Clement Danes Church Strand, London, England, WC2R 1DHUnited Kingdom.
November 28 2024
Myself and Serena Braida will be making some noises. Come along 28th of November 2024 at DES BAINS gallery 6-8pm x
Background Noise, a group show featuring artists Carmela De Falco, Semin Hong, Magdalen Wong, and Orsola Zane, curated by Giulia Pollicita and Clara Rodorigo opens on November 28th from 6 to 8PM. Featuring the performance reflecting, reflecting, the voice by Carmela De Falco, with special guests singers Ilenia Cipollari and Serena Braida.
But what’s left beyond this rotten candy-floss cloud?
This exhibition is supported by The Italian Cultural Institute in London.
Please contact mvb@desbains.co.uk for enquiries or further info.
Background Noise Opening reception performance 6-8pm, DES BAINS GALLERY, 20 Great Portland Street, W1W 8QR, London.
October 15 2024
We radicles? Exhibition, Triangle Space, Chelsea College of Arts, London.
Radicles are the first roots to emerge from plant seeds following germination. They grow down into the soil, anchoring the seedling. Eleven practice-based PhD students at Chelsea, Camberwell and Wimbledon pose an oblique question: We Radicles? You are invited to encounter their research in progress, as they map their fields and seek future cross-pollinations. With Ilenia Cipollari, Annie Riga, Charlotte Yao amongst others.
Opening Reception: 15 October 2024, 5pm- 7pm