Sounding the Archive: a gig-theatre performance based on Emily Penrose’s diaries
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Sounding the Archive: a gig-theatre performance based on Emily Penrose’s diaries *
Sounding the Archive is a new work of gig-theatre for voice, strings and archive, directed and written by me, performed on 17th and 18th of October 2026 at Conway Hall as part of Bloomsbury Festival. I will be mentored by artist Carol Mancke and as a culmination, will lead a free vocal meditation at Machina Loci to share my findings. Inspired by the 1887 diaries of Emily Penrose, a residency at the British School at Athens and three years of doctoral research, through six voices of Mediterranean polyphony, spoken text, a shruti box drone, and a string trio, the show asks how an archive changes when it is sounded rather than only read.
Sounding the archive, a journey started in 2023
Below are two windows into the practice behind Sounding the Archive. The first is a solo lecture-performance recorded during my residency at the British School at Athens, working directly with Emily Penrose's diaries - the first public output of the method that this production now develops at full-ensemble scale. Beneath it are recordings from Tuning Dimensions, my 2025 Bloomsbury Festival concert, which tested the consent-led, ensemble approach Sounding the Archive builds on.
British School at Athens, 2025 solo lecture-performance
A solo lecture-performance recorded during my residency at the British School at Athens, developed directly from Emily Penrose's 1887 diaries. It combines spoken reflection, archival reading and live voice over a continuous shruti box drone — the first public output of the same method that will now be developed at full ensemble scale in Sounding the Archive. (35 min — see minutes 32 for the sung passage).
Tuning Dimensions, Bloomsbury Festival, 2025 — ensemble recordings
Tuning Dimensions: A Polyphonic Exploration of Mediterranean Heritage brought together six singers of different ages, backgrounds and vocal histories to test something whether a genuinely low-pressure, consent-led rehearsal process could still produce work of real musical ambition. The programme moved between a Pauline Oliveros tuning meditation, Corsican and Epirote polyphony, Giovanna Marini's political folk repertoire, a fragment of medieval song, and my own written text read as invocation — treating each tradition as a distinct lineage of transmission, not a backdrop.
Ilenia Cipollari, Franziska Böhm, Serena Braida, Zeina Nasr, t l k, and Kirsty Ferguson-Lewis perform an Epirote polyphony of celebration at Holy Cross Church during Tuning dimensions concert, Bloomsbury Festival 2025. See below for more snippets from the 2025 concert, or visit this Bandcamp link to listen to the whole concert!
More about us
Ilenia Cipollari Ganucci— experimental vocalist, actor, scholar & curator exploring Mediterranean/diasporic polyphony and trauma-informed, restorative practice.
Recent highlight: British School at Athens Arts Bursary recipient.
ileniacipollari.com
Kirsty Ferguson-Lewis (Kri) — experimental vocalist, performer, producer & composer exploring the feminine voice and the body.
Recent highlight: Sirena (contemporary mini-opera)
https://kirstyfergusonlewis.co.uk/
Serena Braida — poet, writer, performer and academic working in text and performance.
Recent highlight: performance lecture on bilingual self-translated poetry and its live reception (CEComp, University of Lisbon)
https://linktr.ee/serenabraida
T L Klein (t l k) – artist, vocalist and producer, centring the voice-as-instrument, with a deep commitment to the act of Noticing.
Recent highlight: keening with a 35-strong choir under Luke Jerram’s ‘Gaia’ – a 7-metre installation of the Earth – at Bristol Cathedral
https://linktr.ee/tlkvox
Franziska Böhm — Artist and Researcher (PhD) working across dance, music and academia, exploring voice-sensed choreographic methodologies and somatic phenomenology.
Recent Highlight: Award for best dance film at Berlin Kiez Film Festival. Film commissioned by Royal Commission of AlUla and produced in collaboration with Sofia Pomeroy.
https://franziskaboehm-research.com
Zeina Nasr — singer, songwriter, and composer working with analog synthesizers and electro-acoustic sound worlds.
http://www.fornowlife.com/