This article contributes to theories of music and affect, highlighting listeners’ affective engagement with music as a key site for the operation of power and ideology. I take as a case study listeners’ experiences of Hindustani music in performance. In contrast with work that emphasizes the capacities of musical affect to transcend social boundaries and operate separately from (or prior to) signification, I show how the affective practices of listening in this context contribute to the reproduction of existing discourses and social formations. Drawing especially on work by Sara Ahmed, I suggest that a useful starting point for understanding how affect intersects with structures of power is to examine the affective economies and the affective orientations that shape live musical listening.

Ever since the beginning of opera, the scenografo’s role has fluctuated between invention and execution, conceptual creation and manual realisation. Initially considered an art in the old, Latin sense of the word – a craft or trade – the profession gradually gained social and aesthetic respectability, shedding its associations with the technical skills of artisans and acquiring the prestige of modern artistic expression. By the early 1800s, prominent scenografi were hailed as ‘men of genius’, although their ennoblement was never quite as complete as some renowned commentators seemed to suggest. Indeed, while we may be tempted to view the scenografo’s transformation from craftsman to artist as an uninterrupted, linear development, the debates on operatic staging that accompanied the 1930s Maggio Musicale Fiorentino challenge this inclination.

This article examines the role and status of operatic scenografi in 1930s Italy, with a particular focus on Florence and the intersection between cultural and institutional histories of the profession. What was Italian operatic set design at the time? What did this theatrical art mean, represent, produce in Tuscany’s foremost Renaissance city? Is it possible to develop a specifically urban approach to the history of set design before World War II, and where might this leave our understanding of opera production labour both during the Fascist period and today?

Benjamin Britten’s Noye’s Fludde (1958) was arguably the first community opera with an environmental message. It explored the potential extinction of animal and human life, and since then environmentalism as a social issue has begun to emerge in community operas as a distinctive trope. This article examines some more recent examples produced in the UK, from The Split Goose Feather (1979) by Christopher Brown, to Timber! (1990) by Timothy Kraemer, to Russell Hepplewhite’s Till the Summer Comes Again (2012) inspired by Glyndebourne’s wind turbine. It concludes with some reflections on the questions that arise in relation to contemporary opera, the environment and sustainability – notably how the professional operatic world can respond to concerns about the environment, and what steps are necessary to ensure the sustainability of opera for the future.

This article explores biophilic (nature-centred) instrument design and its intersection with architecture and music. While the connection between these disciplines is often discussed figuratively, they are less often combined in practice. The Biophilic Instrument Pavilion (BIP), a site-responsive sound and light installation, serves as a model for such a collaboration using biophilic design as a unifying principle. This multidisciplinary project demonstrates spatialisation in ecological, sonic, visual and social contexts, offering insights into environmental instrument practices and collaborative creative processes.

OTTOsonics is an open hardware platform developed by a team of engineers and composers, designed to prioritise affordability and flexibility, addressing the needs of a broader community interested in spatial audio. At its core, the platform features a custom-designed, high-quality 4-inch speaker with a 3D-printed cabinet, and an affordable multichannel power amplifier. It also offers a comprehensive set of mounting accessories and a knowledge base for producing and presenting spatial audio using open-source software. Over the past three years, OTTOsonics has been adopted by multiple cultural initiatives, universities, and audio enthusiasts, enabling the production of new spatial audio works across genres such as electroacoustic, experimental, and pop music. This article outlines the key decisions made throughout the project and presents the technical and artistic outcomes after three years of operation. We discuss the key features of an open platform for spatial audio and how our designs address these needs, as well as future directions for further projects and initiatives.

The French poet Henri Chopin (1922–2008) was one of a generation of experimental young artists around 1955 who recognised new possibilities for innovation in the realm of expanded sonic assemblage that is at once viscerally embodied and highly mediated. The catalyst: the newfound availability and affordability of the portable reel-to-reel tape recorder. This article examines the relation between Chopin’s recorded ‘audiopoems’, which were built up over time by means of distortion, layering and looping, and the artist’s unusual approach to performing live with these recorded compositions. Through strategies of aural assemblage, including physically tampering with the tape, randomly cutting and splicing the reels, and accentuating feedback, Chopin circulated the voice in new ways, both intimate and collective. This article considers how he experimented with live performance as mediation par excellence, harmoniously juxtaposing live improvisation with the preceding mediation of sound recording technology, to create a ‘double extension’ that generated feedback as well as improvisatory spaces of encounter. This article examines several projects – both realised and speculative – as well as archival accounts of performances in the 1960s and 1970s to reflect on Chopin’s unwavering commitment to the very human scale, individual and collective, of mediated expression.

Today’s field of spatialisation in acousmatic music is very heterogeneous. Composers tend to develop their own technologies and techniques for spatialisation, and often the differences in how multichannel systems are addressed may influence both the musical appreciation and the future reproducibility of a piece. Moreover, the analytical and musicological perspectives of spatialisation are both fragmented and underdeveloped, with a lack of a shared framework for their study. This article focuses on these problems and tries to give a coherent and consistent view of spatialisation practice, from both technological and musicological perspectives. It will also act as a bedrock for the development of the musicological side of spatialisation, an aspect too often overlooked. ‘Spatial reduced listening’ and ‘spatial relativism’ will be introduced as analytical perspectives to shine a light on the composed spatial traits of sound, and not only on its spectromorphological and technological features.

This article explores the intersection of electroacoustic music in multichannel immersive audio environments and trauma-informed therapy practices through gestural mediation in artistic works. Drawing on Jean-François Augoyard’s definition of anamnesis, the article examines how spatial audio can evoke memories and mirror the psychological landscapes associated with trauma. The research is centred around the composition Crumble, which uses spatial sound to articulate fragmented mental states of individuals processing traumatic experiences. Through an analysis of the spatial placement of sound, gestural technologies and embodied interaction, the article demonstrates how these elements converge to create immersive environments that facilitate an understanding of trauma and memory. The findings highlight the role of embodied cognition in music performance, showing how Crumble’s integration of body, space and sound fosters audience connection through immersive spatialisation and gestural mediation. By integrating these practices, this study offers new insights into the therapeutic potential of immersive electroacoustic music as a medium for expressing complex emotional states. Combining embodied sound, gestural control and spatial audio promotes the exploration of space and memory, encourages personal agency and supports reintegration of body and mind, aligning with trauma-informed practices. It suggests avenues for future exploration in the intersection of music, psychology and immersive technologies.