Creative musicians
wanted for a special project

Ever tried to make music out of traffic data?
If not, now is your chance.
Including a live performance at the Rockhal.

Participants should be a tad adventurous and, above all, open-minded. Because in The Sound of Data project, the approach to music is quite funky. Music is not played according to notes, but based on data collected by scientists from different fields. This includes traffic and historical data, Covid-related data, data collected from 3D body scans as well as crowd-sourced art data.

Valery Vermeulen, mathematician and musician from Belgium as well as pioneer in the field of data sonification, transforms this data into musical building blocks. And then things are getting exciting. The next step is to look for musicians who can compose with these building blocks.

The instigators of The Sound of Data are launching an artist-in-residency programme at the Rocklab of the Escher Rockhal. Mentored by experts such as Valery Vermeulen, the participants selected for this residency will participate in a series of workshops, classes, and creative sessions, where they will be introduced to data sonification, learn to work with it and use it to compose, and then present their results on stage at the Rockhal on 3 December. Other live acts on that night will include Valery Vermeulen and British music producer and DJ Max Cooper.

Rocklab is a creative hub and incubator for the music scene, offering local musicians and bands infrastructure and a whole range of resources such as workshops, networking events, live videos and performance opportunities. However, the team has little experience with data sonification so far and is therefore excited about both the project and the outcome.

Sam, what are the requirements to be a participant of the artist-in-residency programme The Sound of Data?

Applicants from any music genre, whether jazz, pop, electro, hip-hop or classical, whether amateur or professional, are welcome. You don’t necessarily have to live in Luxembourg, but bear in mind that you will have to be on site for the workshops. The whole project is in English, so you should be able to speak English well enough. Of course, it is also an advantage if you already have some experience with DAWs and music software – but that is not mandatory.

How will applicants be selected?

There is a jury consisting of representatives of the individual project partners of The Sound of Data. These include the FNR, the Rockhal, the University of Luxembourg and the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST). As an expert in this field, Valery Vermeulen will of course also be part of the jury.

Do the candidates have to play something for the jury?

No, there is no casting, so the participants don’t have to perform anything. But they do have to submit up to three songs via streaming and videos, if available, and a short biography. And they should also write a few lines about why they want to take part in the project.

Are there any specifications as to which instruments must be represented in the final project?

We are basically open to everything and want to see first what comes along. However, it is important to us that the overall outcome reflects the musical scene in the Greater Region to a certain extent. We want to make sure, for example, to not have only electronic musicians, but also instrumentalists, maybe also artists from the classical field. In any case, we want to try to diversify it as much as possible.

You can find more information about the project as well as about the application process and requirements in the documents below or by clicking here.