Educational program for NOPA festival
29 September — 11 October
Workshops & Lectures
Northern Bus Station, Yerevan Children's Railway, Yerevan Botanical Garden, Library for Architecture
  • Giada Dalla Bontà
    Researcher, curator, and writer
  • Lucia Kagramanyan
    Cultural researcher, curator, and radio host
  • Mauro Zannoli
    Composer, sound and media artist
  • Jan St. Werner
    Mouse on Mars
  • Michael Akstaller
    Sound Artist
partners
NOPA Festical

The second edition of NOPA is almost here. The festival for sonic arts and musical experiments is set for October 3–12 in Yerevan. 
The events will be held across numerous locations around the city, all new compared to last year.
More than 30 participants including artists, musicians and composers from Armenia, Georgia, Germany, France, Switzerland, Netherlands, Brazil, Italy, Argentina, Turkey will collaborate and interact closely with the spaces to create a whole new sonic experience for the audience.
More details to come.

instagram.com/nopa.sound
Library for Architecture

The independent platform for discussing theory and presenting new concepts in architecture


https://lfa.am/
about
Space Academy
Three-Day Hybrid Seminar & Workshop
on Sound as Spatial Phenomenon

  • Listening Sessions
  • Field Recordings
  • Collective Performance Strategies

Can we navigate the world through sound? What are the possibilities of sound as a mode to discover new forms of reality? The Space Academy Workshop explores sound as a way of orientation and a form of collective knowledge. Participants will listen, record, experiment, and discuss how sound opens alternative worlds and new ways of engaging with spatial dynamics. This is not a music production course, but a practice of deep listening, field recording, collective performance, and critical reflection.

The workshop is available through an open call. Participants will be selected based on applications.

Please make sure you can show up at all three days of the workshop, because the program consists of several stages which are strongly connected, each one leading into the next. 

The workshop will be held in English.


Where: TBA for chosen
When: September 29, 30 / October 1
Language: English
Open Call was free with registration
Hosts
Jan St. Werner is a founding member of the pioneering band Mouse on Mars and the mind behind the experimental label Fiepblatter Catalogue. His practice moves between music, sound art and research, questioning how listening can create new forms of perception. He has taught at MIT’s Program in Art, Culture and Technology and was Professor for Interactive Art and Dynamic Acoustic Research in Nuremberg and Munich.

Michael Akstaller works across sound art, architecture and science. His research explores spatial perception through directed sound sources, as well as the interplay between hydrodynamics, morphology and acoustic phenomena. Trained in fine arts, design and engineering, he combines technical precision with creative experimentation. Together with Jan St. Werner, he initiated the Class for Dynamic Acoustic Research in Nuremberg, today an independent collective dedicated to sonic practices.
This event has ended
Impulse / Response as an Artistic Tool
Every space or object holds hidden resonances, a unique sonic fingerprint that can be captured through an impulse response (IR): a short sound that sets the space into vibration across the sonic spectrum.

In this workshop, we will use these recordings not to measure, but to play: turning the resonance of a room, an object, or a surface into rhythm, texture, and atmosphere. We will listen, record, and transform impulse responses into new sonic forms, exploring how places themselves can shape sound and spark imagination.


When: October 6, 18:00
Where: Library for Architecture (Tumanyan street 2nd lane, 5th building, Yerevan)
Language: English
Participation: free with registration

The workshop will be held in English. No prior experience is needed.
Host
Mauro Zannoli is a Buenos Aires-born and Brussels-based composer, sound and media artist whose artistic endeavours span a broad spectrum of mediums, such as immersive audiovisual installations, performances, and music compositions. Using custom software, multi-channel sound systems, lights, video, and scientific notions, he creates technological environments that immerse viewers in a multidimensional sensory experience intended to bring them closer to a deeper understanding of the complex systems around us and our place in the world.
Murmurating Proximities
How do our ears shape the way we think and connect with the others? This workshop engages with ideas and practices exploring diverse listening approaches at different levels. Through ativities inspired by deep listening principles, metacognitive techniques, and performance practices, participants will discover new ways to notice the connections that surround us.

The session will continue with Murmurating Proximities, an exploration of listening through sound, touch, movement, and space. Together we will create sounds and gestures that invite us to tune into each other and our environment, turning listening into a shared experience and a collective strategy. The workshop will be held in English.


When: October 8, 16:00-20:00
Where: Library for Architecture (Tumanyan street 2nd lane, 5th building, Yerevan)
Language: English

Number of spots: 15
Participation: free with registration
Host
Giada Dalla Bontà is an Italian researcher, curator, and writer working at the intersections of sound, art, and politics. She develops lectures, participatory projects, and editorial work, presented in contexts ranging from academic (FU Berlin) to artistic and cultural institutions (HKW, AdK, CTM). She is a PhD fellow at the Sound Studies Lab and co-founder of the Listening Biennale V.e.
Armenian Lullabies: Women's song for the future
The performative lecture by Lucia Kagramanyan explores the Armenian lullaby as both cultural archive and contemporary feminist practice. Building upon her earlier project Her Voice: Behind Armenian Lullabies, premiered at Framer Framed in Amsterdam in 2024, it continues an ongoing investigation into anonymous women’s authorship and the relevance of lullabies today. Focusing on songs transmitted by Armenian women across regions of Western and Eastern Armenia and within diaspora communities, the project examines the lullaby as a site of cultural resilience, intergenerational memory, and intimate resistance. Incorporating archival recordings and new fieldwork, it highlights these seemingly fragile songs as resilient carriers of survival, maternal care, and linguistic preservation, while also imagining cultural futures through the act of singing. Alongside her artistic work, Lucia is active as a curator engaging with sound, archives, and contemporary practices in Armenia and beyond.


When: October 8, 20:00
Where: Library for Architecture (Tumanyan street 2nd lane, 5th building, Yerevan)
Language: English
Participation: free with registration
Host
Lucia Kagramanyan is a cultural researcher, curator, and radio host whose work explores the histories and afterlives of sound in Armenia. She runs a program on NTS radio dedicated to rediscovering lost recordings from the Republic Radio archives, spanning classical, opera, folk, and pop. Through broadcasting and curatorial practice, she connects archival listening with contemporary cultural contexts.
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