Cities and Memory - remixing the sounds of the world

"The field recording of a pedestrian crossing signal at Savignyplatz, Berlin, triggered immediately the memory of myself, in my twenties, living not far from Savignyplatz, learning to ride a bike as an adult. Terrified. Because I never had a bike as a child, my parents couldn't afford one and where I grew up, bikes were for boys anyway."Translation of the text in the piece:Leaving the house, on Niebuhrstrasse, I turn right. I cross Leibnitz, Wieland and Schlüter. I reach Bleitreustrasse, turn left and keep going.I've repeated the route to myself several times. Not to learn the names of the streets that cross mine, but to keep my mind occupied. And not to think about the atavistic fear that makes me feel a hole in my stomach and makes me tremble all over.Because learning to ride a bike as an adult, at 25, is a frightening thing.Once you're moving it's almost easy. But there's the beginning and the end, and there are the cars and the car doors, and the dogs and the children and the stones and the pavements and the traffic lights.From Niebuhrstrasse to Savignyplatz. I just need to get to Savignyplatz, then I can get off and walk home, it's close, not even 500 metres.Learning to ride a bike as an adult.Because as a child I never had a bike. My parents wouldn't have had the money to buy me one, even if I'd asked. And a bike is something for boys anyway.And then an aunt of mine, who worked as a housemaid, had brought along an old broken bike that her employers' children had thrown away. My father took it to the workshop where he worked, welded the fork and the bike was as good as new.Boy's thing, that's just how it was. So: the bike belonged to my brother.I used it only once, in the lane near the house, to try it out on my own. But then Giuseppe had come along, a couple of years older than me, and had told me not to be afraid and had held the saddle to help me keep my balance.Two hours aren't enough to learn to ride a bike. But two hours are too many to spend alone with Giuseppe, and so when my mother found out she was very angry with me.That was the first and only time I tried to ride a bicycle.Now, many years later, I live in a city far from all the things that kept me bound.Now I have my own bike and nobody can tell me what to do anymore.But it's hard to learn to ride a bike at 25, when there's no one there to hold the saddle and tell you not to be afraid.I just need to make it to Savignyplatz. Then I'll get off and push.Pedestrian crossing in Savignyplatz, Berlin reimagined by Cristina Marras.

A ticking pedestrian crossing (with the iconic "Ampelmann" light) at a road on Savignyplatz, Berlin, with just a few passing individual cars. Recorded in September 2025 by Cities and Memory. 

"The street ambience was fairly intense and in Ableton Live I chopped and processed the traffic noises and played about with the pitch and timbres. A kick drum was used to give a primal rhythm to the piece and Absynth 6 was added, acting as a sonic glue. My idea was to create a soup of a soundscape."Traffic in Guayaquil reimagined by FFRWD. 

Traffic in the centre of Guayaquil (Chile y Aguirre), Ecuador. Rush hour traffic. Hot day. Recorded by Jean-Jacques Martinod.

"We all have experiences of storms to a greater or lesser extent. When I first heard the recording of the storm in the Moroccan Agafay Desert, I started thinking about the times I had been in a storm. From dramatic storms across central Australia, monsoons in South-east Asia or lightning storms across the sea at my home of Portobello, Edinburgh. However, I kept coming back to the storms I experienced as a young child growing up in Derby. I have vivid memories of getting headaches just before a storm came and then my sisters and I changing into our swimming costumes as the storm hit so we could run around the garden in the rain."To put it simply, I wanted ‘Children of the Storm' to reflect my memory of these times, getting excited by the thunder and lightning, as first the wind would blow covering us with leaves and dirt and then dancing under the trees in the pouring rain getting soaked to the bone!"The field recording runs throughout the whole song emphasising the excitement and anticipation we felt as the thunder, lightning and rain came."Agafay desert storm reimagined by Simon Holmes. 

This is a field recording of a storm in the Agafay desert in Morocco. Listen to the sounds of the rain pitter pattering and the loud frightening thunder rumble, accompanied by birds tweeting in the background. Recorded by Jake Edwards. 

"What ultimately happened to flight KL1760 Bremen-Paris...?"You hear the flight announcement at the airport, but things quickly spiral out of control. You also hear a reworking of the sound in the Musique Concrete style. A reporter's voice covering an attack in Paris, cinematic sound, and music building to a climax. A lingering Big Bang strikes the listener deep in the ears."The whole piece was composed in "old tape style" using a few microphones, a homemade oscillator bank, a piezo soundbox, a trumpet, and a violin."Mixed and remastered in the box in Audacity and Fluss."Bremen airport soundscape reimagined by La Chambre Sonore.

Binaural recording of ambience in a mostly quiet terminal at Bremen Airport Hans Koschnick, with frequent announcements in both German and English. Recorded by Cities and Memory. 

This recording is from the beginning of 2025. I made the recording thru my open window, at the place I'm staying in Berlin (Kreuzberg neighbourhood). There are many church bells in this neighborhood. It's very distinctive to hear the bells in this area.Recorded by Kathleen Judge. 

"I created this piece using my Agricultural Terrains compositional strategy for granular synthesis. It seemed appropriate as the bells encouraged me to reflect on the historical and agricultural connections created through German settlement and its influence on South Australian viticulture. The work explores the distance between places, time and memory itself."Bells in Kreuzberg, Berlin reimagined by Alan Cook.

"The recording of the Sufi flute at Istanbul Airport immediately brought back vivid memories of the city, which I deeply love. The Sufi melody carries that magical and mystical aura that seems to permeate Istanbul in every corner and atmosphere, an air filled with scents and spices, suspended in time between an indelible past and contemporary urban modernity. Yet over the fascination of this contrast hangs a shadow: a search for peace and for a future identity often threatened by political and religious tensions that risk driving regression rather than evolution."In my reinterpretation through modular synthesis, the flute becomes a fragile presence surrounded by unstable noise patterns generated through the rhythmic modulation of a filter, while the flute sound itself is fragmented and processed with bit crushing and delay."Sufi flute music in Istanbul reimagined by Demiurgo.

Sufi flute player, playing live in Istanbul Airport during Ramadan.Recorded by Helen Copnall.

The jingling of cowbells, the bleating of goats and the whispering voice of the shepherd during milking at a family farmyard in Cercados de Araña, a living testimony of the sustainable living practices of a rural family from the area. Recording by Marina Díaz Medina, president of the Asociación de Propietarios Los Cercados. Part of the participatory sound mapping project "Voices and Sounds of the Sacred Mountains", by the Union of Associations of the Biosphere Reserve of Gran Canaria.

"My approach was to explore various parts of the recording through the use of destructive looping, granular synthesis and sequencing to create a layered piece that moves through aspects of noise, drone, tape loops and experimental. "The piece was live recorded on an iPhone with automation of some effect parameters, playing instruments and adjusting effects."Goat milking in Cercados de Arana reimagined by Andy Lyon.

"In the spirit of the original piece I combined it with my recordings of clocks and automata and music boxes, my daughter singing with pigeons, and an evening birdsong chorus in Aldeburgh to create a synthesis of the mechanical and the environment."Museum of Automata, Lyon reimagined by Mary Hooper.IMAGE: Rama, CC BY-SA 2.0 FR , via Wikimedia Commons

A recording from Number One Court at the famous Wimbledon tennis championship as Barbora Krecjikova plays against Danielle Collins in a tense match. Krecjikova would go on not only to win this match, but to be crowned Wimbledon champion just a few days after this match. Collins 1-5 Krecjikova, second set, 8 July 2024 recorded by Cities and Memory. 

"I composed this piece using guitar and effects pedals plus Ipad instruments to create metaphorical sounds of bouncing, spinning, sliding tennis balls."The bouncing beats support the progress of the match even during the quieter moments as the players steady their nerves. The musical notes represent tennis balls hit with topspin, deftly dropped, lobbed or craftily sliced with varied pace all before an appreciative audience."Wimbledon ladies' singles match reimagined by Tom Thompson.

An archive of a Wander through the Museum of Automata, Lyon, before its closure in 2022.Among the ticking gears and rehearsed gestures, a choreography of mechanisms unfolds — echoes of human rhythm, routine, and repetition.Each automaton moves with precision, yet without pulse. Their silent labor mirrors our own patterns, written like a musical score of society.A dance of cold bodies, turning endlessly, until the movement stops.Recorded by Florent Picollet.IMAGE: Rama, CC BY-SA 2.0 FR , via Wikimedia Commons

"“Distant Songs” was inspired by the field recording “Archive of a Wander through the Museum of Automata, Lyon” by Florent Picollet. I began my process by eq'ing and editing the field recording into three overlapping sections. The new track was stretched using Paul's Extreme Sound Stretch and then processed and performed in Ableton. Lastly, Casio tones were added. "Museum of Automata, Lyon reimagined by Edward Ruchalski.IMAGE: Rama, CC BY-SA 2.0 FR , via Wikimedia Commons

The slats in the Golden Gate bridge will resonate at certain wind speeds and directions. the first is a low-pitched + low-frequency tone between 280-700hz created by westward ~22mph winds while the second tone is of a higher pitch + frequency of 1.1khz created by ~27mph winds. This is the singing as heard from Lone Mountain, during a rainy night.Recorded by wwjd (Jason Talsma).

"I used the original ethereal recording to run through the entire piece while also finding and recording a few more Golden Gate bridge sounds. These include the fog horns coming in as the melody and a couple others nearby the bridge.:The field recording inspires a warped sense of reality... dreary... a bit crazy. The bridge is a passage for those marching into a city of multiple faces and realities."There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. . . . You could strike sparks anywhere." - Hunter S. Thompson Golden Gate Bridge reimagined by wwjd (Jason Talsma).

"In “Out of the Woods” new and old swirl together. The primary inputs are field recordings from a violin workshop near the river. All of the percussion sounds come from the wood instrument construction sounds from the workshop. The rhythms were already so compelling, I took long clips of them and did very little processing. The voices are also all from the workshop visit, in the field recording. Voices in the workshop blended four languages, discussing craft and location. “Acero” means maple in Italian. Wood was harvested nearby, connecting nature and human process. Soft sandpaper rubbing underlies the vocals."The only sound I added was viola da gamba, an early bowed, wooden, stringed instrument that was popular in Europe in the Renaissance before the onset of modern strings. This instrument had a musical culture of being played in the home and in small groups, emphasizing soft richness of tone and polyphonic shaping before more modern priorities of loudness and soloists. Visually the instrument looks similar to the violin family, but has more sloped shoulders, 6 strings (generally) with frets, C holes instead of F holes, and all sizes are played upright held between the knees. Strings are tuned mainly in fourths, with the historical tuning of A a bit below modern standards (415hz vs 440hz or higher). The instrument went out of fashion being gradually replaced by the violin family in the Baroque period, though viols started to regain interest in the 20th century. I added reverb and effects to this early music sound, linking past and future. Along with other dedicated players and composers worldwide, I write and play new music for the viola da gamba to keep this instrument alive."In “Out of the Woods,” wood is nurtured by water. Wood is flooded by water. Wood resonates. Wood transforms. Wood speaks. Wood connects. Wood remembers. Wood forms new memories."Section of the river Lech reimagined by Heather Spence. -------Part of Flow, a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.

"My background as a singer/songwriter often dictates how I start my work, but my affinity for experimental music helps to push my compositions into odd or unusual places."For this composition, The Lech Waltz, I created a simple structure. And yet, it was missing something."That's when I decided to push the entire song a minute or more down the timeline, adding a number of layers and then playing without a click track, mixing in some long drones and melodies."It's become one of my favourite parts of the composition, sounding like what a river feels like."I was thrilled to hear about Salma Caller's idea of sharing small musical moments with other composers on this project. It evokes the connectivity of a river that changes with time."I used a bell-like sound from Giuseppe Cordaro, a sample that I turned into a random, descending 4 note melody. From Salma, a rowing noise became a percussive element."The original field recording (Segment 1) of the Lech River by Riccardo Fumagalli was turned into a lovely, noisy beat."Section of the river Lech reimagined by Bill McKenna. -------Part of Flow, a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.

"Rushing currents, echoing depths — where the haunting calls of water spirits appear and dissolve like currents in motion."This dramatic, immersive soundscape was inspired by Riccardo Fumagalli's field recording captured at Section 5 of the Lech River at Stanzach, Austria, “where the river bed is at its largest and the water caresses the vegetation around it”. Here the river has been braided, dividing the flow into five groynes that restrict the river's lateral movement. “They are built to train and constrain the lateral movement of rivers within the surrounding floodplain. Braided rivers tend to be very wide and, under natural conditions, highly dynamic. I believe the groynes were built in the first half of the 20th century, mainly to reduce the active river area, expand farmland, and provide flood protection.” (Martina Cecchetto)."I was immediately drawn to this sound by the purity of the bubbling water recording and by the beauty of the “String of Pearls” river shape created by human intervention, clearly visible in satellite images. This section is the second deepest part of the entire Lech River, and I wanted this sense of power and depth to play an important role in the composition."Further research revealed that the Lech River is commonly referred to by locals and tourists as the “last wild river”, due to its untamed, braided and largely natural state, often characterised as a living, flowing spirit of the Alps. In Austrian folklore, the famous shapeshifting female water spirits are called Nixe. The title and soundscape of this piece reflect these two aspects of the river."The form of the work is inspired by the five “pearl-shaped” sections of the river where the sample was taken. The climaxes in the piece mark these five sections, corresponding to the human intervention that created the groynes restricting the river's flow, represented by more metallic and destructive sounds. Vocal elements evoke water spirits calling and luring, drifting and disappearing into the distance. The soundscape was created by transforming the original sample into 22 different sounds using effects, combined with an additional 44 sound and vocal tracks, making a total of 77 tracks."Through my compositions, I enjoy drawing attention to the importance, fragility, and beauty of the natural world. Conservation efforts, such as the LIFE Lech project, have focused on removing bank stabilisation structures and giving the river space to redevelop its natural dynamics, ensuring the long-term success of habitat and species conservation. However, Section 5 has not yet been included in the restoration project."Section of the river Lech reimagined by Amanda Stuart. -------Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.

"This segment is sort of ambiguous - am I listening to the Lech or to the Danube? Maybe both, or maybe it's all Danube, and “Lech” is just what we called it before it got there. I worked on that moment, and I looked at what that could mean for the river water, which had come from all these different places, with all these different sounds. "One of the included photos is a bird's eye view of the two rivers, side by side - they really appear independent in that photo. The satellite timelapse is different - first, the orientation and curve of the Lech make it feel like it's contributing to the Danube, visually. Most strikingly, in the timelapse, color changes in the Lech appear to continue into the mixed river - when the Lech changes color, the water in the Danube which came from the Lech also changes color. This may simply show that the two rivers don't mix right away, but it got me thinking about perspective, direction, and naming: There is a known end point of the Lech, but the Danube seems to exist before and exist after. "When the Lech ends, the Lech water continues, but now named Danube. This process is continuing constantly, and the water that meets the Danube could have come from many different places, and gone through many different experiences - those experiences show up in the variety of colors in the timelapse, and in the variety of sounds collected for this project, certainly."I thought, I may be able to express these through music theory, through melody. Better than words, anyway. What's in a name…"The piece itself is a collection of melodies, recorded on 9 different musical instruments - all the instruments are playing distinct melodies, and every melody leads to the same musical pitch. This is the many waters all leading to/becoming the Danube. "The field recording is also played back several times at higher and lower speeds over the course of the piece, sort of a like a slow melody of its own - those also lead to a final note: the recording played back at the original speed. "Hearing that last note, the drone, the tonic, I wonder if it's possible to know all the different ways that an instrument could have gotten there. We see the Danube and call it Danube, but there may be some awareness of how the water got there, too. "For those interested:The music theory behind the scenes here is something I've been working on with some friends here in Seattle - the term we are using is “nonatonic harmony” (which translates to “harmony derived from a 9-note scale”). Since I recorded the melodies individually, one by one, and then stitched them all together after, there might be an argument that this is more accurately “polymodal music”, but I'm more excited about this 9-note system, so that's why I'm considering it in those terms. "Here's some more explanation -It's common to refer to musical pitches by letters in the alphabet - A B C D E F G, then wrapping back around to A. That's seven distinct notes - scales that have one of each letter are considered “heptatonic” (which translates to “seven-tones”). In this piece, I was working with these notes: A Bb B C D E F F# G. That's nine notes all together, so, “nonatonic”. By the way, since there's only seven letters in this standard alphabet system, the sharps (#) and flats (b) are added to existing letters in order to make new notes, between the letters. "There's a few available perspectives on this arrangement of notes - one is to see it as 9 totally distinct notes. There are some moments in this piece that feel like that, the moments that are dissonant, because you have two different B notes (B and Bb), or two different F notes (F and F#), and they clash. "Another perspective is to play the heptatonic modes which are nested inside the nonatonic scale (this is the polymodal perspective). That original alphabet scale (A B C D E F G) can be played differently to lead to certain notes (“leading to certain notes” is one definition of many for a “mode”). Using those same pitches (A B C D E F G), the melodies that use the notes in such a way to lead to D are called “dorian”, and the melodies that use the notes in such a way to lead to E are called “phrygian”. If we were to use phrygian and dorian melodies, but instead have them all lead to A, we would have to amend the alphabet system a bit, using sharps (#) and flats (b). In the nonatonic scale listed above, we can find an aeolian mode (using the notes A B C D E F G), a dorian mode (using the notes A B C D E F# G), and a phrygian mode (using the notes A Bb C D E F G) - which each lead to A. "In practice, this system allowed me to navigate to the final note of each melodic phrase with more options, maybe specifically with two more options (either B and either F). It also introduced more dissonance, which is a characteristic of a lot of music, maybe music in general - I should note that this system isn't particularly innovative in itself, we're just putting words to something that happens already in a lot of music. How useful is that? Maybe, if only so that we can talk about it."Section of the river Lech reimagined by Nicolo Scolieri. -------Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.

"The inspiration from this piece was firstly at the surface level - flow, time, motion - are all inspiring for musical exploration. As I dug deeper into the material, the concept of rivers as enablers to civilization, to history, added deeper layers to explore - how rivers slowly but inexorably shape ideas, stories, culture and music just the same as they shape land and place."I wanted to bring all of these ideas together into some way, while also literally exploring the sound material from the original recording using elements (like sediment) from prior pieces, to construct an evolving and moving piece that suggests a continuity rather than an ending."I hope those ideas come across as it builds to its conclusion. No spoilers." Section of the river Lech reimagined by Warren Anthony. -------Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.

"Living in Scotland and spending time in the Scottish Highlands, it is clear to me how integral water and waterways are to the landscape and existence. I sense that humanity has all but forgotten this. There seems to be a belief that we can treat these precious ecosystems in any way we see fit without a care that we may be harming or killing them. When I first heard the recording of the Lech River I was instantly drawn to the serenity of the river and the peaceful lapping of the water. The sounds truly emphasised the beauty and importance of this cherished environment. "This recording focusses on the final part of the Lech River before it flows into the Danube. The written description noted this section as the Lech's ‘quiet goodbye' and I felt this was a perfect focus for my composition. It made me consider if the river were to actually say goodbye and disappear forever due to human interference. What if the water were to flow from the Lech River into the Danube until every last drop had gone, never to return, leaving an arid, lifeless riverbed. I wanted ‘The Quiet Goodbye' to focus on this idea with a narrative of loss; a lament for a river that once was, a love song of sorts, a song of yearning for the departed."The satellite imagery shows the obvious changes in the water channel over time. It reminded me of the way human vessels bifurcate and degenerate, often becoming stenosed or occluded due to poor lifestyle choices. It struck me that the Lech River and surrounding landscape also suffered from these poor human choices and wanted this element to be part of the lyric."The song starts with voices moving over and through one another to convey the flowing sense of the river and lapping riverbank. This is followed by the piano which again, tries to convey the feel of water. The field recording is heard throughout acting as a reminder that the song is a constant longing for the river."Section of the river Lech reimagined by Simon Holmes and the Portobello Drone Choir. -------Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.

"All posts from the Flow project's WhatsApp group were saved to a text document and numbered as 'segments'."These segments were then recited as speech and played in random order."Removed from their original sequence, the speech fragments illustrate how meaning is shaped by their place within a broader flow of communications."(Phrases such as 'user name' were used to respect the privacy of group members.)"Section of the river Lech reimagined by Max Greening. -------Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.

"Cuando el cauce recuerda (When the riverbed remembers) is a piece created for the Flow project, within Cities and Memory, which in this edition focuses on exploring the presence and memories of water in different territories. The work stems from a field recording made on the Lech River, on the outskirts of Augsburg. It is in this stretch of the river where the landscape opens up again: the riverbed reclaims space and its sound expands."The work is situated in a sonic territory that navigates between soundscape and electroacoustic music and suggests, through an everyday moment—a scene of encounter between nature, industrial memory, and community life—that it constitutes the initial material of the composition."The field recording underwent a spectral analysis process that allowed for the separation of different sound components. Each of these layers was subsequently transformed using various sound processing and synthesis techniques, including temporal stretching, filtering, and spectral manipulations. From these operations, new textures, densities, and perspectives of the original material emerged, generating an expanded auditory field."Rather than simply reconstructing the place in a documentary style, the piece seeks to explore its latent resonances. Processed fragments of the river and the sound of voices are transformed into sound currents themselves, revealing invisible or inaudible layers of the environment."In this sense, water appears as a form of song that is heard again after having been silenced. When the river returns, it is thus an invitation to listen attentively, to resonate with the flow of the landscape, and to recover, through play and sonic imagination, our sensitive relationship with rivers."Section of the river Lech reimagined by Jorge Martínez Valderrama. -------Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.

"I selected an area of the River Lech within the city of Augsburg, Bavaria. I was intrigued by the changing relationship between humans and river, and the different uses of the natural flowing water in this place. I discovered Augsburg is one of the oldest settled places in Germany (around 2000 years). This fuelled my imagination in considering the scale and scope of change- within both humanity, and the natural environment, that the river has borne witness to over time. I was really struck by the impact of human activity on the river, not least the disruption of its natural flow and use of the Lech for multiple hydro-power plants along its course. "I took a walk along several stretches of the water in and around Augsburg and my overwhelming sense was that it needed our care and attention and that we have a responsibility to the guardianship of its course. Within the composition I wanted to depict contrasting sensations that I felt portrayed something of the complexities of this stretch of river, its history, its present and its future, including flux, chaos, beauty, dischord/disharmony and solidarity. "Working with my long-standing collaborator and dear friend, we shared ideas and musical parts back and forth, and spoke about different aspects of the piece, and slowly over quite some time, the elements that seeemed to belong, began to emerge. We were both interested in the sense of all the different layers that comprise a river and its environment, thinking vertically as well as horizontally along its course."Section of the river Lech reimagined by Suzi Lamb and Nicky Rushton. -------Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.

"For centuries, the river Lech has played an integral part in the city of Augsburg's water management system, which is part of the UNESCO World Heritage. In this system, a network of canals carries water from the Lech into the city while a network of streams carries spring water from the forest south of Augsburg into the city for drinking. While the clear spring water is potable, the Lech water, carrying sediments, is more suited to industrial uses (watermills, power generation etc.). In order not to mix the different types of water, the engineers devised a series of culverts or siphons (Düker in German) where underground streams can cross each other without mixing their water. "This (and the fact that in the original field recording from the Flow project, the water from the Lech is completely inaudible because masked entirely by human-made sound) inspired the structure of this piece, which is based, both in time and in space, around the contrast of clear vs sedimentary, natural vs cultural: it starts with an unprocessed hydrophone recording we made in one of the local streams – water as the source of all life – , then introduces birdsong as a symbol of a natural landscape (which we also recorded locally near the streams in question), which then gives way to the sound of human labour, such as digging a canal (digging into mud.wav by Stefan21100190 -- https://freesound.org/s/593113/ -- License: Creative Commons 0). "This human intervention opens the main part of the piece, a long crossfade of our untreated (‚clear‘) and musically processed (‚sedimentary‘) hydrophone recordings. As these two flows of sound cross each other, they sonically represent the working of a Düker. In the final part of the piece, the gong-like sound of the processed recording fades into the very distinctly human-made sound of church bells. (Being based in Augsburg, we identified the recording location of field recording #22, near one of the canals which enter the city from the forest to its south, thanks to the characteristic sound of the bells of the church of St Ulrich and St Afra. For the long crossfade from the Düker sounds to the church bells, we made our own recording of the church bells). "As our sonic narrative follows the canals and streams through the southern forest northward into the city, the journey of the piece parallels that of the river Lech. The very last segment of the piece (church bells, voices, traffic) consists of the original Flow field recording #22 minus a few seconds at the end, but otherwise unedited. It ends with the sound of a car engine starting, which can be seen as a shorthand reference to human intervention in nature, which is also a central concern regarding the river Lech."Section of the river Lech reimagined by KLONK. -------Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.

"生生不息 — translated here as Circle of Life — is one of the most profound concepts in Chinese philosophy, drawn from the I Ching (Yijing or Book of Changes), where it is expressed as “生生之謂易” (“the generation of life is what is called change”). Philosophically rooted in classical Chinese thought, especially interpretations of the Yijing, it views this perpetual becoming as the fundamental character of reality — the “great virtue” of heaven and earth, where change itself is the mechanism of ongoing creation rather than destruction. It's optimistic in tone: life doesn't just endure against odds; it thrives through inherent creativity and interconnectedness, producing ever more complexity and possibility. "This principle highlights resilience and harmony in natural processes — how fragility and strength coexist in endless regeneration, how intervention (human or environmental) can disrupt or restore the flow, but the underlying impulse toward generation remains undiminished. In the context of a river like the Lech, it manifests vividly: from its alpine source it flows onward, eroding, reshaping, nourishing, recovering from floods and human alterations alike, yet never ceasing to create — new channels, new habitats, new cycles of life. No matter the obstacles, the river's inherent vitality keeps generating, embodying this eternal, unstoppable renewal."My piece for the river Lech begins in serene, everyday harmony. It opens with the bright calls of birds — pure voices of the living landscape — joined by gentle flute notes that drift like morning light over water. Beneath them flows the soft murmur of the river itself, interwoven with the relaxed chatter and laughter of people eating and talking at a riverside restaurant. This is life along the Lech as it is today: ordinary, peaceful, and quietly interdependent."As the music unfolds, subtle dissonances begin to emerge and grow. They trace the long story of human intervention — the straightening of channels, the building of dams and embankments, the gradual encroachment of cities and farmland. At the same time, they echo the river's own restless nature: centuries of erosion carving new paths, floods reshaping gravel bars, the constant migration of the channel as it discovers fresh routes across the valley floor. Layer by layer, these tensions accumulate, reflecting countless transformations — both natural and imposed — that have sculpted the Lech into the river we see now."Yet after every wave of change, the music does not break. Instead, it circles back, returning to the same calm opening textures, now deeper and more resonant. The bird calls reappear, the flute line floats once more, and the river's voice flows on, gently carrying the sounds of human life with it. Through every difficulty and every alteration, the Lech remains unstoppable. It embodies 生生不息 — Circle of Life — ceaseless generation, endless renewal. No matter how much we constrain or redirect it, the river's vital force keeps creating new possibilities, new habitats, and new cycles of life. What appears as disruption is, in truth, part of an eternal becoming."Section of the river Lech reimagined by Anna Vienna Ho. -------Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.

"I have been to Landsberg several times and am referring here to the place in the old town next to the weir. The piece represents the surroundings at this location with the constant sound of the river and people sitting in cafés and walking around, and imagines that you are in the river itself, drifting along."I only used the field recordings in different pitches, slowed down and sped up, like some parts of the original recordings. I made further edits and built up layers of the different sounds, creating a mixture of natural and alien sounds that interact with each other. The presence of the river and the weir dominates, or at least accompanies, life in this particular environment and influences people's perceptions both consciously and unconsciously."  Section of the river Lech reimagined by EMERGE. -------Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.

"I was struck by a paradox in this segment of the river's story. How at the same time, the river here is both so heavily modified - by channelisation and with a dam for hydropower - and yet, this reservoir also offers a kind of nature 'oasis'. As Martina Cecchetto explained; "widely lacking in natural geomorphic dynamics - so much so that there is a redirection of the layer of Quaternary gravels (and unpredictable incision rates to the channel bed - )". "And yet, "Whilst the reservoir also here, is artificial and this place is "devoid of millions of years of minerals...it hosts pristine nature in its present form". I was also struck by the maps and visuals showing the once multiple channels of river - now a straightened single channel river, and the beautiful coloured video realisation. "Taking Flow artist Salma Caller's wonderful suggestion, of incorporating preceding segment sounds, this number 20 sound work requotes and resamples from Bill McKenna's segment 1's offered extract and from Anja Kreysing's segment 19's offered extract, and layers segment 20's field recording and resampled versions with original musical compositions to offer a musical, sonic remembering by the river. The river remembering its geological foundation, its forced changes and its ever-present memory of flow and life. "A story of place working across layers of time and sounds simultaneously."Credits: Musicians - Gideon Brazil - saxophones, Elliott Folvig - electric guitar, Miranda Hill - double bass, Elissa Goodrich - compositions and vibraphone. "And so the story of this particular section of the river is a paradox; one that carries beauty and dislocation in equal measure."Section of the river Lech reimagined by Elissa Goodrich. -------Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.

"Lo-Fi River Flow reflects the landscape, the people, and the life unfolding along the river's banks. The listening gradually narrows toward the movement of water itself, while remaining open to the presence of the animals that come to the river and live within its rhythm."The story begins at the edge of the current. At first the river feels like a distant presence — a continuous flow of sound moving through the landscape. But as listening deepens, the surface begins to reveal smaller events: water circling around submerged branches, sliding across gravel beds, whispering through reeds along the bank."With time, the river begins to speak in layers. Dawn arrives with the first birds calling across the water. The current shifts between calm and turbulence. Hippos move slowly through the river they call home, their bodies reshaping the surface of the flow. Further along the banks, baboons call across the valley in scattered groups, while distant Maasai voices occasionally rise and dissolve into the wider soundscape. At every turn, the river carries these voices differently."Gradually, more presences emerge. Animals approach the water to drink, to cross, or to rest along its edges. Their movements briefly intersect with the steady rhythm of the current before fading again into the surrounding landscape."What began as a study of water slowly becomes a listening to the life that gathers around it. The river is no longer only a flow of sound, but a meeting point — an ecological centre where movement, survival, and rhythm converge. In this way, Lo-Fi River Flow unfolds as a sonic story of the river itself: a living acoustic space where water carries both the voice of the current and the fleeting presence of those who come to it."Section of the river Lech reimagined by  Karhide and Deep Dive Sound . -------Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.

"This location of fish passage exhibits an imperfect balance as humans attempt natural processes, and while total success is not possible the effort is worthwhile. Water is clearly audible in the recording, and echoes reflect the human-created boundaries. Adding to these soundscapes of place, I introduce my own sounds, in the form of cello and vocals. All of the sounds in “Left and Right of Passage” originate with either the field recording, or my playing cello or singing, yet layers of reverb, tuning, and other effects birth myriad sonic identities."Examining the satellite data, the western side of the river seems very uniform and unvaried, whereas the eastern side appears more complex, intricate and waving. I am translating this asymmetry into the way the music is panned, and taking the perspective of the Lech River with “head” waters south (the Lech flows northward), and looking outward towards humans, the left side is stable and uniform, whereas the right side is intricately dynamic. “Left and Right of Passage” is structured as a double choir, with one choir (on the left) providing a consistent wall of sound, and the other (on the right) constrained but with movement. Melodies and swells of cello add to further complexity for the right choir, and a solo vocal dips in and out. "Channeling is a recurring concept in the river segment and this composition. The river used to be multithread with multiple channels, but has been strengthened and confined to a single channel. Fish are channeled to enable their movement past human energy production. In “Left and Right of Passage,” constrained movement is evoked in the vocals, particularly in the left choir but also in the right choir. The brevity of spurts of pizzicato and truncated melodies illustrate channeling in the cello. Segments of the original soundscape emerge unaltered (aside from volume shaping) at the beginning, middle, and end of the piece, emphasized by frequency constrained channels of the original soundscape. These are offset so that the original field recording can be distinctly heard, most notably at 18-50s, 1:12-1:55 and at 3:15 until the conclusion."Section of the river Lech reimagined by Heather Spence. -------Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.

"Flume investigates the acoustic behaviour of a regulated river segment through a post-cinematic compositional approach. The piece originates from a field recording made inside the concrete tube of a fish pass, where water striking the walls produces a narrow resonance between A and B♭. This unstable microtonal field becomes the structural centre of the work. Granular and spectral processes, sine tones, and slowly drifting accordion drones performed on two slightly detuned instruments reorganise the recording into an evolving acoustic space. Rather than depicting the site, the composition amplifies its latent resonances, pressure, and spatial constraints. Section of the river Lech reimagined by Anja Kreysing. -------Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.

"The field recording and other materials immediately suggested a strong duality: natural flow versus human control. The description of a river heavily modified by channelization and reservoirs, combined with the image of a concrete fish passage designed to simulate natural conditions, felt deeply symbolic. The water moves peacefully, yet the echo reveals the artificial structure surrounding it. That tension became the emotional core of my composition."I began the piece using the field recording in its original, unprocessed form. At the opening, the listener hears exactly what was recorded: the calm lapping of water inside a human-made structure. This documentary moment establishes a sense of place and reality."From there, I gradually transformed the recording using granular synthesis. By fragmenting the sound into micro-particles and reorganizing them in time and space, I was able to stretch, disperse, and recompose the water's movement. The contained flow begins to expand into something more unstable and textural — a sonic metaphor for the river's suppressed geomorphic dynamics and its latent force beneath engineered control."Alongside this process, I used modular synthesizers and tape manipulation to build an evolving sonic current around the original recording. The modular system allowed me to create pulses, resonances, and subtle instabilities that mirror both mechanical intervention and organic persistence. Tape processing introduced slight imperfections and physicality, reinforcing the idea of friction between natural energy and imposed structure."The story behind the composition is not one of restoration, but of endurance. This section of the river is described as lacking natural geomorphic dynamics and without ongoing restoration plans. Yet water continues to move. Even when constrained, redirected, or engineered for hydropower production, it carries an intrinsic momentum."Toward the end of the piece, the sound returns to the original field recording, closing the cycle. After fragmentation and expansion, we come back to the simple, real presence of water. This return suggests continuity: despite human intervention, the river persists."Through this work, I aimed to translate the river's relentless drive into sound — the infinite self-propulsion of water, flowing forward even within imposed boundaries. "Section of the river Lech reimagined by Paco Maddalena. -------Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.

"For this sound piece, I did not have any recordings of water, only ambient sounds from a café and the bells from the square. I modified certain elements of the recordings by reversing them and adding reverb. I also added a synth drone that gradually transforms into an organ sequence in order to give the piece a more “sacred” character and to shape a coherent soundscape."The title refers to the poem of the same name by Paul Verlaine."Section of the river Lech reimagined by 53cm. -------Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.

"Listening to the field recording and reading about it immediately evoked associations with the sound of movement, electricity, power plants, moraines and the surrounding fauna and flora. First I did slow down the original recording to different speeds, listening closely while allowing the data and contextual information inspire me for my further process."I then divided the field recording into several segments created rhythmic processed elements from the original file. Inspired by this evolving sound environment and my research, I did improvise over the soundscape on multiple tracks with midi controllers, experimenting with different sonic textures and gestures."After returning to my composition some time later, I made further adjustments, adaptions and refinements in speed, volumes and movement. Through this process, I tried to shape a composition that follows and reflects the Lech river."Section of the river Lech reimagined by Steffi Baron-Neuhuber. -------Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.

"At this segment of the Lech, the river has left its Alpine origins – its wild and icy rapids are just a memory. Data suggest that the Lech is “heavily modified” by human intervention (i.e., channelization, hydroelectric stations). However, at this point in its journey to the Danube, the river Lech (described as “widely lacking natural geomorphic dynamics”) does not merit restoration plans. Here, it seems to be considered nothing special or remarkable. Yet I was drawn to the “humming of the power station” in the field recording. This hypnotic sound highlights the nearby human activities that draw power from the Lech's steady flow. "The Wasserkraftwerk's low drone beneath the lively rush of water awakened my examination of the relationship between nature and technology. In creating “Sink, Surface,” I imagined timeless naiadic spirits becoming entranced by the incursion of human technomagic. Their chaotic, playful noises settle into harmonic relation with the device's drone. "When I first heard that drone, I assumed 50Hz would be most prominent. However, listening deeply and vocalizing along with the rich hum, I found amplitude peaks: at (roughly) 138 Hz, 207 Hz and 350 Hz – very easily translated into a D♭major triad. I decided to filter sweep the white noise of the river itself to alternately remove and enhance the harmonic aspects of the machines. I then vocalized in various styles and timbres for use as compositional materials. I also played with the asymmetrical stereo of the original recording, first filling in the full stereo field, then at the end swapping the louder left channel to the right – a mirror image that reflects one's change upon emerging from the depths. "How do how human endeavours both rely and impinge upon our ecological contexts? As an imaginary (re)mystification of the River Lech, “Sink, Surface” seeks to dissolve the false divide between the natural world and the human. It invites listeners into the liminal space of the Lech – where the power station emerges a vibrant, animating presence and the river's sounding spirits call us to experience our own embodied inner flows."Section of the river Lech reimagined by Gretchen Jude. -------Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.

"Gregory Scheckler's composition for Flow draws from field recordings at Epfach, where the Lech River bends beside the village. The recording's distant church bells of St. Bartholomäus and fluttering water evoked memories of the composer's studies in nearby Innsbruck during 1987-88. "Through deep listening, he found the recording's natural rhythm at 104 BPM and created a "Flow Snare" using granular synthesis from the field recording, which he also layered several times to find sonic variety. The composition unfolds as a round—layered voices representing generations along the river—while its form mirrors the river's geography: the middle section broadens like the bend itself. A snippet from the upstream segment connects to earlier waters, and the finale unites the instruments in unison, like waters flowing together downstream. "Bells, waterways, synthesizers, percussion, and layers come together for an adventurous, uplifting palette."Section of the river Lech reimagined by Gregory Scheckler. -------Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.

"The combination of the church bells and textural water currents exhibited the relationship to the river from the community, building close to the river one assumes the ongoing relationship to the river. The water sounds shallow, passing over stones. I chose to bounce and defragment these sounds using 1/4" analog tape, a response to the water passing and breaking past stones. "Breaking and disjointing the elements with ambient melodic vibraphones. The piece wanders and intensifies to a textural dissonance of low tones and glitchy static. It resolves with solely the sounds of the river as it leaves beyond the town. The piece was edited together then processed back as a final mix onto 1/4" tape before digitizing to a final version."Section of the river Lech reimagined by Nick Kuepfer. -------Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.

"My process was pretty straightforward. I studied the photos and data of the river, attempting to get a handle on some of the terminology, history, and science. I then focused on my segment, specifically the reservoir and the surrounding forest. I didn't feel the need to deconstruct the field recording, as there's both mystery and clarity in it that I wanted to embrace. The heavy modification of the river segment via the channel and dams factored heavily in how I determined the movement, pace, and dynamics of my piece. The music was created with analog synthesizers and several delay pedals."Section of the river Lech reimagined by Eulipion Corps. -------Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.

"This is an eco-poetic/mythic piece, a kind of swan song. Named after a line in the film IO, where, in a toxic environment, in a post apocalyptic time, you can no longer see swans. I was particularly inspired by the quietness of this segment of the river, and the description for segment 15 by the person who recorded it, that it was as if they had come upon a secret and secluded place, hiding in a dense stretch of forest, where one man pushes off on a boat, barely rippling the tranquil waters. "You can hear mute swans taking off. I re-imagine this lone man as the Swan Knight, or Knight of the apocalypse. I wanted to convey this feeling, of a separate mystical and magical place, as both real and not real. A place of myth but also as place of illusions and deceptive tranquility. I wanted to sonically disrupt that magical flow, of time and the sound of a lone rower, with the reality of climate catastrophe, water and sound pollution. Especially contrasting the clean waters of Germany with the sewage filled water in UK. "Fragments can be heard of news commentators speaking about global water bankruptcy. You can hear sounds of me filling bottles of water from my large metal water filter, as it is now no longer advisable to drink tap water in the UK. I wanted to also disrupt the notion of isolation, or that this lone man was really only barely disrupting the surface, when in reality we are all connected, cross-culturally entangled, and everything we do has consequences, often catastrophic, for all humans and creatures of the planet globally, beyond this seemingly peaceful stretch of a river in Bavaria. "I researched Bavarian and European mythology about swans and rivers, as well as swan and river mythology in other cultures. I looked for fragments of old recordings of European/German swan music, swan songs and swan poems (for example - extracts from poems by Orlando Gibbons, Jules Renard, and extracts from a poem by Friedrich Leopold zu Stolberg-Stolberg used by Schubert for his piece Auf dem Wasser zu singen, , and Mein Lieber Schwan by Wagner, sung in 1930s in English by Walter Midgley ). I looked up scientific research about the river Lech, reservoirs and mute swans, local plant life, and infrasound. I was also very interested in the wider context of the area of segment 15 - the paper mill of Schongau, a Turkish cafe, and history of the executions of 'witches' and the creation of a memorial garden/ the role of gardens / plants, in healing trauma and the planet. Old photographs of the area and how the area had changed through time also influenced how I felt about this stretch of the river Lech. "A feeling of irreversible flow toward the end of everything, as we try to reverse the flow, we flow into silence. Through out the piece you can hear the flow of my voice reading extracts from my research and thoughts, the underlying constant sound of the lone man rowing, and sonic interludes and disruptions to unsettle us from our reverie." Section of the river Lech reimagined by  Salma Ahmad Caller. -------Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.

"The river inspired the piece as a dreamlike walk. This composition focuses on birds as the first carriers of musical entities. The sound is shaped into an ancient story, told through evolving pads that mirror the gentle life surrounding the current. "Influenced by the figure of David in the Old Testament, where music is discovered through nature and spirituality, the composition unfolds as a quiet revelation, as if the birds themselves were guiding the emergence of music. It evokes an intimate promenade along the river, tinted with magical mirages."Section of the river Lech reimagined by Angela Tisner. -------Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.

"Viewed from above, on maps and in satellite imagery, Litzauer Schleife (‘Litzau Loop') appears as a gracefully looping meander. Sonically, on the ground, the field recording makes a similar gesture with the sounds of gently flowing water and the calls and wingbeats of birds. We were intrigued to learn this section of the River Lech is protected by conservation legislation and is one of the very few remaining parts of the river that approximates a ‘natural' riverscape. We dug a bit into the history of this place and learned about past times and people that both inspired and troubled our contribution."In the decades following World War Two, Litzau Loop was saved from being turned into a reservoir while under incredible pressure from powerful industrial interests seeking to develop entirely the Bavarian section of the River Lech. The word ‘pressure' and sound of water rushing through a power plant in Ilaria Boffa's preceding piece for Section 13 thus resonated for us and we brought it into the our opening."Another thread of continuity we introduce is historical. Today the person celebrated for protecting the Litzau Loop from destruction is Professor Dr. Otto Kraus (1905-1984). A famous line associated with him, from a film Natur in Gefahr (Nature in Danger) that he co-produced in 1952, is: "He who destroys nature, destroys himself". While being a stalwart force for nature conservation in post-war Germany, Kraus's role was continuous in many ways with the work he did for the Nazi Regime but using then the language of primeval nature as essential cultural identity for preservation of the German volk: one argument for regional wetland conservation was the expectation of additional lebensraum to be provided for development by Hitler's expansionism. As fascism rises again in the loops and returns of history, we have chosen to embed rather ignore unsettling links between nature and nationalist identity politics."Despite its protected status, we learned too that the Litzau Loop is still in danger of disappearing. The lack of hydrologic dynamics in the highly industrialized River Lech means that this section of the river no longer shifts its course. As silt accumulates, the riverbanks are becoming covered with vegetation, and this cultural waterscape is beginning a slow transformation into landscape. As the piece builds, we play with “accumulation” in terms of the layering of loops drawn from the field recording. We also layer in beats made from plucking TYΦA's cattail cordage-strings to ultimately take the piece in a cacophonous direction, suggestive less of romantic idyll than existential uncertainty. Kraus's phrase "He who destroys nature, destroys himself" is literally embedded as audible filtering processes in the second half of the piece, and the text can be seen when opening the piece in a spectral audio editor." Section of the river Lech reimagined by TYΦA. -------Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.

"Entrophony — fusing 'entropy' with '-phony' (sound) — transforms a hydropower plant's acoustic signature into a meditation on energy dissipation. The project captures the plant as an entropy generator, extracting rhythm and noise from a single field recording through granular synthesis and sampling techniques. "Hovering at the threshold between music and industrial noise, the composition positions both the power plant and the river it harnesses as technologies within an inexorable entropic system—each converting organized energy into increasingly dispersed forms."Section of the river Lech reimagined by Louis Möckel. -------Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.

"The field recording and the satellite timelapse I chose speak of hydro-power, energy and discontinuity, they tell the story of a voice fragmented, amplified and impeded. There is magic and mystery in the life of these ancient water-beings. Is a river a portal? Is the myth still alive?"Artist and researcher Elizabeth Gallon Drosde introduces us to the submerged at the beginning of the composition. Rivers are story tellers, they are memory. If we deep listen, we might commune with ghosts and tune our bodies to their whispers, we might become a vibration."The sound of wind accompanying this first part and the end of the piece is played on violin by violinist Ida Di Vita (Quartetto Indaco). A long whistle, the primordial element of air swirling and hissing."Later on I join the flow and embody the river, its deep ancestral sound. My poem and my pitched voice in English are there to remind us of the history of this more-than-human being, its force and path, its hunger. "Mystery and magic, and the Lech rivers in reverse. I proceed in Italian overlapping my reversed voice. I get hungrier and hungrier and I go deeper and deeper, till pressure slows down, till noise recedes.Composition:original field recording by Riccardo Fumagalliwind sound by violinist Ida di Vita (Quartetto Indaco)intro poem 'In the interstices of river-portals' by Elizabeth Gallon DrosdeEnglish/Italian poem 'In the Arms of Weirs' by Ilaria BoffaSound effects, mixing and production by Ilaria BoffaPoem, In the Arms of Weirs'Deep-voiced white noiseprogression of pressure spinning of shhh, turmoil.It's all you can feel in the fall. It's good to be at serviceto move downwards and collectto come a long way acrossthe Pleistocene moraines the edge of Alps and gravel fieldsto accumulate in the arms of weirs.But I've seen algae disappearunder the law of no fish pass. I get hungrier and hungrierI go deeper and deeperas to search for the Styxas to swear by her water.Way less than a good mothermy spawning grounds in degradationmy current impeded, my voicebroken, a life to gauge.Flow continuity hiccups with drawn-out hisses and roarsit self-renders into a different languageit loosens and rivers in reverse.' Poem, Is a River a Portal?'Living between languages, between the here and therelearning to become fluvial,finding shores to breathe on,more than a beginning or an end.The portal, the waters, dams.To remember with water is to submerge in the threshold —this is how the river becomes a practice, a way of moving,a framework for transitionsin the interstices,Linking us to the collective,to the territories that lie beyond, deeper.Listening to the waters between the here and there,becomes a space for what resists being said,a gesture of attention,where meaning slips through,without words.Communing with the ghostsrivers always testify, are storytellersthis means tuning our bodies to their whispersa hum, a vibration, an interference.'Section of the river Lech reimagined by Ilaria Boffa. -------Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.

"Submerged is a music piece that focuses on the perspective of living organisms in Forggensee Reservoir. The work incorporates field recordings capturing gentle water surfaces, subtle shifts in currents, distant passing vehicles, and the faint presence of aquatic life. The field recordings are used throughout most of the piece as raw material with minimal processing. The composition is structured in three sections, each representing different layers and temporal states of the lake."The opening section evokes shallow waters, suggesting aquatic animals and the shimmering surface through minimal and delicate sonic textures. Through layered sounds representing both visual and auditory phenomena, subtle changes in the environment are expressed."In the middle section, the perspective moves deeper underwater, where darker and shifting sonic textures emerge. These sounds reflect movement and tension within the ecosystem. This section is also informed by human activity, such as tourism and recreational boating, as well as environmental changes including sedimentation and variations in water levels. Additionally, elements of local culture are introduced through the resonance of string instruments, evoking the atmosphere of a luthier's workshop near the lake. These sounds form a layer where environmental and cultural elements intersect."The final section depicts both the exposed lakebed during periods of low water levels and a return to a calm, quiet state. While the surface appears tranquil, a subtle sense of unease remains, suggesting environmental and human-related issues that persist as unresolved conditions."By interweaving seasonal and temporal shifts, biological presence, cultural context, and human impact, the piece invites the listener to experience the lake as a complex and multi-layered environment. The title Submerged refers to the unseen ecosystem beneath the surface, as well as to environmental changes that are not easily seen."Section of the river Lech reimagined by Masako Yokouchi. -------Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.

"After reading about the Lech and looking at the images, my first impulse was to change or add nothing - just let the sound be - like it is... It took a while until i thought: Ok Lech - I'll "visit" you and bring some silent sounds - like the sounds that might show up in your head, when you are in nature. "So I layered, spoken word, singing of different melodies that did not necessary fit, a bit piano and let it meet the Lech - but so, so silent that you can hardly hear it - is there something? or not? Did I hear something else? what was that? "I did not change the recording of the Lech, it is exactly like it was recorded, just a bit shortened, because I wanted this piece to be an instant, like a blink of an eye. Section of the river Lech reimagined by Judith Mann. -------Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.