2023 ORAM AWARDS WINNERS
MAYA AL KHALDI
(INTERNATIONAL CATEGORY)
Maya Al Khaldi مايا الخالدي is an artist, musician and composer from Palestine, based in Jerusalem. Maya’s work explores voice and the music of the past and present, working with archival materials to imagine the future.
Her debut album “عالم تاني – Other World” is inspired by Palestinian folklore, influenced by the present, to imagine a sonic future. All songs include either lyrics, melodies, or recordings from the audio archive of the traditional Palestinian music of the Popular Art Center in Ramallah, Palestine.
VIKTORIA / rEmPiT g0dDe$$
(INTERNATIONAL CATEGORY)
Part of the SouthEast Asian experimental electronic scene, Victoria Yam moves between worlds as easily as she slips between her two experimental music projects, VIKTORIA and rEmPiT g0dDe$$.
Splitting her time between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, the producer and DJ boldly ventures into the farthest, darkest recesses of industrial club, whipping up missives from the underground at festivals and events across Asia.
NATALIE ROE
Natalie is a composer and performer based between Cardiff and the West Midlands. She recently graduated from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama with a first-class degree in acoustic and electronic composition. It was in Natalie's year abroad, studying at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland where she found her love for performing with electronic instruments.
Most of Natalie's performances are centred around the Modular Synthesiser and often include Max MSP patches or Super Collider coding, live acoustic instruments, live visuals and multi-speaker array live spatialisation.
Alongside her electronic music composition and performance, Natalie loves composing acoustic music too and has previously written for BBC National Orchestra of Wales, The Flying Bedroom Theatre Company and the Berkeley Ensemble. Combining the acoustic and electronic sound worlds is at the heart of Natalie's work and something which she continues to explore in her music.
CECILIA "CIL" MORGAN
AKA AFROMERM
Cecilia “Cil” Morgan (aka afromerm) is a South London born sound artist, composer, producer, poet and researcher. She uses electronic music and vocal techniques to build soundscapes, both as part of her solo project and through commissions and collaborations with artists from various disciplines including music, film, movement and sculpture.
Juniper, a motion-reactive instrument Cil built as part of her undergraduate thesis, is a tool she uses to manipulate sound, from live loops, to elements of synthesis.
Cil’s solo project, afromerm, combines spoken and sung poetry with live electronics, and collaborative improvisation with musicians in her community. ‘held’ – afromerm’s independent release – marks a new era of her recorded work, having received positive press, with plays on BBC Radio 1, NTS and The Lot NYC.
Cil has worked with Tate Britain, where she drew from her Caribbean heritage in a commissioned sound performance and panel discussion as part of the Life Between Islands exhibition. Her 2023 research project and installation ‘Triangular Sound: Auditory Memories of Windrush Descendants’, investigates sounds of Caribbean-British mundanity. The project draws together intergenerational oral and aural histories of six Windrush descendants from three generations in a three-channel spatial sound installation.
HELEN ANAHITA WILSON
Helen Anahita Wilson is a composer, sound artist, pianist, improviser, and practice-based researcher. Re-imaginings and sonic transductions form a major part of her output, exploring new ways of telling stories and sharing biomedical information through music and sonic arts.
She has toured extensively throughout Europe and India and works across a broad spectrum of performances from solo piano projects to live extended radio arts and plant-derived installations. Recent commissions include Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Brighton Dome and Festival, and Bloomsbury Festival.
HANNAN JONES
Hannan Jones is an interdisciplinary artist of Algerian and Welsh heritage who was raised on Binjareb Noongar Boodjar and is now based in Glasgow, Scotland. Hannan's work is anchored in themes of identity; exploring hybridity within language, rhythm and world-building associated with cultural and social migration.
Using sound to not only reclaim her histories, but also explore the space between them, adopting a sampling technique whereby collected fragments of sound, and their abstracted musical values, are reassembled to reflect a personal perspective. Acting to echo both collective and autobiographical experiences of migration, language, chaos and origin, Hannan is guided by improvisation, and intuitive responses to the sonic sphere using electronics alongside archival materials.
NO HOME
No Home is the artist name of London based Charlotte Valentine. Their first album “Fucking Hell”, a mix of noise rock and pop, was released in June 2020 and was named one of the “The 35 Best Rock Albums of 2020” by Pitchfork. “Young Professional”, the most recent album released in November 2022 is an experiment in pop music.
They have collaborated with artists such as SASAMI and Maria BC and played with artists such as Space Afrika, Moor Mother and Big Joanie. Their work has been written about in Crack Magazine, NPR and The Wire amongst others.
GEO AGHINEA
Geo Aghinea is a London-based producer, composer, and vocalist who continuously strives to create a distinctive soundscape that reflects their experience as a deaf musician who hears through a synthetic mechanism: hearing aids.
Geo's non-conventional sound design, ethereal vocals, and poetic language create experimental, avant-garde immersive sonic spaces that take listeners on emotive journeys.
In early 2023, Geo started building the path towards the release of their debut EP titled 'I'll Hand You A Hand,' entirely self-produced and written, which is set to come together in November this year. Within this EP, Geo's artistic practice delves into the rich spectrum of humans’ ability to feel, presenting a plurality of emotions and stages of feelings. Through their self-crafted sonics, Geo intertwines these elements to reflect the complexity that transcends singular emotions, offering a multi-dimensional glimpse into their human experience.