SCORING THE CITY

This experiment at the intersection of urbanism and experimental music takes inspiration from graphic scores in music as dynamic forms that could offer new ways of notating the relationship between design ideas, built form, and social life: in other words, between scoring and performing urban space.

Throughout 2019 we hosted four workshops in very different cities with common challenges: London and Paris, two global cities needing to create flexible space to accommodate rapid economic and socio-cultural change; and Belfast and Beirut, cities marked by conflict needing to find common spaces across sectarian divides. The workshops invited architects and composers to explore a site, share their observations, and create scores that challenge the static nature of the architectural blueprint.

Scoring The City was a seed project for SONCITIES, co-organised by Gascia Ouzounian and John Bingham-Hall and initially funded by TORCH Oxford and Theatrum Mundi. We continue to develop it in the context of the SONCITIES project, through workshops, recordings, and performances.