Julia Santoli - Contemporânea

This piece is an embodied reflection on cultural and political knowledge that has been passed down, painstakingly recovered, accidentally tripped upon, and transmuted into new forms. Deeping folds within đàn tranh strings, voice, saron, bells, tape delay, electronic processing, and storytelling: woven practices melt into fuzzy melodies, linking pathways to personal experiences and the political threads that are embedded in them. Recovering musical language and pitch recognition, grounded explorations of electroacoustic sound, storytelling, and (vocal) resonance. Becoming past, present, future.

Photo: Draye Wilson

Julia Santoli is a Vietnamese-American multi-disciplinary artist, musician, composer, and music organizer. Santoli creates immersive and precarious environments with voice, feedback, electronics, and installation. She has completed residencies at Issue Project Room and Pioneer Works, and was an Asian Cultural Council fellow to Japan in 2019. In 2024, she was a peer-mentor in Olha Bekenshtein’s Time-Based program, supporting relationships between U.S. and Ukraine-based artists. As a sound designer, Santoli has worked with artists and choreographers such as Zavé Martohardjono and Amalia Suryani. She is a member of Feedback Ensemble (led by Luke Stewart and Leila Bordreuil), the duo Bodyweather (with Draye Wilson a.k.a. mankind), and a frequent collaborator of Chinese Artists and Organizers Collective. She is currently pursuing research on collaboration within South East Asian diasporic music initiatives as a doctoral student at The Graduate Center, CUNY.

Learning to Unlearn

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The Tale of Yêu

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Becoming Ancestral

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