Before we learn the names of the notes, we already know how to be amazed by sound.
A spoon touches a cup — and a little bell arises. A voice reflects off a wall. Water responds to the movement of a palm. A child repeats, listens closely, tries again. In that moment the world is full of instruments, and music begins with curiosity.
In the GAYA ONE musical space, Venice is sounding today — a city that invites us to recall this openness.
From 10 to 24 October 2026 is taking place here the 70th International Festival of Contemporary Music Biennale Musica. Its title is A Child of Sound, “A Child of Sound.” The artistic director, composer Caterina Barbieri, invites us to listen with the freedom with which a child first encounters the unknown.
Music begins with curiosity
At the heart of the festival is the idea of listening free from pre-prepared expectations.
We are used to quickly determining: this is classical, this is electronic, this is familiar, and this is strange. But sometimes a name appears before the experience itself. We have already decided what is before us, though we have not yet had time to listen closely.
Barbieri invites us to linger in this first moment of encounter. In her curatorial vision, childhood becomes an image of creative openness — the ability to explore sound without demanding that it immediately conform to familiar rules.
This is an invitation to let the experience happen. To hear an unusual timbre. To follow a long note. To feel how several voices change the space between people.
Zither, kalimba and the joy of laughter
One of the warmest strands of the programme is connected with the American musician Laraaji, known for his work with ambient music and the electric zither.
The festival's opening was announced to feature the world premiere of Alignment. Its description mentions zither, kalimba, voice, keyboard synthesizer, natural sound loops and soft percussion. The performance is built on improvisation and attentive presence; listeners are invited to experience it sitting or lying down, including with their eyes closed.
Such a format changes the very gesture of listening. One can settle in more comfortably and let one's attention follow the sound — its emergence, movement and gradual dissolution.
Laraaji's participation also includes a meditative laughter workshop. Here joy stands alongside concentration: the voice is freed from the need to say something important and gains the possibility simply to sound.
When different traditions compose together
Another facet of the festival is revealed by a new work uniting Lira Pramuk, Mohammad Reza Mortazavi and El Ghazouli.
Pramuk's vocal practice meets Mortazavi's Persian percussion, while El Ghazouli brings the sound of the Moroccan sintir, the Slovak fujara and electronics. The project is announced as a world premiere, commissioned by the biennale.
What is interesting here is the very space of encounter. Behind each instrument stand skills, memory, a cultural environment and the performer's personal path. Working together allows these differences to become a source of new musical relationships.
The voice can pick up the movement of the percussion. The electronic layer can continue the breath of the acoustic instrument. A familiar timbre gains an unexpected interlocutor, and a work is born that is possible precisely thanks to this encounter.
A place where one can play and listen
The festival goes beyond the concert schedule.
Arcadia is conceived as a sound playground for experimentation. Origine, located in the Arsenal, as a space of attentive listening, encounters and exchange, with concerts, listening sessions and screenings.
These formats share a common value: they give sound time and place.
One can come with curiosity, linger, notice one's own reaction. Hear how perception changes next to other people. Discover that the silence between events also takes part in the musical experience.
What we can take with us
A child of sound — a beautiful image for everyday life as well.
On a walk, one can set aside one's headphones for a minute and listen to what is already happening. At home — sustain a single note and notice how the room responds. In a familiar song — choose an instrument one had hardly paid attention to before.
These are small ways to give curiosity back to hearing.
Music gives us the opportunity to meet the world again: through breath, movement, attention, through a voice unlike our own. And in each such encounter a new consonance can appear.
Perhaps the joy of first listening never disappeared. It waits for the moment when we again allow sound to surprise us.
