FuelFest: Oracle Song

Written and composed by
Melanie Wilson
Dates
20 - 22 Mar 2025

A work in progress

Award-winning artist Melanie Wilson collaborates with an AI machine learning tool to explore the conflicted terrain of human and animal relationships through sound.

This poetic, intricate listening experience weaves language, multi-part vocal composition, field recording and electronic sound together to map the fragmentary experience of the biodiversity crisis with kaleidoscopic force.

Created using with endangered animal voices from the UK and beyond, the score was developed through a five-year research process into machine learning for composition, supported by PRiSM at RNCM.

Oracle Song seeks to take the audience from a place of climate anxiety and grief into a shared landscape of listening and connection.

Commissioned and produced by Fuel and funded by Arts Council England, Sound and Music, The RNCM Centre for Practice & Research in Science & Music (PRiSM), Hosking Houses Trust.

This work was created as part of Sound and Music’s New Voices programme.

For details about FuelFest and the other works in progress, visit FuelFest at the Barbican

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Creative Team and Cast

  • Writer, Composer, and Sound Designer Melanie Wilson
  • Music Supervisor Kate Whitley
  • Performer Sarah Dacey
  • Performer Adey Grummet
  • Performer Rosie Middleton
  • Performer Melanie Pappenheim
  • Production Sound Engineer Grzegorz Staniewicz
ABB73C5B-A51C-4932-BDF3-C60C9D79146A Created with sketchtool.