Listening to data: data sonification at DataBeers Padova

On Friday 6 November at 6:30 pm, at Uqido in Padova (via Garigliano 52), I’m a guest at DataBeers Padova together with Raffaella Rivi. Our talk is called “Ascoltare i dati: la data sonification tra arte, tecnologia e ricerca” (“Listening to data: data sonification between art, technology and research”) and it is about how numbers can be turned into sound. It’s the first time the DataBeers community has had this topic on the programme.

Poster of DataBeers Padova #14: Raffaella Rivi and Sergio Marchesini, art-based researchers and performers, talk on data sonification, Friday 06/11/2026 at 18:30 at Uqido.

Raffaella is a film-maker and video set designer, I’m a musician, composer and computer scientist. We work together on projects where data, art and research meet. We’ll talk about how a work made of data comes to life: where you start, what role the data plays and what role the art plays, and what we’ve learned along the way. I’ll also play one of my sonifications live.

This is an announcement from the DataBeers Padova community, whom I thank for the invitation. Tickets are sold out, but there is a waiting list: https://lnkd.in/dfrfqqck.

An example of my work: Flow

Flow is a sound project that tells the story of the Lech river through music. I used computer vision on satellite images to extract the shape of a navigable stretch of the river, then simulated 300 stone trajectories inside that area. Each point became two notes, by comparing its position across the width of the river and along the length of the stretch with a musical scale. The harmonies come from how the points are spread in space, more than from traditional composition.

Near the end of the piece a voice enters, taken from the Venetian-dialect poem Femene che le lava by Andrea Zanzotto. The project came out of a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, supported by Cities And Memory.

Padova World Music Orchestra

Padova World Music Orchestra

Padova World Music Orchestra (PWMO) is an open, free project of music and intercultural exchange, funded by public and private contributions.

The world’s musics are passed down orally, slipping past styles, genres and borders: they are rivers that look still on a map, but we feel them move once we dive in. Every musician carries their own roots and puts them at the service of collective creativity, letting them be interpreted, translated, transformed into the shape of the orchestra.

I joined the orchestra as musician and as co-arranger. Read more about PWMO!

New Landscapes feat. Venkatesh S. Kadandale @ MAC

We are very happy to have a special guest with us:

Venkatesh S. Kadandale
Venkatesh started training in vocal Indian classical music at the age of 8. Besides being trained in vocal music, He also plays the bansuri – a transverse flute made of bamboo from the Indian sub-continent, harmonium and the piano. He is currently training bansuri under the guidance of the world reknowned musician Pt. Pravin Godkhindi and has been fortunate to collaborate and work with musicians around the world in various musical projects.

Caterraduno @ Teatro Olimpico di Vicenza

It was a deeply moving experience to perform on one of the most beautiful stages, as part of one of the most beloved radio shows, alongside some of my favourite actors and musicians.

A heartfelt thank you to Mirko Artuso, Francesco Ganassin, Massimo Cirri, Alessandro Bergonzoni, Banda Osiris, Marco Paolini, and the entire Caterpillar team!

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