Opening Concert | Beneath the waves

Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) at The University of Edinburgh, brings together creative practices that shape the world around us.

Edinburgh College of Art

Music inspired by, and in concert with, the voices of sea creatures.

West Court, Edinburgh College of Art

Week of Sound 2026

Join us for the 2026 edition of the Week of Sound in Edinburgh.

Join us for the opening concert of the Week of Sound at Edinburgh College of Art.Musicians – and other humans – have long been inspired by the sea, and by the voices of its mythological or actual inhabitants. While past generations told tales of singing mermaids and selkies, more recently the fascination has focused on how some very real species – cetaceans in particular – use sound in what appear to us as musical ways. But whales and dolphins are not the only sea creatures who use sound to communicate, and the voices of others, too, are revealing important information about the oceans. Scientists who study marine environments are using sound detection and recording technologies in their research — and capturing soundbites from a range of other sea creatures in the process.This concert features composed and improvised music that responds to the sea and the voices of those who live there, played by Alex South (clarinets) and Una MacGlone (double bass). Alex South's artistic research has focused in particular on whales: his PhD dissertation, titled Cetacean Citations, analysed and responded musically to rhythm in whalesong, including how individual whale 'singers' differ in their technique. In addition to playing together with the recorded voices of migrating whales as they pass through Scottish waters, South and MacGlone's will also improvise on recordings of crabs and cod provided by Edinburgh PhD candidate Isabel Key. Marine scientist Laurence de Clippele will be present to explain the developing science behind these recordings, its potential for understanding and protecting marine environments and biodiversity, and to share insights from her own research. The concert also features a performance of the piece Abyssal Zone (2020) by Lithuanian composer Žibuoklė Martinaitytė, inspired by one of the deepest and darkest regions of the Earth's oceans.You can read more about the <a href="https://digital.eca.ed.ac.uk/weekofsound/" title="https://digital.eca.ed.ac.uk/weekofsound/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Week of Sound here</a>. <a href="https://alexsouth.org/" title="https://alexsouth.org/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Alex South</a> is a practising musician and scholar with research interests in the fields of ecomusicology, zoomusicology, biomusicology, animal communication, animal culture, and animal ethics. His interdisciplinary PhD (Royal Conservatoire of Scotland/University of St Andrews, 2024) combined practice-led research from an ecomusicological perspective with bioacoustical studies on the rhythmic variability of humpback whale song. He teaches at at the University of St Andrews and Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, and is currently a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanites at the University of Edinburgh. As a performer, he regularly playd and records improvised and contemporary classical music with Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra, Collective Endeavours, Ensemble Thing, and in numerous other formations. Compositions resulting from his doctoral research have been performed at festivals in the UK and abroad, and featured in CBC documentary ‘The Musical Animal’.<a href="https://www.unamacglone.co.uk/" title="https://www.unamacglone.co.uk/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Una MacGlone</a> is an improviser and researcher working across performance and community contexts. She began her professional career as a freelance double bassist, working with orchestras across the UK. Session work with indie/pop musician Future Pilot AKA opened up a world of interesting connections, leading to work with David Byrne on the film score Young Adam. She is a founding member of Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra (GIO) and leads on an innovative muti-year project with Gaelic Arts Organisation Ceòl ‘s Craic combining Gaelic song and stories with improvisation. Her compositions and improvisations have been played on BBC Radio 3’s The New Music Show, Freeness, Late Junction and Exposure. She has also been part of televised improvisation performances in Germany and Japan. She plays on over 20 commercially available albums. She has an international profile as an improvisation teacher in Higher Education and has given workshops and lectured across Europe and North America. Una is currently Lecturer in Music at the University of Edinburgh.<a href="https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/bohvm/staff/laurencedeclippele/" title="https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/bohvm/staff/laurencedeclippele/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Laurence de Clippele</a> is a marine ecologist who studies both deep-sea benthic habitats such as cold-water coral reefs and sponge grounds as well as shallow temperate and tropical coastal habitats. She is an expert in using machine learning methods to understand how biodiversity is changing in time and space. She mostly uses image and passive acoustic monitoring data in combination with bathymetric, current speed and other environmental data. The aim of her current research is to combine knowledge and approaches from the fields of marine ecology, acoustics and computer vision to develop new tools and methods that contribute to extracting ecologically relevant information from big datasets quickly and robustly. She is a lecturer at the University of Glasgow.AccessPlease email <a href="https://eca.events@ed.ac.uk/" title="https://eca.events@ed.ac.uk/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">eca.events@ed.ac.uk</a> if you have any access requirements. Please see <a href="https://www.eca.ed.ac.uk/privacy-and-cookies" title="https://www.eca.ed.ac.uk/privacy-and-cookies" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">ECA's privacy notice</a> for more information on how your personal details provided will be used and stored.

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Opening Concert | Beneath the waves

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