Open Sound is a unique and innovative format, whose project is based on creating new musical repertoires and unprecedented collective performance cored to a main dialogue between traditional and contemporary sounds.

The project
Open Sound promotes territories, soundscapes, and their communities through a co-creative and intergenerational approach. Its goal is to disseminate and increase knowledge of territories’ and communities’ ethnomusicological heritage and their reinterpretation in a contemporary key following an innovative and creative process. Open sound represents a hybrid interaction within different musical languages focused on traditional paths.

The Osa Library
The heart of this Call is their OSA Library, a digital music archive of more than 300 traditional Occitan sounds created by sampling a selection of traditional Occitan instruments (accordions, hurdy-gurdies, bagpipes, flutes, and drums), which constitutes an archive of the rich Occitan intangible heritage.

The Scuola di Alto Perfezionamento Musicale di Saluzzo contributed to the recording of the Occitan sounds for the Open Sound Library, operatively involving both local artists and sound engineers for the recording of traditional and acoustic instruments. Sounds were selected and recorded in October 2022 in Saluzzo under the artistic supervision of Sergio Berardo and Dino Tron (Lou Dalfin), musicians working in the Occitan territory to safeguard and bring to knowledge the Occitan musical tradition. All this work led to its first release of the OSA Library composing the “first season” of Occitan Library; the second season will be released in 2024.

All Occitan sounds contained in the OSA library will be also as NFT certificates on the Polygon blockchain. Thanks to the characteristics inherent to their nature, i.e. transparency, traceability, and incorruptibility, NFTs can restore and indeed create value for the entire chain of musicians who create and work on content. The creation of an NFT certifies the production itself and keeps track of all those who participated in its creation, and that can return both artistic and economic value to them.

The call
#OSA is the Open Sound call addressed to young (under 35) producers/musicians/composers/sound artists who want to measure themselves against the concept of “dare”, experiment and co-create to imagine new sound visions. In particular, this year we are asking applicants to compose and produce a track that represents a visionary soundtrack, with a different vibe and development compared to a track made for the dance floor.

 The selection of candidates’ projects is by: Alioscia Bisceglia (Artistic Director – OSA project), Paolo Baldini (Guest producer OSA), Giulia Tess (Guest producer OSA), Simone Sims Longo (Guest producer OSA), Mauro Loggia (Didactic coordinator – Scuola APM), Sergio Berardo (Lou Dalfin – Artistic Director Occit’Amo Festival), Dino Lupelli (General Manager – Music Innovation Hub), Roberto Genovese (Publishing Director – Sugar Music).

Six candidates will be selected in this first phase and they will be invited to participate in a 5-day residency programme (Open Sound Academy) at the Scuola di Alto Perfezionamento Musicale in Saluzzo (10-14 May 2023).

The Academy will be organised in partnership with Music Innovation Hub; the participants will follow an empowerment program about ethnomusicological history, professional topics (such as copyright, NFTs, music industry) and artistic co-production process.

The Open Sound Academy will be held in collaboration with: Scuola di Alto Perfezionamento Musicale, Onlytech Industries and Sugar Music.

In a second phase, up to 3 best profiles will be selected to take part in the co-production of a new original performance (OSA 2.3 – Reliving Occitania), under the supervision of our 2023 guest producers: Paolo Baldini, Giulia Tess, Simone Sims Longo. The OSA Performance will be presented live in September as part of the Occit’amo festival. Occit’amo is a large widespread festival that takes place between the Occitan Valleys, with incursions beyond the Alps, ready to welcome many artists and musicians.

How to partecipate
The call is aimed at all citizens of the European Community aged between 18 and 35 years.

This open call is an invitation to:
-download the samples of OSA library – Occitan sounds
-use the sounds to create original compositions.
-The track must contain one or more samples of at least two different instruments from the OSA library.

The track can be loaded in WAV, AIFF, FLAC, ALAC formats.

The participation to the Call is free of charge.

Deadline: 01/05/2023

Apply and other information here.