Many congratulations to Dr Afsaneh Shibani who successfully defended her thesis “ Game Based Learning Using Virtual Reality for "Sadu": A Qatari Traditional Textile Sewing Design and Animation” in SARC on 6 May 2025

Huge congratulations to Dr Lara Weaver who successfully defended her SARC PhD thesis "SOUNDING THE ANTHROPOCENE:SITE-BASED REALISATIONS OF ECOCRITICAL AURALITY IN THE WETLANDS AND THE DRYLANDS”

A big well done to Dr Jacob McQuillan who successfully defended his PhD Thesis ‘Physics-Based Emulation of Spring Reverberation’ in SARC on 29 April 2025

Congratulations to Dr Yang Yang who, on 28 April 2025, successfully defended her PhD thesis Traditional Chinese Values and Perfectionism: Impacts on music performance anxiety (MPA) in Chinese piano students

Many congratulations to Dr Conor McAuley who successfully defended his PhD thesis, ‘Musical Pathways: Exploring bodily movement and the context of others in improvised drumming’ on 23rd April 2025

New SARC PhD researcher Eimer Birkbeck is undertaking a residency (14th -28th April 2025) in the Arctic North Spitsbergen Artists Residency Centre, Longyearbyen, Svalbard.

Dr Zeynep Bulut's book, Building a Voice: Sound, Surface, Skin (2025), has been recently published by Goldsmiths Press, distributed by the MIT Press and Penguin

Robert will be presenting a research paper titled Ecological Soundwalks: Balancing Activism and Abstraction through Interdisciplinary Exploration at the conference which runs from 14-16th May 2025 at the University of Helsinki.

Huge congratulations to Dr Vivienne Griffin! who successfully defended her SARC PhD thesis and portfolio "Synthetic voices: an exploration of the boundaries between the human and the digital"

A message of congratulations to our technical manager Craig Jackson, who was shortlisted for the Queen’s Staff Excellence Awards Outstanding Leadership!

Congratulations to Dr Hanna Slättne who has been appointed as a new Ciaran Carson Writing and the City Fellow for 2025 at the Seamus Heaney Centre

It was a pleasure to put together the second SARC Symposium with Lara Weaver which took place on Saturday 30 November 2024

Professor Pedro Rebelo (SARC Director), Lara Weaver and Robert Coleman (PhD researchers), and Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble conceive a new concert programme derived from field recordings from locations around Ireland.

The School of Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science is offering a fully funded, full-time, three-year PhD studentship on Non-Iterative Schemes for Simulation of Non-Linear Musical Instrument Dynamics to start in October 2025.

Professor Franziska Schroeder explores AI's impact on music education and her own research

SARC Senior Lecturer (Education) Chris Corrigan has been shortlisted for the 2024 QS Reimagine Education Awards which will take place from 9-11 December 2024 in the QEII Centre, London.

Our very own Prof Franziska Schroeder has just been published in the international, peer reviewed Journal of Sonic Studies.

The event, which takes place for three nights from 24 October, brings together 2,600 delegates from 90 countries and features more than 50 live acts.

SARC x 20, created by Pedro Rebelo and Frank Delaney, will be shown at Berlin Dokumentale: International Documentary and Media Festival, 10th-20th October 2024

SARC PhD researcher Helena Hamilton will be presenting a new iteration of her sound sculpture, featuring multiple fluorescent lights, at the Musikbrauerei bunkers in Berlin as part of Digital in Berlin this weekend (4 & 5 October 2024)

On Friday evening (20 September), we officially kicked off our JAM 4 programme for the 2024-25 year. JAM 4 is a weekly programme designed for Secondary school children ages 12 – 17 who are interested in Creative Music Technology.

On the 28 September 2024 at 22:30 BBC Radio 3's Kate Molleson airs a programme on Panos Ghikas, Wobbly and Jennifer Walshe’s performance and residency as part of Sonorities Festival Belfast 2024

SARC PhD candidate Abhiram Bhanuprakash presented on "Quadratic spline approximation of the contact potential for real-time simulation of lumped collisions in musical instruments" at the 27th International Conference on Digital Audio Effects (DAFx24)

DRIFT is a project for Belfast's River Lagan commissioned by Belfast 2024 - a collaboration between OGU Architects, MMAS and sound artist Matilde Meireles

SARC Lecturer and Researcher Dr Úna Monaghan has been commissioned by the Ulster Orchestra, Townsend Enterprise Park and Zeppo Arts to create a new work as part of Belfast 2024.

PhD candidate Vivienne Griffin is currently exhibiting a solo exhibition ‘The Song of Lies’ in Bureau, Duane Street, New York

Congratulations to SARC PhDs Georgios Varoutsos, Isaac Gibson and Damian Mills (L-R) pictured with SARC Director Professor Pedro Rebelo at School of Arts, English & Languages Graduation held 29 June 2024

PhD candidate Robert Coleman receives an individual artist bursary award on 26 June 2024 from South Dublin County Council to support his PhD studies at SARC: Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Sound and Music

Bulut's talk, titled, "Sustainable Speech: Experimental Music and Sensory Technologies for Post-Stroke Aphasia,"  drew on her larger research project, Sustainable Speech, supported by the Engaged Research Seed Fund at Queen’s University Belfast. 

Many congratulations to Bihe Wen who successfully defended his PhD viva with a creative practice submission entitled "Self as Method: Connection, Transformation, and Innovation in Sound Composition”.

Paper Title: An Explicit Scheme for Energy-Stable Simulation of Mass-Barrier Collisions with Contact Damping and Dry Friction

Congratulations to Dr Leonid Kuzmenko who successfully defended his thesis Co-designing Immersive Virtual Reality Experiences with People with Dementia on 18 June 2024

Congratulations to Dr Hanna Slattne on her successful PhD viva at SARC, defending the thesis: "Worldbuilders: Towards a dramaturgy of metaplasticity. Affecting embodied change through immersive audio and story”

SARC PhD candidate Lara Weaver took her research on ‘singing’ sand dunes to California this May, presenting at the University of Southern California (USC) and Stanford University.

SARC PhD candidate Bihe Wen presented his paper Reimagining Tradition: Composing ‘Immemorial/Flux’ for Prepared Guzheng at Noise Floor 24 at ESML in Lisbon, May 2024.

The Audio Visual piece Silent Spring by Geraldine Timlin and Pedro Rebelo is screened on the 27th May in Lisbon as part of the Noise Floor conference at the Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa (ESML).

Article Title: How Do Aesthetics Get into Muscles and Muscles into Aesthetics? Insights from Musical Interactions in an Experimental Context

Explore SARC member Yecid Ortega’s “Let the Walls Say Their Peace” project including online exhibition.

On 29-30 April 2024 "Performance without Barriers” performed at the 2024 HIRANI Health Tech Spring Conference at Titanic Belfast.

In Lines of Desire, Dr Georgios Varoutsos discusses his sound walking project, Sounding Covid-19.

This new supergroup in Irish contemporary music brings together 6 trailblazing artists including our very own Úna Monaghan (harp/sound design).

Matilde first arrived at SARC in 2011 for her PhD and has since made an incredible contribution as a researcher, during and after her PhD through a number of post-doctorate positions.

SARC PhD student, Isaac Gibson, has been awarded the British Council’s Venice Biennale Fellowship.

"Performance without Barriers” was delighted to be asked to give a keynote address at the "Third Interdisciplinary Conference on Disability and Consumption" Belfast, Northern Ireland, on 12 April 2024

On 27th March 2024 SARC members were invited to the Sonic Lab for the re-launch of SARC: Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Sound and Music.

For over forty years Sonorities has led the way for musicians, composers and sound artists from around the world to make and present work for curious listeners.

British-Iranian composer and turntablist Shiva Feshareki has been in residency this week in the Sonic Lab. Shiva worked with Pedro Rebelo and Craig Jackson developing ambisonics spatialisation for her new show for Sonorities Festival Belfast.

Prof Franziska Schroeder and Dr Alex Lucas will give an invited keynote address at the Third Interdisciplinary Conference on Disability and Consumption on 12 April 2024.

SARC Director, Professor Pedro Rebelo collaborated with Donegal based visual artist Geraldine Timlin on the video work ’Silent Spring’ now showing as part of the Royal Ulster Academy 142nd Annual Exhibition of Art at the Ulster Museum, Belfast.

SARC PhD Candidate Lara Weaver has been selected as one of 5 music creators commissioned to write a new work for the Crash Ensemble, Ireland’s leading new music ensemble.

Georgios Varoutsos, SARC PhD Lead, has Article Published in Journal for Artistic Research: Issue 29 Titled Documenting Sounds in Urban Places: Belfast During Covid-19 Lockdowns 1 and 2

Exploring artistic methods for collaboration and exchange between SARC (Queen’s University Belfast) and Space21 (Kurdistan-Iraq)

QUBe is a music collective based in Belfast at SARC, providing a forum for experimental music involving students, staff, and musicians from inside and outside Queen’s University Belfast.

Sláinte explores issues of presence, parody and agency. This four act sonic essay is inspired by the repertoire of literary metafiction and its’ usual blend of biography, history and the socio-political milieu.

An interactive Public Programme event inviting you to alter your domestic environment through the light and sounds emitted from your devices.

Pedro Rebelo, Professor of Sonic Arts and SARC director has been in residency at Easter Edge Arts, Newfoundland with visual artist Geraldine Timlin working on the project “Shaped by the Sea”.

Pedro Rebelo, Professor of Sonic Arts and director of SARC has collaborated with Donegal based visual artist Geraldine Timlin in a show entitled 'Silent Spring'.

The Oram Awards - a platform for innovation in sound, music and related technologies returns in 2021 for it's 5th edition.

JAM 4 students’ end of the year showcase: promising electronic music producers and our future sound engineers!

As part of the NI Science Festival programme 2021 JAM4 have developed Biophonia, an immersive audiovisual experience exploring the impact of climate change on the environment through sound.

SARC are again delighted to be part of the Northern Ireland Science Festival and this year we are proud to deliver a diverse range of events over the two week period

Launched this week, Green Future Media is a student-led online multimedia project, anchored in the Broadcast Production department.

-ence is a new collaborative project between improviser and Professor of Music Paul Stapleton (AEL) and electronic musician and Lecturer in Latin American Studies, Ricki O'Rawe (AEL)

Call for Papers: Contested Resonances: Creativity, Listening and Performance in Conflict Transformation Virtual Conference 29th-30th July 2021. Hosted by the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute.

Kim Montgomery receive the prestegious Anjool Maldé Journalism prize for her work ‘43 Days’, which was produced as part of her Masters in Media and Broadcast Production 2019/20.

The Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences is excited to announce our first Online Winter School taking place 1 - 5 February 2021.

SARC MA & PhD graduate Isobel Anderson has a new podcast targeted at helping female identifying musicians produce and release their own music.

The Belfast Media Festival presents Kenneth Branagh in conversation with Kathy Clugston. He talks about growing up in Belfast, his upcoming movies, his creative process and his memories of the QFT.

Congratulations to Una Lee, SARC PhD Graduate and Visiting Scholar who was named as one of this year's winners of The Oram Awards.

Pablo Sanz, SARC’s PhD graduate and Visiting Scholar at Queen’s has received an award at the Phonurgia Nova Awards 2020 for the work STRANGE STRANGERS.

Congratulations to the 'Sounding Conflict' Research Project Team who have been shortlisted for Research Project of the Year: Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences 2020 by The Times Higher Education Awards.

A DfE award is available for a PhD project on Adapting sound-tracks for listeners with hearing loss at QUB. If you are interested in taking on this project please discuss with Dr Trevor Agus t.agus@qub.ac.uk ASAP, ideally by Monday, 10th August 20

SARC researchers past and present received awards at the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME), the leading conference in the field of new musical instrument design and performance, held online 21st-25th July.

Created by Koichi Samuels who runs JAM 4 creative music technology course, part of Junior Academy of Music, at QUB. The voices are pupils of Junior Academy of Music and some instrumental recordings are also included in the music.

This project uses data from the World Health Organization Situation Reports in which global figures are presented for population infected with Covid 19 and new deaths related to the virus by day between the 21st January 2020 and the 25th March 2020.

Understanding the role of music and sound in conflict transformation: The Mozambique Case Study

Congratulations to Dr Matilde Meireles and Dr Diogo Alvim for being awarded first prize for research excellence by the Society for Artistic Research

Nocturne (Nachtstück)

PhD and MRes funded opportunities in Musicology, Composition and Sonic Arts

Congratulations to SARC PhD Graduate and ex-employee Úna Monaghan for winning the inaugural Arts Council and National Concert Hall Liam O’Flynn Award 2019

Following on from previous years QUB Film Studies and Production students again shine at the Royal Television Society (NI) student awards on Tuesday 26 March 2019, held at the Black Box in Belfast.

Dr Zeynep Bulut's debut single Eclipse is released (Diffuse Records, 2019) and is available on iTunes and Spotify.

You might not recognise his face, but Peter Dickson has one of the most recognisable voices in TV and radio. Affectionately known as ‘Voiceover Man’, Peter is the most prolific voiceover artist in the UK.

Dr Kurt Werner, SARC, and Ólafur Bogason, Genki Instruments, win Best Paper Award for their research at the DAFx 2018 Conference

We are delighted that former students of QUB Music, Robocobra Quartet, Kitt Philippa, Joe Campbell-McArdle & Myles McCormack (Lonesome George), and Conor Caldwell, continue to achieve success as they navigate through their chosen music pathways.