Tarek Atoui Shuffle Orchestra

Tarek Atoui’s first performance for the festival will bring his instruments from across the galleries into a public space in Leeds.

Responding to the city-centre site, Tarek Atoui has invited musicians from across the world who will play alongside a number of local people trained to use the instruments. The performance will showcase a unique composition created specifically for Yorkshire Sculpture International’s opening weekend.

Tarek Atoui is a Lebanese artist who works primarily in sound. For Yorkshire Sculpture International Atoui will continue his exploration of the material properties of sound, its connection to the body of both the performer and the audience, and his interest in the invention of new instruments and instrument-making.

Atoui will be working with people across Leeds and Wakefield to create a series of performances this summer. He will construct new instruments, scattering these across the galleries’ indoor and outdoor spaces. These will be activated regularly, creating a composition and layered soundscape that reaches across the Yorkshire Sculpture International sites. Selected instruments from each venue will travel temporarily offsite and come together in different combinations in locations across Leeds and Wakefield, creating unique performances on each occasion.