Tarek Atoui’s Shuffle Orchestra

Tarek Atoui (b. 1980, Beirut) is a composer and sound artist who works with innovative electroacoustic instruments. These are activated as part of installations to explore different methods of listening, composition, and performance.

Atoui often develops projects over many years within different cultural contexts, and with a vast range of collaborators. Sound is translated into energy, light and electricity, becoming an agent to play the instruments, inviting performers and audiences to tune into the spaces and the listening possibilities they offer.

The Shuffle Orchestra for Yorkshire Sculpture International was a series of two performances in which Atoui activated instruments newly made by a growing international network of instrument-makers. Each performance focused on the work of one of Atoui’s close collaborators, and involved people, artists and members of the sound community across Leeds and Wakefield.

In Atoui’s practice, these performances are moments of experimentation and human encounter that will inform and inspire future work, including a major exhibition the artist is preparing in 2020 at the Sharjah Art Foundation, United Arab Emirates and the Castello Rivoli, Italy.

Tarek Atoui’s first performance for the festival highlighted Alan Affichard, Sergey Filatov and Igor Porte’s works and contributions to Atoui’s practice. The performance took place in The Calder at The Hepworth Wakefield and was performed with Activators recruited through the Yorkshire Sculpture International galleries’ community partners.