About
Sonia Allori is a composer, performer, researcher and community music therapist. She completed a PhD in composition at Edinburgh Napier University which explored interactions between words and music through the lens of gender and Italian contemporary classical music post 1900.
In 2019 she was a Music Fellow in Learning & Participation at Trinity Laban, performed in Sound Symphony (Independent Arts Projects/ Oily Cart) and The Lost Thing (Royal Opera House/Candoco). Sonia was Artist in Residence with Drake Music in 2020 and is currently Development Artist with Sonic Bothy and Artist in Independent Art Project’s Sensory Collective. She is part of Sound and Music’s – New Voices composer cohort for 2022 and researching D/deaf performance at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.
Sonia is deaf and a wheelchair user. Her practice continues to have the combination of words and music at its core. She is a multi-instrumentalist and has been known to sing from time to time! When writing music Sonia uses aural imagination to “hear” what she makes and often works with creative captioners in her work during rehearsals and performances to help fill in aural detail.
Recent commissions are: Spider (2022) – As part of Echoes concert in June 2022 with Drake Music Scotland at Queen’s Hall – for MiMU gloves & narrator; Bothy Ballad (2021) – An updated version of the traditional bothy ballad genre written as an electroacoustic song for Shades of Tay event and exhibition at Pitlochry Festival Theatre – Co-composed with Barbara Hockaday; F-email – Rarescale at Angel Field Festival (2021) – for alto flute, bass clarinet and voice track; Songs in isolation – Disability Arts Online (2021) – electroacoustic song trilogy; Curious-er (shortlisted for a Scottish New Music Award 2021) – Drake Music (2020) – electroacoustic work for EWI (electronic wind instrument); Concentric Circles– written as part of Ben Lunn’s Sign Cycle (2019) – for BSL performer, clarinet & piano; Memorial to an important lace shirt – Exploding Collage/Hatton Gallery (2018) – for live vocal and track; Last tango in Liverpool – Drake Music & DadaFest (2018) – for string quartet, trombone & vocal track.
Recent commissions
F-Email
Photo credit: Donald Ellis Ross
Songs in Isolation - what I hear
Photo credit: Donald Ellis Ross
Concentric Circles
Photo credit: Elinor Rowlands