English (UK) 
Polski 
Score for Animal Voices N°VIII Score for Animal Voices N°VIII is another iteration of a performative sound composition based on the transcription of animal sounds and performed by a choir. Each realisation constitutes a new interpretation of the score and a unique event emerging from the relationship between conductor Agnieszka Sowa, the choir, electronics, the space, and the audience.
The project is part of Elżbieta Jabłońska’s long-standing artistic practice, which focuses on building relationships, creating communal situations, and exploring new forms of communication. As in the artist’s other works, the essence of the project lies not in a finished artwork, but in the process of encounter, attentive listening, and shared presence.
The project, initiated in 2014, was inspired by audiovisual recordings made at the Bydgoszcz Zoo. The recorded animal voices were transformed into a musical score in collaboration with composer Marcin Gumiela. Created in this way, the score, together with the original animal sounds – grunts, hums, howls, whimpers, and wails – provides the starting material for the further work of the conductor and choir. Score for Animal Voices remains an open structure. Each performance brings a new interpretation, dependent on the participants, the place, and the situation in which the encounter takes place.
The specific nature of small urban zoos and the ways in which animals function within confined spaces invite reflection on the relationship between humans and nature. Animals living in captivity develop similar characteristics and behaviours. Coexistence within a limited area generates intense emotions, even during basic activities such as feeding. The rich melodic qualities, surprising changes in sound intensity, and euphoric finale accompanying the distribution of food may be related to the sounds produced by the choir in the performance.
The Wrocław edition will be accompanied by a live musical intervention by Wojtek Kotwickiwho will transform the performed Score for Animal Voices N°VIII into an improvised electronic composition. A dialogue emerges between the voices of the choir, the electronics, and the acoustics of the space, adding another interpretive layer to the composition.
All recordings were made in a manner that did not cause distress or disturbance to the animals.
Concept: Elżbieta Jabłońska
Conductor: Agnieszka Sowa
Electronics: Wojciech Kotwicki
Choir: Klaudia Budner-Szmigiel, Jutrzenka Duchnowska, Ewa Górska, Bartłomiej Gryglewicz, Olga Zofia Horwat, Marina Karaniewska, Aleksandra Kubicka, Monika Ługowska, Anna Mazur, Marcin Melson, Michał Oganiaczyk, Maja Olejnik, Jakub Pażyra, Kamila Pawłowska-Woźniak, Tadeusz Pleśniak, Damian Trociński, Andrzej Woźniak, Alicja Zalewska, Katarzyna Żurek
BIOS
Elżbieta Jabłońska – visual artist, professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, and president of the W788 Foundation. In her artistic practice, she creates situations based on relationships, collaboration, and mindfulness, exploring social roles, the mechanisms by which institutions function, and the possibilities of building community through art. She works with performance, installation, photography, participatory, and intermedia practices, treating the artwork as an open process whose meaning is shaped through encounters with others.
At the center of her interests is art as a space of care, co-presence, and communication. In her projects, she moves away from understanding the artwork as an autonomous object, focusing instead on processes, gestures, and actions that initiate relationships and create temporary communities of experience. Since 2019, she has been developing the activities of the W788 Foundation and the residency programme Disappearing by the Vistula, dedicated to practices of mindfulness, collaboration, and the intangible dimensions of presence.
Score for Animal Voices is one of the projects that further explores this line of inquiry. It began with recorded animal sounds, transcribed into musical notation and subsequently reinterpreted. The resulting open-ended composition becomes a space where humans and the non-human world meet, in which listening, collective performance, and improvisation build an ephemeral community and open up new ways of experiencing relationships.
Agnieszka Sowa – choral conductor, educator, Doctor of Musical Arts, and music community organiser. In her work, she combines artistic, educational, and outreach activities, focusing on building community through singing and fostering a vibrant choral culture. A special focus of her practice is on refining the ensemble’s sound, vocal expression, and the relationships among performers, for whom singing becomes a form of communication and a shared experience.
For over two decades, she has led choral ensembles, training successive generations of singers. She is the artistic director and conductor of the Rubinki Children’s Choir, as well as conductor of the Bydgoszcz University of Technology Academic Choir and the Opera Nova Children’s and Youth Choir in Bydgoszcz. For many years, she has collaborated with the Choral Academy of the National Forum of Music, leading workshops for conductors and choirs from across Poland. She is also regularly invited to serve as a competition judge and as a lecturer at masterclasses on conducting and vocal technique.
In Elżbieta Jabłońska’s project Score for Animal Voices N°VIII she is responsible for preparing and conducting the choir, as well as for the artistic interpretation of the score, which is based on a transcription of animal sounds. In her work, she treats the voice as a tool for attentive listening and co-creation, creating a space in which the musical score becomes a living process and the individual sounds of the participants intertwine to form a shared performative experience.
Wojtek Kotwicki – sound artist, composer, and creator of audiovisual projects. In his practice, he explores the relationships between sound, landscape, the memory of a place, and the passage of time, working at the intersection of electroacoustic music, improvisation, and field recordings. He is interested in listening as a form of mindfulness and in the processes that occur between natural sound and its electronic transformation.
For many years, he has collaborated with Elżbietą Jabłońską, co-creating the sound and musical layers of her artistic projects and participating in the production of performances and exhibitions in which sound is an integral part of the narrative.
During the presentation of Score for Animal Voices at the Wrocław Contemporary Museum, he is responsible for the electronic interpretation and sound processing of the choir led by Agnieszka Sowa. He treats electronics as a living, responsive organism – a co-performer that does not merely illustrate the acoustic sound but enters into a dialogue with it, expanding its space, resonance, and modes of hearing.
