Auris brings a new listening experience to Manchester as the city’s first dedicated sound art festival. It invites us to tune into our sense of sound, bringing people together through an artistic programme that presents new ideas, uncovers histories and challenges perspectives.

Taking place across four venues along Manchester’s Oxford Road Corridor from 9-11 October, Auris profiles some of the most distinctive and exciting voices in contemporary sound art. For its inaugural event, Auris explores the different dimensions of sound art, through spatial audio, sound installations and immersive performances, to field recordings and soundwalks, uncovering the many ways sound can be experienced.

Auris Festival Line-up

The three day programme features live performances from internationally acclaimed artist Francisco López, experimental musician and artist Nik Colk Void, sound field recordist Lee Patterson, award-winning acousmatic composer and sound artist Emma Margetson, and sound designer and audio archivist Robin the Fog.

Artists Wajid Yaseen, and Vicky Clarke and Kamila Narysheva bring fully immersive sound installations and spatial listening experiences, while Maya Chowdhry, Hayley Suviste, Ryan Woods, Markus Hetheier, Hannah Kemp-Welch, and Mark Wagner present talks, soundwalks, LIVE demonstrations and *workshops exploring cymatics, the acoustic qualities of abandoned spaces, active listening and more.

+ More artists TBA

The festival takes place within some of Manchester’s most distinctive and iconic spaces, bringing sound art into buildings that have been shaped by a history of industry, science and innovation. Unfolding across the Anthony Burgess Foundation, a converted 19th-century mill space that once housed the machinery of the industrial revolution; SEESAW, a century-old Grade II listed former textile warehouse; The Renold Building at Sister, a brutalist space of great importance to the city’s scientific and technological past and future; and SODA, Manchester Metropolitan University’s pioneering centre for digital arts.

Tickets for Auris Festival are on sale now. For the current programme and booking information, visit aurisfestival.com.

Auris is developed by Modus Arts, an award-winning Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation, funded by Arts Council England and supported by Resonance FM and The Wire, and is part of The Cultural Welcome, a special week of student events around the Oxford Road Corridor, Manchester’s Knowledge Quarter.

*Some Auris workshops & soundwalks will take place at locations with limited capacity. Free registration for limited events will be required in order to attend. Links to registration will be shared with ticket holders two weeks before the event. Having a weekend pass does not automatically guarantee a place for these events.