Maria W Horn

Maria W Horn is a composer whose work explores the inherent spectral properties of sound. Her compositions employ a varied instrumentation ranging from analog synthesizers to choir, string instruments, pipe organ and various chamber music formats. Synthetic sound is often paired with acoustic instruments in order to extend the instruments timbral capacities with precise control of timbre, tuning and texture. 

Maria combines spectralist techniques and site specific source material in order to explore the inherent memories of a building, object or geographical area. In her recent compositions she uses acoustic artifacts from physical spaces to create musical frameworks for her compositions. Using these acoustic imprints as a starting point Maria weaves intricate harmonic patterns that slowly transform from intimate fragility to searing high-density aural monoliths. 

Her debut album Kontrapoetik (2018) is a historical investigation, and a kind of counter-exorcism tackling the deceivingly serene, yet turmoiled past of her home region Ångermanland in the North of Sweden. Dies Irae (2021) derives from the resonant frequencies of an empty machine hall from the mining region of Bergslagen and Vita Duvans Lament (2020) is a sonic excavation of what used to be the only panoptic cell prison built in Sweden.

In addition to her artistic practice she is also the co-founder of Swedish record label XKatedral. 

Swedish composer Maria W Horn uses power electronics and acoustic instruments, a synthesis of digital and analogue methods to probe the very nature of human perception under extreme conditions: How does sensory deprivation or overload affect our mental states? At donaufestival, she will perform her work Panoptikon, a song cycle originally composed for the abandoned Vita Duvan panopticon prison in the northernmost region of Sweden. In Panoptikon, the imagined voices of the inmates are synchronised into a choir; while they strive for community, the sound is still trapped in the forced isolation of their individual cells.