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” (IAP/ 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 where she co-performed and co-composed the collaborative work Verbaaaaatim for Tectonics Festival (2021). She is currently a part-time researcher at RCS exploring D/deaf performance and the intersection of Deaf Studies with Performance Studies.
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 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.
