Claudia Molitor: Auricularis Superior, or let your ear muscles roam

Claudia Molitor (b. 1974) is a composer/artist whose work draws on traditions of music and sound art but also extends to video, performance and fine art practices. Exploring the relationships between listening and seeing as well as embracing collaboration as compositional practice is central to this work. Recent work includes Sonorama with Electra Productions, Turner Contemporary and the British Library, which received a British Composer Award in 2016, Vast White Stillness for Spitalfields Festival and Brighton Festival, The Singing Bridge installed at Somerset House and WaterlooBridge during Totally Thames festival, and Walking with Partch for the Ensemble MusikFabric.

Auricularis Superior, or let your ear muscles roam (2017), is a fixed media composition dedicated to Pauline Oliveros which was commissioned by and premiered at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival; it was subsequently presented during the ISCM 2019 World Music Days in Estonia. According to the composer, it is “is born out of an interest in listening to stories less often told, and the belief that these stories matter. But what is more, that they may show us different ways of thinking about ourselves and the world, and how we might change the structures that permeate society and privilege only the very few.“