Gianni Bencich-grigore

Electroacoustic composer / researcher

About

Gianni Bencich-Grigore is a composer, performer, and researcher based in Birmingham, UK. His work explores the intersections of philosophy, psychoacoustics, and technology.Drawing from microsound, critical theory, and mysticism, his creative practice examines how sound can become a space for discovering the new, disrupting the apparent, and encountering the unknown.Gianni is currently associated with the Birmingham ElectroAcoustic Sound Theatre (BEAST) and the University of Birmingham’s Centre for Electronic Music, where he is developing work around AI synthesis, spatialised listening, and the aesthetics of the Real.His music has been presented in festivals and venues across Europe, Asia, and the Americas, including major international festivals like Donaueschinger Musiktage (Germany), Festival Cervantino (Mexico), and BEAST FEaST (UK).

Work

sound examples coming soon

Some of Gianni's recent works include:

[new work]
Electronic audio, 2025Creation for True Form Projects, developed within my research with the East in West Vinyl Archive.The piece utilises machine listening to analyse oral history recordings of South Asian communities in the UK and connect them to material from the archive.[work in progress]

Autofagos
Live electronics (stereo), 2025Two identical AI agents are connected in a recurring machine listening feedback network controlled by a human performer that interacts with the system to cut and modify the streams of audio and data as they are shared between agents.Inspired by lateralisation of brain functions and the potential implications of split-brain research, one of the AI agents is never heard by the audience or the performer. It functions as a silent hemisphere of the brain, being an essential part of the sound-generating process, but never to be directly heard.The human performer must control both hemispheres' actions, despite being unable to hear one of them.

Wheels within wheels
Electronic audio for IKO loudspeaker (3rd order ambisonic), 2025As I explored the possibilities of the IKO, I became interested in conceptualising a mode of listening, specific to this instrument, centred on a somewhat eldritch perception of sound shaped by non-linear spatial phenomena.While spatialised sound is always dependent on elements such as room reflections and the listener’s position, the IKO’s beamformed projection—interacting with uneven surroundings and with a listener presence through the beams’ paths—produces a (dis)continuity of perceptual non-linearities that can invite a presumption of non-causality within simple spatial configurations.This suggested to me that an effective use of the IKO resides in a what we could call an apophatic logic of spatial design. Awareness of the IKO as a material presence can disturb immersion; only by negating the loudspeaker’s presence can the spatial sensation deepen and extended perceptual spaces emerge.For an idealised form of apophatic listening, the aim is to draw attention away from the source, persuading the audience that sound is a disembodied entity originating from empty space.All materials in this piece were synthesised with the sapf audio programming language.

The Birmingham Companion to East-West Politics, vol. I
Electronic Audio (3rd order ambisonic), 2025This piece reflects on the early divide in analogue synthesis paradigms in the United States, between East Coast and West Coast philosophies (exemplified by Moog and Buchla). Rather than replicating their differences, the piece attempts to resolve them through contemporary digital methods.Original recordings from modular systems by both Buchla and Moog were used to train a multi-staged AI-synthesis process (through PCA and MLPs) to generate new material for various microsonic techniques.The piece is tied to a research paper by the composer that explores the commercial success of East Coast synthesis in relation to societal trends and the philosophy of Giles Deleuze and Michel Foucault.Premiered at BEAST FEaST 2025, Birmingham, United Kingdom.

Events

UPCOMING EVENTS+ 11.10.2025 - Leeds, UK - Synthesizer Research Network SYNTHposium - Paper presentation: “Synthesising the unimagined: an addendum to the Birmingham Companion to East-West Politics” at the University of Leeds.PAST EVENTS+ 26.08.2025 - Chiang Mai, Thailand - Live electronic improvisation performance at Chiang Mai University.+ 23.08.2025 - Bangkok, Thailand - Diversity in Unison: Wonderland. PGVIM International Symposium 2025 - collective multimedia composition and performance.+ 17.08.2025 - Bangkok, Thailand - The Sonic Art & Improvisation, by TYOY - live electronic improvisation performance at POA White Box.+ 02.05.2025 - Birmingham, UK - BEAST FEaST 2025 - premiere of The Birmingham Companion to East-West Politics, vol. I.Events before 2025?I launched this new website in 2025 and decided to just add information on events that would happen from this year onwards.

Contact

Whether you’re interested in collaborating, commissioning a piece, or just want to say hello, feel free to get in touch using the form below.