Seance: Sound Collage at Kolaj Fest New Orleans 2026

In 1673, Bohemian-Austrian composer Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber wrote the chamber music piece, Battalia à 10 ("Battle for Ten"), in response to the Thirty Years War and the horrific suffering it caused. Beginning with a call and response motif, the piece goes on to blend no less than eight melodies in a piece that foresees the polytonality of much later music and a number of non-conventional techniques. One of the melodies is the folk song, "Cabbage and turnips have driven me away," with the footnote in the score, "here it is dissonant everywhere, for thus are the drunks accustomed to bellow with different songs." Voices of Music wrote, "Biber's work, dedicated to the god Bacchus, opens with a lively Sonata with a rich, harmonious texture for the strings. This is followed by a character piece with a strikingly dissonant pub atmosphere, where each musician plays a different pop song all at the same time--like listening to different radio channels all at once." Biber's Battalia à 10 is one of the first examples of sound collage.

In a Modern sense, German abstract experimental film maker Walter Ruttmann debuted Weekend in 1928 on Berlin Radio Hour. He said, "Weekend is a study in sound-montage...In Weekend sound was an end itself." The Termen Center in Moscow called the piece "an acoustic picture of a Berlin weekend urban landscape...Tones and sounds should exist in their own right. For Weekend they were recorded as arbitrary and intentional elements on the soundtrack of an optical sound film. Emerging from the same scene as Dadaist cinéma, Ruttmann's films are formalist and painterly and use geometric shapes, basic lines, and abstraction to create colourful images.

In his 1937 essay, "The Future of Music: Credo", American composer John Cage declared, "We want to capture and control these sounds, to use them not as sound effects but as musical instruments." In the 1940s, French musicologist Pierre Schaeffer pioneered, what he called, musique concrète which used recordings of voice or musical instruments, the natural environment, objects manipulated with synthesizers and computer-based digital signal processing. Schaeffer freed his compositions from normal musical rules of melody, harmony, rhythm, and metre and emphasized play and experimentation. California rock band Mothers of Invention introduced sound collage to pop culture with their 1966 release of the song "The Return of the Son of Monster Magnet" and the The Beatles further expanded its audience with "Revolution 9" on The White Album in 1968. Today, sound collage regularly pops up in every genre of music and musicians are routinely bringing recorded sounds into their compositions.

At Seance, New Orleans, Louisiana artist, musician, and filmmaker Robbie Morgan (who performs under the moniker Robah) will present an interactive evening of sound collage. In his songwriting work, Morgan uses sound collage as a "new way to approach songs every time I record one. I believe when I'm in the midst of a 'happy accident', I'm tapping into a world free from traditional creative bounds. Some may call this a flow state, while I use the term seance," wrote Morgan. "I'm excited to have fun inviting chance to guide participants to a new way of thinking about sound, music, and collage." Working from an altar of objects, the audience will be invited to make sounds which Morgan will record, distort, and compose into a piece of sound collage. "Seance is about finding and releasing the ghost in the machine," said Morgan. "When we use our voices and/or musical instruments to make sound we are allowing a spirit into the room that humanity has been feeling since our roots. What happens when we use modern technology to have the intangible give us sound back?"

The event runs 7PM to 10PM and folks are welcome to come and go throughout the evening. You are invited to bring your own objects to make sound or make sounds with the assortment of objects provided. During the event, you will also be invited to make analog collage on 4"x4" cards. A sample of the sound collage made during Seance: Sound Collage will be shared on Friday Night during Hot Dog in the Bayou as the soundtrack to a collage of Walter Ruttmann's experimental, silent films from the 1920s. Kolaj Institute will publish a vinyl recording of the Seance later in the year. The analog collage made by audience members will be used as the album cover.

Seance is the first in a series of activities in which Kolaj Institute will explore sound collage; its history and role in contemporary art. Those with a sound collage practice or those interested in developing one are invited to send an email to [email protected].

Kolaj Fest New Orleans is a multi-day festival and symposium about contemporary collage and its role in art, culture, and society, 10-14 June 2026. Visit the to learn more, see an overview of the program, and register to attend.

This Event is Free and Open to the Public. NOTE: This event will neither be streamed nor recorded.

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