The Sounding Room: Zekkereya El-magharbel

The Sounding Room is a rotating residency and experimental platform for artists working across sound, music, and performance.
About this Event

The Sounding Room

July–December 2026

Launching this summer as part of MOCAD’s 20th anniversary celebrations, The Sounding Room is a rotating residency and experimental platform for artists working across sound, music, and performance. Hosted in the garage of the Mike Kelley Mobile Homestead and grounded in Detroit’s histories of cultural innovation and resistance, the program invites artists to use the Homestead as a site for experimentation, collaboration, and new forms of public engagement.

Throughout each residency, artists are supported in developing and sharing new work through open rehearsals, performances, listening sessions, and workshops. Each cycle culminates in a free public performance. In partnership with Third Man Records, each live performance will contribute to a limited-edition vinyl compilation documenting the project over time.

RESIDENTS

• July - Shigeto 
• August - Zekkereya El-magharbel
• September - Battle Elf
• October - Na Bonsai
• November - Dave Hurley

Open rehearsals are tentatively scheduled for selected Thursdays and Saturdays throughout each residency cycle. Please check our Instagram for more information.

Please note that performance times are tentative and subject to change.

August Resident: Zekkereya El-magharbel
Saturday, September 5, 3-5pm

Zekkereya El-magharbel is an educator, composer, and designer based in Detroit. He is a member of the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, an Afro-futurist legacy ensemble that has been active for over 50 years. He earned his MFA in 2D Design from Cranbrook Academy of Art (2024) and his MMusic in Jazz and Contemporary Music from the University of Michigan (2021). He is a passionate educator and loves to make work that shows how, even though the world is so big, music and art can show us a common ground. His research is focused on melodic systems in regions of strong Islamic influence, studying traditional melodies to see how they work, then reconfiguring them to reflect the turbulence of finding beauty in the West.

Photo by Jon Finalyson. Courtesy of the artist.