Ángeles Rojas is a composer born in 1988, originally from Argentina and currently living in Berlin. In her practice, she focuses on listening as a way of experiencing time and space, as well as on resonance, vibration, intonation, and the harmonic spectrum—particularly where microtonal hums, subtle fluctuations, and long, unfolding sounds emerge. Her music grows out of mindfulness and trust in what happens slowly in sound, almost at the edge of perception.
In conversation, Rojas speaks of sound not as an abstract idea, but as a deeply physical experience, rooted in the body, memory, and our relationship with the environment. This is music that does not impose itself on the listener, but creates the conditions for attentive listening—it opens up a space where resonance, breath, silence, and echo become just as important as the sound itself. In her thinking, composition is thus not only a form of building a piece, but also a way of listening to what is hidden, fleeting, and shared.
Artur Mieczkowski
Artur Mieczkowski: In your essay Sound as a Means to the Sensible Experience you write about music as a medium that bridges the spiritual and the material, the hidden and the visible. When did you first begin to think about sound in such a broad, almost metaphysical way?
Ángeles Rojas: I wouldn’t describe it as metaphysical. Meta-physical suggests the idea of something beyond the physical. And for me, the experience of sound is entirely physical. Moreover, it happens in the relationship between two bodies: the body of sound and our own body.
Sound is not separated from our perception of it; even without actively listening, our body can still be affected by it.
At the same time, it connects us with something deeper, an immanent region that is hard to grasp in words but full of presence. Whenever I stop listening, I feel different, calmer, more grounded, more present.
It is also a very direct medium. It has a way of passing through you directly, almost as if you couldn’t escape it. Some sounds are hard to ignore. It is difficult to listen to the sea without being affected somehow. Something in you changes, even in very subtle ways.
So I would say that what brought me to write about those ideas was simply the attempt to put into words something I had always experienced, and not the other way around.
A.M.: You grew up in Argentina, and today you live and work in Berlin—how has the experience of living between these two places influenced your sensitivity to sound and space?
Á.R.: It is hard to live between such distant places and opposite poles. Living in Berlin has been very important to me. I have met wonderful people and I have been able to expand my work. But there is also always a feeling of melancholy toward my country, its culture, its people, and its landscape. A feeling of displacement.
Sounds are displaced too. For example, when I return to Argentina, I listen to sounds that immediately make me feel at home: the sound of honking cars, the language, the ambulances, the birds. And I feel more relaxed and complete. Even the same species of birds sound different there. Even pigeons sound different. It is crazy how sounds become charged with memory.
Also, when you live in another country, it is very special to find a landscape that feels familiar. When I was looking for a place to develop my piece for guitars and wind, I needed a landscape similar to the one where I grew up: windy, empty, with wide horizons. I found it in Tempelhofer Feld. For me, it is a little piece of La Pampa inside Berlin. Every time I go there, I immediately feel calmer.
The same happens when I listen to the wind through the trees on my street in Pankow, a beautiful sea of trees. I feel briefly transported to the countryside again, to the sounds of my childhood.
So I think living between these two places made me realize how deeply sound carries memory, landscape, and emotional connection.
A.M.: You studied composition at the Universidad Nacional del Arte, but your practice seems very far removed from the academic approach to music. Did your education help you find your own voice, or did you have to distance yourself from it?
Á.R.: I really enjoyed my academic life. I received an excellent public education in Argentina, something I feel very grateful for, and something that is unfortunately being economically dismantled by the current government.
I had teachers who, no matter how different we were, always respected my views and never placed limitations on my explorations. They helped me bring my ideas into reality, and I will always be grateful for that.
But at the same time, I have never felt completely comfortable within academia, because I do not feel comfortable with overly institutionalized approaches to art. Academia often tries to conceptualize everything, and I am always trying to escape that. At this point, I am even interested in trying to unlearn certain things. I think learning and unlearning should remain connected.
For me, it is important to stay present and connected to your own perception, to try to say things in your own way, and to protect certain words and experiences from becoming fixed or closed.
At a certain moment, it became necessary for me to move away from academic structures. Academia is very valuable for acquiring tools and creating communities, but it is also important to step away from it and trust your own experience and voice.
A.M.: Microtonality, resonances, and subtle interferences between sounds play a very important role in your work. What fascinates you about these almost inaudible shifts in timbre? Your music can be experienced almost physically—like the sensation of presence, breath, or the vibration of space. Is composing for you also a way of working with the physicality of listening?
Á.R.: Yes, totally. I like to explore acoustic phenomena that require time, stillness, and subtlety. To be able to hear the resonance inside sound, within space and within our ears, and how harmonics interact with each other through beatings, phasing, and sympathetic vibrations, requires a great deal of attention.
I am interested in sound itself, in being able to hear its own interactions and inner life, rather than in creating new musical material. That is what I like to call the immanent sound; the invisible sound hidden behind the most immediate and audible one, the invisible interactions between harmonics.
So instead of composing a piece in a traditional way, I am more interested in creating a space where sound can live and unfold on its own.
I am also interested in creating a sense of unity through differences. What fascinates me about these subtle phenomena is that they require a very attentive kind of listening that emerges almost naturally and organically, without forcing the experience.
I also like microtonality because I do not like perfection. I feel sound becomes much freer when tuning is allowed to move. I am interested in the places in between. I do not believe anything can remain fixed in time without shifting slightly. And every small movement creates new interactions.
A.M.: On Open the Windows and Let the Spirits In and Out, which will be released on June 5 by Warm Winters Ltd., space seems to be a full-fledged participant in the composition. What was the thinking behind the architecture and acoustics while working on this track?
Á.R.: Yes, absolutely. The space is a fundamental part of the piece. The main inspiration for me was working with the Klais Op. 1912 organ that is inside the concert hall of Centro Cultural Kirchner (CCK). It is a huge instrument that covers the entire wall of the concert hall, one of the largest organs in Latin America.
I already knew this organ because my friend Alejandro Galli is its tuner, and once he showed me the inside of it. It felt like a three-story house. So when I received the commission from RUIDO Festival, my main inspiration was to work with the acoustics of this object and its relationship with the space.
The initial idea was to place the ensemble inside the organ itself, so that every time I pulled a new register from the organ, its sound would be expanded and extended by the hidden instruments. I have always been very interested in invisibility, hidden sound, and blurred sources. The instruments would function almost like echoes or extensions of the organ pipes.
With Alejandro’s help, I got to know the organ very closely: where the pipes were located, how the different registers resonated, and how the sound traveled through the structure.
Unfortunately, a few days before the concert, the authorities at the CCK did not allow us to use the interior of the organ. So instead, I decided to distribute the ensemble around the hall, hidden from the audience. In the end, this worked very well and it created a very immersive experience for the audience.
The concert hall inside the CCK is called the Blue Whale because of its shape. Being there feels almost like being inside the belly of a whale. The acoustics are extraordinary, and the distributed ensemble allowed me to preserve this idea of timbral expansion and echo throughout the space. It was a very nice and special experience for all of us.
A.M.: What does this “expanded” approach to working with instruments and musicians offer you?
Á.R.: When I invite musicians to expand sounds, I am working directly with the listening experience. For a musician to expand a sound, they first need to listen to it. In my music, I often work in this way: you hear a harmonic and then expand it. You become its echo, and at the same time the space also becomes an echo. So it becomes like an echo of an echo.
Then there is also the expansion toward the audience, our own perception of what we are hearing, the echo that appears inside our ears. The echo of the echo of the echo.
I believe that almost everything has the potential for expansion. A loving action usually expands very quickly, but the same is true of hate. That is why we also have a great responsibility toward our words and actions.
In sound, I am interested in expanding what is already present rather than creating something entirely new. I am interested in making the inaudible audible.
A.M.: Your titles—such as breathe into the forest, into the bird, into the song, or sometimes I dream of a place where you can whisper with the wind—sound almost like poetic instructions for listening. What role do language and poetry play for you in relation to sound?
Á.R.: I really like poetry because it is about opening words and concepts. Sometimes I feel that institutions, language, or even the fashions of a certain moment tend to close words into fixed meanings. For me, they should always remain open. But this is also why I prefer to work directly with sound, because then I do not need to explain it.
My titles function as small introductions to the pieces, almost like the only program notes I want to give. They are like a small preparation before listening. You can take them or leave them, but for me they are important, and they usually appear before I begin composing the piece, so they also function as a form of inspiration.
In every piece, I work with a specific acoustic exploration that also has a poetic and social dimension, and the titles help me connect with that.
A.M.:
Nature is deeply woven into your music—the wind, the breath, the
resonance of wood, and the sense of space. Do you see sound as a way
to build a relationship between people and their surroundings?
Á.R.:
Not
consciously. I think nature is woven into my music because I am woven
into nature, so it is very difficult for me to separate the two.
I grew up surrounded by nature; with wind, small creeks, horizons, the smell of mandarins, horses, and big skies. So I am not always consciously thinking about nature while composing, but somehow everything ends up sounding a little like it.
For example, with my piece for 20 balloons, one day while performing it I suddenly realized that it sounded like a huge field of summer crickets. That is when I understood how deeply connected I am to the landscape where I grew up.
Now, when I compose, I like to think about the work as a living being. I try to respect its needs and create a structure in which it can expand naturally. I try to keep the work as organic as possible, allowing sound to follow its own path.
Maybe that is something I learned from nature: to let things follow their own way, to learn how to wait, and to create the conditions where something else can live in its own time. And also, to let go.
A.M.: You regularly work with instruments such as the shruti box, the tambura, and the organ. What draws you to instruments based on resonance and sustained sound?
Á.R.: For me, sustained sounds are one of the only ways to truly hear what is happening inside sound. That is why I am naturally drawn to these kinds of instruments.
At the same time, I am also interested in finding this quality in instruments that cannot literally sustain sound. For example, when I worked with finger cymbals, I knew it would be a challenge. But even if the sound disappears quickly, it leaves behind a strong resonance, and that is something I really enjoy working with.
Indian instruments made for sustaining sounds deeply attract me. Whenever I play the shruti box, I feel transported. I also feel that these instruments are alive.
I have also been studying a bit of dhrupad singing with an excellent teacher, Marianne Svasek. I really connect with the way music is understood there; the focus on listening, repetition, experience, slowness, and tuning as a way of enhancing the space between notes.
Singing and feeling the whole body vibrate is very important for me. I only sing privately, as a very intimate practice, but it helps me reconnect with my own body and with space.
A.M.: In the articles you publish on your website, you devote a lot of space to listening and the experience of sound. Does writing help you better understand your own music, or do you view it as a separate practice?
Á.R.: I write because I genuinely enjoy it, although most of the time I feel language is limited. Sometimes I feel that certain experiences are better left unsaid, or that they simply do not have words.
At the same time, I think that the attempt to put an experience into words is already interesting in itself, and I wish I had more time to dedicate to it.
I do not think I write in order to understand my music better. It feels more like another way of extending certain experiences, even if I often find that process difficult.
A.M.: Your compositions require patience and full attention from the listener—in a world of constant haste, this seems almost like an act of resistance. Do you also see your music as a way to slow down time and change the rhythm of perception?
Á.R.:
I
do not consciously make music in order to slow people down, but I do
believe it naturally becomes a form of resistance. I think everything
has a political dimension.
Whenever I perform, I value the possibility of creating spaces of deep connection. The other day I was rehearsing on an organ in a church for an upcoming concert, and when I finished, I saw a worker sitting on the floor listening with his eyes closed, one hand open and a drill in the other.
When he noticed me, he immediately stood up and apologized for staying, but told me that while he was working he began listening, felt moved by the music, and that it was good for his heart.
These kind of encounters really move me, and I deeply value being able to create these experiences.
I only wish they could be more accessible to everyone. I believe art should be public, and that states should provide more support so everyone can have access to these kinds of experiences.
A.M.: Finally, what are you looking for most in music today: peace, transformation, community, or perhaps something that’s hard to put into words just yet?
Á.R.: I think it is difficult to put into words, because I am not looking for one specific thing. But I do think music is a way of connecting with a moment of presence, and that also helps us connect with each other.
For me, music creates spaces of encounter and community, and I think those spaces are very important today. People in power often benefit from society feeling disconnected and alone, but music has the ability to bring people together. It is a form of resistance. And I believe that is something deeply transformative.
Next concerts:
– Sunday, May 24 — Paul-Gerhardt-Kirche, Berlin 19:30, Solo organ concert
Tickets available at
– Saturday, October 17 — Canti Spazializzati in BWA Wrocław Główny Gallery curated by Daniel Brożek. Performances of Fragile Harmony and a new commission by Ryszard Lubieniecki for clavisimbalum.