Sarah Davachi

Monday 12 October, 12:00 noon
Ca’ Giustinian, Venice

La Biennale di Venezia will present the Silver Lion to the Canadian composer and organist Sarah Davachi, one of the most interesting and coherent voices in the contemporary musical landscape, centred on the innovative hybridisation of electronic and acoustic languages.

“Over the course of a decade and a half Sarah Davachi has built a body of works that meticulously and rigorously explores the close intricacies of timbre and time, redefining the listening experience in a practice that merges historical research, the phenomenology of perception and electro-acoustic experimentation. Her compositions, often founded on extended durations and of natural tuning systems, make the slightest variations in texture, intonation and harmonic complexity perceptible, foregrounding psychoacoustic phenomena and processes of gradual timbral transformation.
Davachi’s work occupies a territory in which the structures of minimalism, early music concepts of intervallic relation and affect, and the experimental production practices of the studio environment converge, often centred on the use of analogue electronic instruments and the pipe organ.
Her works span solo, chamber ensemble and acousmatic formats, integrating acoustic and electronic instruments in a dialogue that is never decorative but profoundly structural. Her timbral research, supported by rigorous musicological training and a critical attention to organology, translates into a sound that is at once material and metaphysical, concrete and contemplative. In an age defined by acceleration and saturation, her music offers a listening experience that is absolute and unhurried, capable of reconfiguring the perception of the familiar.
Her compositions have been commissioned and performed by major ensembles and orchestras, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the London Contemporary Orchestra, and presented in contexts such as the Southbank Centre, Barbican Centre, Radio France, Elbphilharmonie, The Museum of Modern Art and the Museo Reina Sofia” (from the motivation for the award).

At the 70th International Festival of Contemporary Music, Sarah Davachi presents the world premiere of her work Chanters for organ, choir and orchestra (16 October, Teatro Goldoni), and pieces for solo chamber organ from her two most recent albums (18 October, Teatro Piccolo Arsenale), also appearing as instrumentalist in a piece by Kara-Lis Coverdale (10 October, Teatro alle Tese).

Sarah Davachi (1987, Calgary - Canada) is a composer and organist, active in the area of electroacoustic and experimental music. She has worked with the National Music Centre of Canada from 2007-2017, where she taught, developed content and archived data regarding musical instruments and recording devices. She earned her bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the University of Calgary in 2010, a master’s degree in electronic music and recording media from Mills College in Oakland California in 2012, and a doctoral degree in musicology from UCLA (with a dissertation on timbre, phenomenology and critical organology) in 2025. She is based in Los Angeles, California. Her recordings include: Barons Court Students of Decay (2015), Dominions (JAZ Records, 2016), Vergers (Important Records, 2016), All My Circles Run, a work made of five compositions each of which centred on a single acoustic instrument, (Students of Decay, 2017), Let Night Come on Bells End the Day, recorded with a Mellotron and electric organ (Recital, 2018), Gave in Rest, a more orchestrated work inspired by cathedrals and ancient music (Ba Da Bing, 2018), Pale Bloom (W.25TH, 2019), Cantus, Descant, an album that focuses on the organ (Late Music, 2020), Antiphonals (Late Music, 2021), Two Sisters, which won the Libera Award for Self-Released Record of the Year, presented by the American Association of Independent Music (Late Music, 2022), Long Gradus, a commissioned string quartet for Canada’s acclaimed Quatuor Bozzini (Late Music, 2023), and The Head as Form’d in the Crier’s Choir (Late Music, 2024). In 2020 she founded Late Music, an imprint within the partner labels division of Warp Records. Her work has been presented in institutions such as the Southbank Centre (London), Barbican Centre (London), INA GRM (Paris), Elbphilharmonie (Hamburg), Organ Reframed (London), The Museum of Modern Art (New York), The Getty Museum (Los Angeles), The Academy Museum (Los Angeles), The Broad Museum (Los Angeles), Orgelpark (Amsterdam), Honen-in Temple (Kyoto), Église Saint-Eustache (Paris), Église du Gesù (Montréal),  Temppeliaukio Church (Helsinki), Grace Cathedral (San Francisco), Museo Reina Sofía (Madrid), and Teatro Cultural Artística (São Paulo), among others. Her commissioned works and collaborations with ensembles include compositions for The Los Angeles Philharmonic, The Brussels Philharmonic, The London Contemporary Orchestra, Quatuor Bozzini, Harmonic Space Orchestra, Apartment House, Ghost Ensemble, Wild Up, Yarn/Wire, Chamber Choir Ireland, The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Radio France, Contemporaneous Ensemble, Cello Octet Amsterdam, and The Canadian International Organ Competition.