Ina Thomann

ESCANABA — Internationally-recognized electroacoustic composer and sound artist Ina Thomann from Austria will be on Bay College’s Escanaba Campus Tuesday, April 7 at 2 p.m. The performance and lecture are free and open to the public. The artist’s work explores immersive composition and the relationship between listener, space, and sound.

Ina Thomann emerges as a distinctive voice at the intersection of research, technology, and immersive listening. Based in Graz, Austria and trained at the University of Art in Graz, Thomann’s practice is driven by a concept-first methodology that transforms questions into deeply experiential sonic works. Combining self-programmed sound systems, field recordings, and custom-built instruments, their compositions challenge conventional formats, unfolding across extended durations that blur the boundaries between concert and sound installation. A recipient of Austria’s prestigious Staatsstipendium für Komposition in 2025, Thomann continues to gain international recognition for work that redefines how sound is perceived–not as a fleeting event, but as a space to inhabit.

Thomann’s artist statement is as follows:

“My practice begins with a question, often a ‘what if.’ Something read, something seen, a passing thought, and from there, a process of thinking with and through sound, of making audible what is not yet hearable. This research-driven, concept-first approach is the engine of everything I do: before a piece becomes sound, it is a question, an image, a provocation. I work from a position of openness, with self-programmed sounds and self-built instruments that offer a kind of tabula rasa, a blank page from which I can move in any direction the concept demands. Since 2023, this practice has led me deeper into the question of duration: how extended time transforms perception, how a composition can be inhabited rather than just witnessed, and how the threshold between concert and sound installation becomes a space for a different kind of listening.”

This event is free and open to the public.