Sound Practice Research
The Sound Practice Research course within the master’s program of the Institute for Pop Music at Folkwang University of the Arts is dedicated to the theoretical and practical exploration of sound and music in all its dimensions. Led by artist and musician Jan St. Werner and a prolific group of lectureres and guests it offers a unique interdisciplinary framework that spans cultural studies, musicology, sound art, performance, aesthetics, artistic research, media production, popular and experimental composition. Students engage critically and creatively with sound and listening, developing individual and collaborative approaches to sonic conceptualizing, making, and investigation.
At the heart of the program is Folkwang University of the Arts, recognized worldwide as one of the most vibrant and prolific institutions for the arts in Germany. With its unique tradition of integrating different disciplines under one roof, Folkwang fosters a cross-disciplinary environment ideal for experimental sound work and research-led artistic practice.
To learn more about the tuition-free program and how to apply, please contact: soundpracticeresearch@folkwang-uni.de
Application period: January, 15 – March 15, 2026 https://pruefung.folkwang-uni.de/
“It’s generally taken for granted that music expresses certain ideas about culture. We listen not just for the artist’s voice or sound, but for the community they represent or address. But given that sound is innately porous and borderless, music also challenges and redefines community. Sound seeks to eavesdrop and blur, blend and devour that which is not itself. Music may depend on melody, rhythm, harmony, all signs of community. But it also feeds on difference, disharmony, noise. It is this latter hunger that needs more attention, more history. So does the politics of this hunger as it relates to cultural origins and cultural dispersion. Our goal is to study this sonic promiscuity. Not to discipline or erase it, but to learn from it as it provides a map of new cultural forms and new notions of time.“
Louis Chude-Sokei for Sound Practice Reserach, 2025