Call for Composers
K’antu Ensemble: Immersive SEND Digital Soundscape Lab
K’antu Ensemble are inviting adventurous electroacoustic and digital composers to take part in Immersive SEND Digital Soundscape Lab, a research and development project exploring spatial audio, binaural sound, haptics and interactive systems, co-created with K’antu Ensemble and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).
Key Information:
Honorarium: £1,000
Dates: April to July 2026
Deadline for Expressions of Interest: 12 noon, Mon 30th March 2026
This project rethinks authorship in immersive music. Disabled participants are co-creators, actively shaping and performing immersive sound worlds in real time. Composers will work with sonic material generated by K’antu Ensemble and participants themselves, including voice, movement, percussion and environmental sound, transforming it into responsive, multi-sensory soundscapes that can be triggered, manipulated and experienced through space, vibration and touch.
Composers will experiment with accessible interfaces, gestures, switches and bespoke triggers, testing how immersive technologies can be adapted for a wide range of disabilities, including complex access needs. The focus is on exploration, prototyping and discovery, asking ambitious questions about who immersive music is for and how it can be made genuinely inclusive.
The project will culminate in a sharing event, offering an opportunity to showcase and reflect on the compositions, tools and immersive sound worlds developed during the lab, alongside the young people involved. This event will prioritise accessibility, participation and process over polished outcomes, and will be shaped collaboratively with SEND participants. We are also planning to showcase the audio from the final performances in a digital environment through Unreal Engine to make the performance accessible to those who aren’t able to attend on the day.
We also plan to present the audio from the final performances within a digital environment (e.g. Unreal), creating an accessible way for audiences who cannot attend the performance in person to experience the immersive sound worlds created during the project.
This opportunity is ideal for composers working at the intersection of sound, technology and participation, particularly those with experience in:
Spatial or multichannel audio
Interactive or generative systems
Max/MSP, SuperCollider, Ableton or related programming environments
Experimental, participatory or socially engaged sound practices
To apply, please submit a maximum of one page including:
A short creative abstract or brief outlining how you would approach the project
A brief statement explaining why the project excites you and why you would be a strong fit
Your availability to attend in-person workshops (Birmingham area: April–July 2026, dates to be confirmed)
This is a research-led, experimental project rather than a traditional commission and is suited to composers interested in pushing immersive music into new, more inclusive territory.
If this button doesn’t work for you, please email directly to: info@kantu-ensemble.co.uk
About Us
K’antu Ensemble is an experimental early music group based in Birmingham, known for pushing the boundaries of historically informed performance through collaboration, improvisation and contemporary practice. The ensemble has broadcast live from the Southbank Centre and toured internationally across Germany, Hungary, Romania and Egypt, developing a distinctive artistic voice that bridges early music, folk traditions, experimental sound and socially engaged practice.
For over ten years, K’antu Ensemble has delivered an extensive SEND and inclusive outreach programme, working with children, young people and adults with a wide range of access needs. Their practice centres disabled participants as creative agents, not passive audiences, using voice, movement, improvisation, percussion and sensory-based approaches to enable meaningful musical participation. Projects are shaped through co-design with participants, educators, care staff and support workers, ensuring that artistic ambition and accessibility are held in equal balance.
For the 2022 Commonwealth Games Festival, K’antu were commissed to deliver a three-year disability arts programme All Roads Lead to Alexander. The programme engaged disabled children and young people across multiple SEND settings, culminating in range of participatory events and public showcases. The project combined music, movement and sensory exploration, and foregrounded co-creation, inclusive leadership and sustained relationships over time, establishing a model for long-term, embedded disability arts practice.
K’antu’s work reimagines early repertoire through bold interdisciplinary approaches, and their programmes have included Stockhausen’s Verbindung and The Sky Begins to Change by Kerry Andrew, a work developed from the ensemble’s field recordings and dementia-friendly workshops in care homes. These projects exemplify K’antu’s long-standing interest in process-led creation, shared authorship and the creative potential of working beyond conventional concert formats.
Composer Kerry Andrew wrote The Sky Begins To Change for K’antu Ensemble to perform at Cheltenham Festival, Barton Arts Festival and Shrewsbury Folk Festival. The 20-minute piece on the theme of “how we talk” was commissioned by the Arts Council and draws on material gathered during musical outreach sessions led by Live Music Now musicians with hundreds of older people in care homes in across the Midlands.