about
contact: ipatoukas3 [at] yahoo.gr
Yannis Patoukas (1989) is an electroacoustic composer and improviser currently based in Rotterdam (NL). He holds master’s degrees in musicology and music education (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 2014) and in electroacoustic music composition (Institute of Sonology, Royal Conservatoire of The Hague, 2019). He also attended the one-year Sonology course in 2016. He is currently a PhD candidate at Leiden University (Academy of Creative and Performing Arts) through the doctoral programme “docARTES” (Orpheus Institute, Gent). Since 2020, he is a research associate at the Institute of Sonology, where he has taught the course “Composing in the Analogue Studio” as a guest teacher.
His ongoing research involves exploring the different intersections between electroacoustic music and experimental rock music of the late 1960s and early 1970s, with regard to studio practices and production techniques and their creative possibilities. His work is heavily influenced by the early experiments in the field of pop, rock and jazz music where the recording studio started to be approached as a tool for composition than just for documentation purposes. His music shows his fascination for several experimental studio techniques. When inside a recording studio, he usually follows a more improvisational workflow; welcoming mistakes, trusting random or open processes and always making the most of the physicality of any analogue device in the vicinity. He is attracted by the “technical limitations” found in analogue technology and enjoys the performability of tape machines, mixing desks and voltage-controlled modular systems alongside other devices or instruments. His music has been supported by the Fonds Podium Kunsten NL (Performing Arts Fund NL) in 2021.
Yannis is also active as an el. guitar-improviser. He performs regularly with the Sonology Electroacoustic Ensemble; and has participated in various improvising ensembles and performed at venues/places like WORM (Rotterdam), Willem Twee Toonzaal (Den Bosch), Studio Loos (The Hague) and STEIM (Amsterdam).
He is also volunteering in WORM (Rotterdam) and has assisted in organising and curating several experimental music events connected to it between 2016 and 2018.