The Program

On arrival at Palma Airport, our transfer service will collect you and take you to your home for the week. Once you’re settled you can join Hadj, the guest facilitators and your fellow retreat participants in a welcome drink and start to build connections with the rest of the group. Dinner will be served for all and once complete, there will be a listening session for the dusk chorus followed by an introduction to your Field Kits and a chance to set up, play and have a jam in the courtyard.

Begin the first day of our program with a dawn chorus deep listening session, followed by breakfast. Then start your first session of the retreat where we will introduce you to your Field Kit and start with playing your Kalimba into the Soma Cosmos and see how easy it can be to reach a meditative state with the most simple of set-ups.

Lunch will be a true Spanish tapas feast, with delicious local seasonal delicacies from the nearby farmers cooperative.

After lunch, we’ll continue the introduction to the Field Kit, learning more about the devices and signal flows you can achieve, giving you the chance to begin discovering your own sound.

You'll have some leisure time between the second session of the day and dinner - explore the orchard, listen to the sounds of plants and trees through the mics and sensors we’ve placed around the grounds. Or, just lounge by the pool, take a quick siesta (it’s Spain after all ) or chat with your fellow guests. Then, delight in a delicious three-course dinner paired with local wine, continuing your foray into the rich variety of Mallorcan cuisine.

After that, our evening session will allow everyone a chance to perform and jam with their Field Kit and show what we’ve learned all day. If we have a guest facilitator with us, they will deliver the first talk/presentation on a topic of their choice, related to the spirit of Ambient Sound and Music Retreats (and yes, we noticed what the acronym is, but it’s not something you want to shout about… shhhh).

After a delicious breakfast, gear up for our day trip to the Finca Publica de Son Real. We’ll start our first Sound Walk through the aleppo pine forest and walk to the ancient coastal ruins of necropolis, passing wild pigs, tortoises and dozens of bird species. Listening in silence along the way, you’ll just use your ears and take in the natural ambience around us.

At the coast you’ll find lots of interesting spaces to record in, caves and ancient tombs abound, and hopefully find some interesting found objects to take home and use with your Filed Kit. On our way back to the Finca we’ll stop to listen at various points using contact microphones, hydrophones and geophones, hearing nature from new and unique perspectives. You will listen to nature at the microscopic level and also be able to record these sounds for later use with your field kit.

When we head back to the villa, we’ll stop into a true culinary institution of Mallorca for lunch. The Restaurant Es Cruce offers a sublime and extensive selection of all the islands most typical dishes in a unique down-to-earth atmosphere that belies its brilliance.

When we’re back home, we’ll have a quick wrap-up session followed by plenty of free time before dinner where you can nap, play with your recordings or just chat and drink wine before another delicious three-course dinner.

Evening sessions then begin with some interesting on-the-spot challenges designed to take everyone down new creative pathways and perform without concerns about the end product, instead helping us to simply enjoy the process… expect jam sessions and stepping out of your creative comfort zone.

After a dawn chorus deep listening session, take in breakfast and settle into another session. We’ll be going into granular synthesis today, utilising our recordings, found objects and observations from the Sound Walk the day before. Participants will be put into groups and given a challenge to compose a piece that they will perform later that evening.

After another generous and abundant tapas lunch, you’ll be free to continue to work on compositions or take an optional trip to either the beach at Es Trenc or into Palma’s old town. It’s up to you and the weather really, but we’ll take you where you want to go. Palma offers some opportunities to buy some souvenirs, have a relaxing coffee in a quiet square, or even do more field recording among its ancient streets and gardens. Es Trenc, well… it’s the most beautiful beach on the island.

We’ll bring everyone back for dinner, and tonight is a special event. You’ll get to experience a Paella masterclass. Then, after dinner, take in the 2nd talk/presentation from our guest facilitator, and perform your composition afterwards.

We’ll end the day with a late deep listening exercise designed to promote calm and well-being after a busy and exciting day.

We’ll be heading out on our second Sound Walk of the week, after breakfast. This walk will follow the unique and beautiful coastline and marine habitat of the Cala Mondrago nature reserve.

We’ll be walking through the coastal forest around spectacular rock formations, traversing stunning white sand beaches and heading inland also, along tranquil riverbeds teeming with life. Again, we’ll be using hydrophones to listen to marine life, geophones to examine rock acoustics and contact microphones to discover microorganisms hidden in the Mallorcan eco-system.

We will also go on a silent walk of around 30 minutes, around a coastal bluff, wandering in and out of earshot of the sea and always surrounded by beautiful pines and many bird species including Peregrin Falcons. On this walk you’ll be encouraged to record the walk on your recorders to create a natural soundbed that you can play over when we get back to the Field Kits.

On our way home, lunch will be at another local restaurant renowned for its fresh local produce and vibrant atmosphere.

At the villa we’ll have another brief wrap-up session and you’ll have some free time from mid-afternoon where you can siesta, swim, chat or jam on our sound system. You can do all of the above too, if you can fit it in before dinner.

After another three course dinner we’ll gather to play with, and over our soundbed recordings from the coast and have an open mic session where everyone will be plugged in and able to contribute to a jam.

Our last day of the program will begin with another deep listening exercise before breakfast. After that, we’ll have our final session and bring all the elements of the field kit and recordings from sound walks together. We’ll also be treated to the 3rd of our guest facilitator-led talks/presentations which might discuss composition, arrangement and performance approaches for electro-acoustic music, or none of the above, it’s really up to them.

Lunch will be another full table of tapas for us to graze over at a leisurely pace, discussing our week so far and determining what our agenda for the final afternoon will be. We want the participants to come together and decide how they would best like to spend that time. That might be a final performance with the whole group, or perhaps everyone will want to simply carry on playing with their Field Kits around the villa. A combination of both and anything in between is fine too. What’s important is that people do what makes them happy.

Later that evening, we’ll meet for our final dinner, a special meal that will celebrate the best of Mallorcan cuisine and allow us to graze continuously while we have our final jam session of the week. The group will be encouraged to program the line-up and decide on wether it’s a group jam, solo performances or even a listening session. As it’s the final evening it’s important everyone gets a change to do what they enjoy most.

There will be an optional dawn chorus listening session before breakfast, depending on hangovers and flight times. Then you’ll hand back your Field Kit, pack up your belongings and prepare for your trip home.

Packed lunches will be provided for you to take on your flights, and on the way to the airport we’ll hope to stop by a couple of farm shops to give you a chance to pick up some local produce to take with you.

Then it’s hugs, exchanging contacts and fond farewells to your new friends. Until the next time, we hope!

Please note that small details might change based on a variety of reasons, from the weather, seasonal opening times of the nature reserves, group sizes and also feedback from our guests. Over time our program is bound to change and evolve as we seek to improve and learn from everyones experiences. If you have any questions or special requests, please contact us and we’d be more than happy to help accommodate whatever they may be.