Radio Hito

With Radio Hito, Zen My Nguyen has spent the last two years (2024–2026) adapting a poem by Claude Royet-Journoud, L’usage et les attributs du cœur (POL, 2021). Ten sections comprising a lied for soundfonts and voice, along with a libretto in Italian, which evolved over the course of some 80 concerts, from Galicia to Kazakhstan, before taking their final recorded form.

Her project is experiential and draws on principles of economy in performance, words, forms and contexts; if poetry is a ‘craft of ignorance’ according to Claude Royet-Journoud, then Radio Hito would gladly be a pastime that seeks to know.

On stage, the project has been adapted for prepared piano, grand piano, electric keyboard, FM radios, church organ, Philicorda and an AV version, with occasional contributions from Suzan Peeters (accordion), Alex Andropoulos Able Noise, Arthur Chambry (percussion/trumpet), David Bennewith and Omar Cheikh (visuals), Fera (electronics), Adrián de Alfonso (FM amplification), and Lieven Dousselaere (sound engineering).