Nava Hemyari.
When the room plays along.
Nava Hemyari on punctum collective, listening with a blindfold and the small sounds that suddenly matter.
In conversation with Nava Hemyari · punctum collective
A high clarinet note that becomes too piercing in a reverberant room. A piece that moves to a balcony. An incidental sound that takes on a presence of its own when you are blindfolded. For punctum collective, decisions often emerge in the very place where the music is heard.
Vienna-based composer and performer Nava Hemyari works with voice, electronics and electroacoustic composition. Here, she discusses the shared practice of punctum collective and their planned concert at Haus Wittgenstein on 4 November 2026. Five questions answered by email, lightly edited and translated from German.
The room has a say.
At moquette, even the church carpet plays a part in the sound. Can you remember a rehearsal when the room led you to change a piece or the ensemble’s positioning? What did you discover?
As we always adapt our programmes to each particular room, we deliberately leave space for change. Sometimes it is only when we arrive that we realise a performance planned from a distance does not work acoustically or is not convincing visually.
A concert at Reaktor was particularly challenging. Its long reverberation made the high clarinet notes extremely piercing and almost painful. We had to tone them down accordingly.
At Zacherlfabrik, we moved an installation originally planned for a corner because of the choreography of other pieces, and eventually performed one piece up on the balcony. Experiences like these show us that the room is not merely a condition we work within; it actively shapes the programme.
Listening with open ears.
At Blinds, the audience listens to part of the concert wearing blindfolds. What do you have to do differently as an ensemble when people cannot see your movements? Can you recall a moment when that became particularly tangible?
When the audience is blindfolded, their hearing naturally becomes much more sensitive. We have to make as few unintended sounds as possible, so that nothing distracts them or draws attention to something we do not actually want to foreground.
At the same time, I find it fascinating that precisely these unwanted sounds can develop a charm of their own. When I once listened to a violin piece while blindfolded myself, it was those small incidental sounds, which I would barely have noticed otherwise, that made the listening experience so interesting.
A particular sense of care also emerges: when people are blindfolded, they are in a more vulnerable position, and that changes our responsibility towards them, too.
The room is not merely a condition we work within; it actively shapes the programme.
Finding the next step together.
punctum brings together strings, clarinets, voice and electronics. In rehearsal, how do you find out whether a new idea works together? Who or what determines the next step?
When we work on a commission or a piece by a composer who is not present at rehearsals, we play through it together at the first rehearsal. At the second, we focus more closely on shaping the music. By then, we have become familiar with the piece’s dramaturgy and try to understand what the composer wants to convey and how we can best realise that as an ensemble.
With performative or experimental work, the process is more open: ideas are brought in, tried out, discarded and developed further. As the creators are usually there themselves, we often understand the original idea as a starting point that is allowed to change through collaboration with the ensemble.
The next step then emerges from experimenting together and from what actually works in the moment.
The score and the space within it.
You compose and also perform with the ensemble. How much room do the other musicians create, for instance in a graphically notated piece such as Euthanasia? And how does that compare with the pieces on The Lie?
Euthanasia is a piece whose graphic notation makes many different outcomes possible. The flexible instrumentation also means that every performance holds a certain element of surprise. The musicians bring their own interpretations and decisions, so the piece unfolds a little differently each time.
The album The Lie, however, consists of fully notated pieces. Here, it is less about changing a piece’s original form and more about how differently it can be brought to life through interpretation.
Between hearing and seeing.
You are playing at Haus Wittgenstein on 4 November. What would you like to explore there? What can people who do not yet know punctum expect?
At Haus Wittgenstein, we want to begin by exploring fragile soundscapes: sounds that, especially with your eyes covered, leave you unsure whether you really heard something or whether it was an incidental noise. In the first part, the pieces will be performed from different positions around the room, so that sound sources can be heard coming from different directions.
In the second half of the concert, the audience will remove their blindfolds to the sound of a pigeon. This introduces Carola Bauckholt’s Coo-Cooooo-Coo? Where, where? (2024), accompanied by animated projections. We then continue the evening with further films by members of Filmkoop Wien, before a final performance by me, Nava Hemyari, brings the programme to a close.
People who do not yet know punctum can look forward to an evening in which music, film and space enter into a relationship, continually challenging how we hear and see.
Nava Hemyari
Interview by email · Editorial and image art direction: SCENE:ID. Nava Hemyari · SCENE:ID art direction · Hessam Samavatian · SCENE:ID art direction