Isabel Sanchez Danieli
The Andromeda Project

The Andromeda Project is a 4-piece composition which seeks to challenge the idea that the avenues for innovative engagement between radio drama and acousmatic music have long been exhausted, revealing uncharted paths by which the two practices can further inform one another. It is an experiment in hybridizing radio drama and acousmatic storytelling with the overarching aim of creating a more immersive, transportative, and engaging listening experience.

Specifically, The Andromeda Project seeks a middle ground between the objectivity of the radio drama and the subjectivity of acousmatic music merging the former’s structural conventions, and its focus on story, dramatization, and the actor’s interpretation, with the latter’s use of studio techniques to manipulate the voice and create a composed sound world, a mechanism which works to enhance the storytelling process and create a visceral listening experience. The composition also makes use of a non-diegetic score on top of the composed sound world in order to further consolidate the bridge between the dramatisation and the acousmatic sound by creating a sense of unity and coherence.

The Andromeda Project is set in the year 3120, in which humans have colonized a planet they named Thesson. The plot follows Andros Armenak, a lieutenant in the police force of Decopolis, the largest city on Thesson, which is run by an authoritarian government. The story begins with Andros being interrogated about the death of his superior, Major Shayan Ghisco. Andros explains how they were both tasked with finding, interrogating, and terminating the leading members of the Resistance – a group of insurgents seeking to expose the lies of the state and to bring down the government. He explains the series of events, all of which happen within the span of a single day, during which several occurrences cause Andros to become suspicious of Shayan and of the government. Andros takes matters into his own hands and seeks out the truth.