Tuning the Wind

Wind is air in motion. It makes no sound until it encounters an object. The sounds it produces depend on the strength of the wind and the shape and material of the object it touches. When the wind blows, trees sway, buildings rattle, materials move, and sound waves are generated. Some believe that temperature changes create layers of air, and that the friction between them forms a unique sound—perhaps the true voice of the wind, which birds may be the only creatures capable of recognising. Sometimes the wind howls; at other times, it sings or whistles, shifting from a gentle murmur to an angry roar. The wind’s range of frequencies, tones, and timbres is vast and varied. Tuning the Wind is a piece about the wind, made with the wind—an abstract expression of our ongoing conversation with nature.


Composer Aimée Portioli, known professionally as Grand River, recorded various types of wind and then reworked them through layering and pitch adjustment to create a musical piece where the wind itself becomes a prepared instrument. At times, the sound of the wind is tuned to the 440 Hz reference, while at other times, the instruments are tuned to the sound of the wind. In Tuning the Wind, nature and music merge seamlessly. Synthesizers and wind recordings become indistinguishable, blending natural sounds with human-made instruments. The boundary between a gust of wind and an instrument-generated sound fades away. Human artistry and nature’s symphony merge to become one.

Duration: 36'
Concept, musical composition, sound design and installation by Aimée Portioli
Foley wind recordings by Aimée Portioli and Pablo Diserens
Tuning the Wind was created in 2022 as an installation piece. Since then, it has been adapted into multichannel, 4DSOUND, and stereo installations, as well as performed live on numerous occasions around the world. In 2025 the piece has also been released as a record on the label Umor Rex.

UPCOMING/PRESENTED AT

Semibreve, Braga, PT *Tuning the Wind live
The Labyrinth, Gunma, JP *live stereo performance
Belluno, IT *live stereo performance
BAO Music Festival, Valle Trompia, IT *live stereo performance
Muzan Editions, Club Daphnia, Osaka, JP *live stereo performance
Festiwal Ambientalny, Wrocław, PL *live stereo performance
Candid Arts Gallery, London, UK *sound installation
Mono Lisboa, Lisbon, PT *live stereo performance
Paesaggi Sonori, Peltuinum, IT *live stereo performance
Live Cinema Festival, Rome, IT *live stereo performance
Son de Aquí, Oaxaca de Juárez, MX *live stereo performance
SONIC CINEMA, 3537, Paris, FR *sound installation in 4D spatial sound
Q3AMBIENTFEST, Kesselhaus, Potsdam, DE *live stereo performance
NEW NOW Festival, Essen, DE *sound installation in 4D spatial sound
Stone Nest, London, UK *4D spatial sound live performance
Mostra Festival, Barcelona, ES *live stereo performance
Folkwang Museum, Essen, DE *live stereo performance
FIBER Festival, Het Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, NL *4D spatial sound live performance
CTM Festival, MONOM, Berlin, DE *4D spatial sound live performance
C.P. Company Flagship Store, Milan, IT *live stereo performance

Duration: 20'
Musical composition and installation by Aimée Portioli
"Future Desire" has been commissioned by Il Pianeta and presented at Spazio Maiocchi, Milan, IT in October 2021.

Duration: 5'35''
Musical composition by Aimée Portioli
"Every Day A Little Less" has presented at La Galleria Nazionale, Rome, IT from December 2018 until January 2019. 
It was part of the exhibition ilmondoinfine: vivere tra le rovine, the piece was played in loop in the soundwundertunnel.

Future Desire

"Future Desire" is a musical piece that explores the vision of a prospective upcoming world, yet only existing in one’s imagination. It is a projection of a breakthrough from the unsustainable contemporary times we are living in, a glimpse where images and ideas flutter and fade, where dreams gleam and decay.

The project is a response to “The Planet as Festival,” an embodiment of the futuristic vision of Ettore Sottsass. This projected world rejects the idea of a future based on consumption and production, and instead is inspired by creativity. If properly addressed, technological progress could generate income and bring unprecedented prosperity. The word school comes from skholē, the Greek word for “leisure”: we used to teach people to be free, now we teach them to work. “Future Desire” conveys a message of freedom.
It is a sound experience that accompanies the visionaries somewhere faraway and beautiful. A journey of enigmatic long-form synthesis, colourful electronic landscapes and heady atmospheres, inviting the human senses to drift towards conception.

Every Day a Little Less

Feelings and emotions are complex experiences that involve a variety of physical, cognitive, and behavioral responses. The intensity and duration of these responses can vary depending on the situation and the individual.
Over time, emotions can fade out or become less intense due to a variety of factors.
One common factor is habituation or desensitization. When we experience a particular emotion repeatedly, our brains can become less sensitive to it.

"Every Day A Little Less" is collage-like composition expressing how time itself can play a role in the fading of emotions. As time passes, our memories and emotional experiences can become less vivid, and the emotional charge of a particular event can weaken. This is known as emotional decay, and it can occur naturally over time.

Symphony for Endangered Birds

Symphony for Endangered Birds is a new 7-channel sound installation by composer and sound artist Aimée Portioli, known in the electronic music scene as Grand River.
The 28-minute looped piece merges field recordings, spatial sound design, and musical composition to create a deep listening experience that is both meditative and urgent.

At its core are the voices of seven endangered bird species—each representing a different continent—brought together in a collective choir of resistance and warning. Their songs speak of fragility and loss, inviting reflection on the rapid disappearance of these species due to deforestation, climate change, illegal wildlife trade, hunting, urbanisation, and bushfires.

Birds play essential ecological roles as pollinators, seed dispersers, and environmental indicators. Their voices are not only beautiful, they are integral to the balance of our ecosystems. Symphony for Endangered Birds captures this vanishing soundscape and transforms it into a call to action.

Through a process of detailed composition, interweaving melody, field recordings, and electronic textures, Portioli constructs a sonic monument to these birds and their complex systems of communication. The result is a powerful meditation on interspecies coexistence and shared responsibility.

A sculptural piece by Federico Gargaglione serves as the visual counterpart to the sound installation: a slender metal structure ending in a suspended, illuminated white feather. It suggests fragility, silence, and weightless resistance—a quiet focal point around which the birds’ voices orbit.

A printed booklet accompanies the installation, featuring drawings of each bird species by artist Brandon Locher. Made with a meticulous dotting technique, the images evoke gradual disappearance, echoing the project’s theme of loss, both in the birds’ songs and their fading physical presence.

This work builds on Portioli’s ongoing artistic exploration of the natural world and its acoustic language. Her previous piece, Tuning the Wind, transformed wind recordings into layered musical textures, allowing nature itself to become a prepared instrument. Symphony for Endangered Birds builds on that approach by giving a unified voice to endangered species through an immersive archive of beauty, memory, and warning.

The darkened walls and minimal lighting of the exhibition space are designed to heighten the sense of desperation in the birds plight and underscore the finality of their possible extinction. The installation invites deep listening and positions sound as a bridge uniting ecology and humanity’s collective responsibility to the natural world.

Duration: 28'
Concept, musical composition, sound design, spatialization and installation production by Aimée Portioli
Symphony for Endangered Birds will be presented at Folkwang Museum, Essen, DE from August 15, 2025 to September 28, 2025.