Sonic Arts Week 2026 Expands with Live Music Gigs, Interactive Street Performances, and new Maker Hub.
Middlesbrough | 24 June – 4 July 2026
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Sonic Arts Week (SAW) returns for 2026 with an ambitious 10-day, family friendly, programme celebrating sound, art and play. Taking place across Middlesbrough, this year’s festival expands its reach through exhibitions, performances, community workshops, and a new focus on accessible, hands-on engagement with sound and technology. Delivered by the team behind The Auxiliary and Middlesbrough Art Week, Sonic Arts Week is an event not to be missed. At the heart of this year’s festival is Encounters, a strand of highly engaging street performance and participatory theatre. Designed to be playful, accessible, and surprising, Encounters invites audiences of all ages to experience sound art beyond traditional venues; transforming streets, public spaces, and community settings into sites of sonic wonderment.
So what can you expect? DJs performing through a wheelie bin sound system, an electromagnetic grand piano, an audio assault buggy where sound meets science and so much more. SAW26 sees the return of some familiar faces.
Rimski & Handkerchief are back! Using an up-right piano and double bass, cleverly converted onto bicycles - Rimski & Handkerchief cycle, perform and sing songs of love, loss, the mundane and extraordinary. Noisy Toys, a sound-science duo that perform sound experiments for youngsters will be in town with their audio assault buggy. The Wheelie Bin Sound System (TWBSS) is exactly what it sounds like, movable, loud and very playable - audiences are invited to roll with the tunes and learn some basic dj’ing techniques along the way. TWBSS is all about the summer vibes.
Other highlights include a collaboration between local musician Grace Stubbings and author Carmen Marcus - Foraging For Stories is an exploratory workshop inviting participants to connect with nature through words, sound, and sensory experience. Guided along a sensory trail, you’ll respond to creative prompts, experiment with writing, and take part in deep listening activities using microphones. Creating a “word journey,” with contributions forming part of a shared piece, space to notice, imagine, and create.
Coinciding with the festival, The Auxiliary presents Moments in Sound – Expanding Instruments, featuring new work by international artists Vivienne Griffin (IRL), Floris Vanhoof (NL) & Nell Catchpole (UK).
Griffin’s practice centres on live experimental composition, combining augmented harp, voice, and modular synthesis to create immersive and evolving performances. For this exhibition, she is developing a new performative installation that consolidates her live-driven approach into a recorded work marking her first official music release & extending her practice beyond the immediacy of performance.
Vanhoof presents the award winning Antenna, a striking installation that transforms a grand piano into a receiver of electromagnetic waves. Using a custom-built antenna & electromagnets, the instrument is activated by signals present in the surrounding environment. Influenced by Alvin Lucier’s Sferics, the work reveals a constantly shifting sonic landscape shaped by natural and human-made transmissions, making audible the otherwise invisible infrastructures of the information age. Griffin & Vanhoof will also take part in a public in-conversation event discussing their practices and expanded approaches to sound installation.
Nell Catchpole brings Gongs of Teesside, which began with forging steel gongs by local blacksmiths and has evolved through solitary and collective soundings with places and communities across Teesside and East Cleveland. The gongs serve as resonant objects and gathering points, opening encounters with place, memory, and ecology while amplifying local voices and stories.
Auxiliary Presents: Live Programme
Alongside its daytime programme, SAW 2026 introduces an expanded evening of live music through Auxiliary Presents, a series of five ticketed nights showcasing experimental and adventurous music.
Delivered in collaboration with Teesside Dub Club, Industrial Coast and Mozzenjammer, Auxiliary Presents features an eclectic array of artists. The line-up includes internationally acclaimed trio Saint Abdullah & Eomac, the creator of “grindcore” Mick Harris as Blare Weight Unit, local legendary soundsystem Teesside Dub Club and more.
New for 2026: Workshops at Maker Hub for all Ages & Abilities
Building on the success of previous years, SAW 2026 introduces an open Maker Hub, a welcoming drop-in space where audiences of all ages & abilities can take part in a series of practical workshops delivered by artists and creatives working across the festival. These sessions will break down the technologies and creative approaches used by participating artists, offering participants the chance to:
Build and experiment with DIY instruments
Explore sound-making techniques
Learn about performance technologies
Engage in creative, hands-on experimentation