Debashis Sinha

Driven by a deep commitment to the primacy of sound in creative expression, Debashis Sinha has created numerous audio-centred solo and collaborative projects across Canada and internationally. Sound design and composition credits include works for contemporary dance, video, film, and Dora Award-winning productions with many of Canada’s premiere performing arts companies, including numerous works for Peggy Baker Dance Projects, The Stratford Festival, Soulpepper Theatre Company, Canadian Stage, Why Not Theatre, and many others. 

His speculative mythology-driven sound practice has led to live appearances at MUTEK Japan, the Guelph Jazz Festival, the Banff Centre, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, and related fixed-media releases on Berlin’s Establishment Records imprint, Pluie/Noir, Gusstaff, online, in gallery spaces and elsewhere. These research-creation projects entangle sonic arts, ethnographic practice, new modes of cultural transmission, music composition and urban studies - many of Sinha's works take as a foundation a large archive of field recordings he has collected over many years in the city of Kolkata. 

Currently, Sinha has been researching sound production using machine learning and AI with an ear to uncovering new strategies and avenues of story creation. This research has been presented in a number of international conferences held by NeurIPS, the Royal Antropological Institute, Carleton University, NoiseFloor UK, and others, and resulted in numerous exhibitions including multiple audio and media commissions by Toronto’s Museum of Contemporary Art. He has taught seminars and courses at the National Theatre School of Canada, York University, the University of Toronto, the Stratford Festival and other institutions, and is an external Research Fellow at Carleton University's Research Centre for Sound, Music and Society in Canada and the York University Sensorium lab. 

Sinha is the 2023 Louis Applebaum Composer’s Award laureate. The Ontario Arts Foundation/Ontario Arts Council biennial award focuses on composers for media in 2023.