Found Sound Nation

Found Sound Nation (FSN) is a creative agency who use music-making to connect people across cultural divides. We believe that collaborative music creation is a deeply effective way to become aware of the beauty, trauma, and hidden potential in our communities. Our work give voice to the underrepresented, unlocks the creative potential of youth, and supports movements for social justice. FSN partners with local youth, social organizations, music festivals, and artists across all disciplines. Our work emphasizes a mobile approach to recording and producing professional quality music. This technique combines the art music traditions of musique concréte, hip hop, audio journalism, and contemporary composition. Our method is adaptable to different environments, based on finding the sounds and resonances of each space, drawing upon the talents of musicians in the local scene, and examining issues most relevant to each community. Our aim is to enliven a global conversation about how creative collaboration in music can address issues we face locally and collectively, while making the world a funkier and more harmonious place. Founded by Christopher Marianetti and Jeremy Thal in 2010, FSN began it's work as part of the groundbreaking new music organization Bang on a Can, created in 1987 by composers Michael Gordon, David Lang and Julia Wolfe. In 2015 Found Sound Nation incorporated as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, and continues to partner with Bang on a Can on various projects. Over the years, FSN has collaborated with music festivals such as the Lucerne Festival, Switzerland; Make Music NY, New York; the Big Ears Festival, Knoxville, the Metamorphosis Festival in Greece, Harare International Festival of Arts, Zimbabwe; and many more. We have led audio production workshops for Cine Institute in Haiti, worked extensively with Carnegie Hall in New York, Indonesia, and Mexico, and developed music composition workshops with incarcerated youth in the Bronx and Brooklyn. In the field of cultural diplomacy, we developed the Dosti Music Project with U.S. Embassies in Pakistan and India to bring together politically divided artist to create and tour original work. Since 2012 FSN has partnered with the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and Bang on a Can to produce OneBeat, our most ambitious initiative. OneBeat convenes young professional musicians from around the globe each fall to develop initiatives that use music as a tool for the betterment of our communities, forming a growing web of interconnected musical change-makers from around the globe.