Hello world!
I am Rafaele, a brazilian Dutch-based music composer and musician who reimagines music through my art projects and self-made technologies. Expanding my foundation in cello and composition, I developed Knurl: an electroacoustic instrument merging technology, electronic music, and creative programming.
Through my works and Knurl, I explore new possibilities for artistic expression by designing my own sounds systems, projects and interfaces. My practice integrates 3D printing, creative coding, and emerging technologies as compositional tools, allowing the instrument itself to become the nucleus of each artistic process.
To me, to develop my own technology is a way to continuously reflect and overcome the boundaries of my artistic identity and my music practice.
I situate this approach within a broader DIY culture that is growing globally and generating positive collective impact. Individually crafted tools and systems can offer locally grounded solutions while contributing to shared knowledge across communities. In this way, sounds, its context and its social engagement naturally merge from a direct connection with its local and digital listeners.
WHY?
MY PRACTICE
My work explores interdisciplinary formats of music-making, engaging with themes such as public participation, cultural identity, self-made technologies, social and environmental awareness. I work with methods and technologies exploring crossover between music & design, using often open source interfaces, 3D Printing, Creative programming and electronics. I make my own technologies myself.
Music Improvisation is central to my creative process, enabling me to translate compositional thinking into live performance and to remain responsive to space, context, and audience. Through these interdisciplinary experiences, I invite audiences to reconsider ideas about what means to listen these days, and reflect about their identity, connectivity, and empathy in a globalized world.
I place 100% of my heart and energy on what I truly believe, no matter how hard is to make music by yourself these times. I am proud of always going so deep on what I do and not being afraid to commit mistakes or to be vulnerable in front of audiences.
My proudest achievements are the ones who always teach me the hardest lessons. But also the things who took me always further than I thought I could go.
On my 20’s, for example, with zero experience on conducting, I conducted and arranged works for a popular music orchestra composed by 20 members for 2 years.
Another good memory of my music path was to receive support from UNESCO-IFPC to produce on my own a music festival of Latin American women composers and commission 9 new music works for them. That was one of the hardest lessons in terms of production, but still made me so proud and who I am today.
And of course I am super proud of Knurl. This amazing instrument I keep improving and placing all my music vision behind it.
WHAT I AM PROUD OF
My goals
My current artistic mission is to create musical experiences that emphasize music as a live, embodied act of social cohesion.
Through collaboration and interdisciplinary perspectives, I seek to position listening as an active, participatory practice rather than a passive one.
I aim to further develop Knurl as the core and conceptual “home” of my artistic practice, using it as a platform to engage with diverse cultures, foster exchange, and produce socially engaged music projects and tours, particularly within underdeveloped communities.
Education.
2016: Composition and Conducting Curitiba, Brazil
2020: Sonology The Hague, The Netherlands
2022: New audiences and innovative practices The Hague, The Netherlands
Awards.
2024: Crystal Pine music Award Dead zones
2024: Alpine Fellowship Music Prize Trópicos
2022: Waterwende Dead zones
2020: Guthman Competition Knurl
2017: IFPC / UNESCO Radio Delas
2017: Arkea Accés String orchestra
Oficial bio.
Rafaele Andrade (1994, Brazil) is a Brazilian but dutch-based composer, musician, designer, and artist who combines new music with new technologies to address social and environmental issues. Creator of the string instrument Knurl, she explores new forms of engagement and interactivity in her productions, which include theater and audiovisual projects. Her international productions are marked by the interdisciplinary fusion of composition and performance, bringing an innovative approach to new and contemporary music.
Graduated in Composition and Conducting from the Escola de Belas Artes do Paraná (2011–2015), she also studied Sonology and New Audiences and Innovative Practices (NAIP) at the Royal Conservatoire The Hague. Among her achievements are the Crystal Pine Music Award for her soundtrack Dead Zones (2024), the UNESCO International Fund for the Promotion of Culture (2017), and the Alpine Music Prize (2024) for her solo production “Trópicos.”
Her works have been produced in various countries, including Estonia, Germany, China, Brazil,Paraguay, Argentina, England, Italy, Hong Kong, so on. Through her creative projects, she has become an expert in artistic production, technical production, artistic coordination, creative programming, interface design, electronic music, and technologies such as C++, creative programming, microcontrollers, music softwares, and 3D modelling and printing.