Grant Recipients Grants to Artists Music/Sound 2026

Maayan Tsadka

Maayan Tsadka mid-performance. She is wearing a black sweater, glasses, and her hair pulled up. In one hand, Tsadka is holding a couple of dried plants close to a microphone on a mic stand. The mic is pointing downwards and is very close to one of the dried plants. In the other hand, she is holding a tuning fork close. Tsadka is looking intensely at the close mic’d plant and in the foreground of the photo blurred leaves are visible. The background, also blurry, is softly lit by a purple light.
Photo by MUPERPHOTO.
  • 2026 Grants to Artists
  • Music/Sound
  • Composer, Performer, Sound Artist
  • Born 1982, Petah-Tikva, Israel/Palestine
  • Lives in Haifa, Israel/Palestine
  • She/Her
  •  
  • Additional Information
  • maayantsadka.net

Artist Statement

Sonic Botany was born the day I noticed that a dry Echeveria gibbiflora leaf somewhat resembles the ear of a bat—the shape, the detailed veins, the terrain. It got me thinking about the leaf or plant as an ear: noticing how the shape of a flower, a pod, or a leaf is perhaps partially designed to absorb and direct sound into it. What is it like to “hear” the world from a plant perspective? This thought was the beginning of an ongoing attempt to step outside our human perception and experience and imagine, at least, the world from other perspectives. However, the plant is not only an ear, but also a speaker: a vibrating membrane, a means of natural amplification. Each plant, or part of it, has embedded organic information that can be carried and reflected through sound. Exploring every leaf and artifact as a micro-landscape was, for me, a way to create new soundscapes and musical worlds.

Sound is an agent of the material and space in which it travels. It can reveal secrets about ourselves and the world. At times when simply listening can be considered a radical act, we must listen wide and wild.

- December 2025 

Biography

Maayan Tsadka is a composer, sound artist, improviser, organizer, and teacher whose practice sits at the intersection of environmental listening, acoustic research, and experimental composition. Sound is her primary means of learning from, and communicating with, the world. At the core of the work is an inquiry into sound's environmental, social, and political dimensions.

Tsadka’s research spans prehistoric harmony, sonic taxonomy, augmented listening practices, sonic resistance, ecoacoustics, and the roles of echo and resonance. The resulting work reveals hidden architectures of sound—from microscopic vibrations within plants to the vast resonance of ecosystems and planetary systems—asking how we might listen more deeply and expand human perception. 

Sonic Botany is an ongoing project and practice developed over the past several years that engages natural artifacts—dry leaves, pods, flowers, branches, rocks, bones, and other organic findings—as instruments, using tuning forks to activate them at various frequencies. The resulting vibrations resonate through these materials, revealing their structure through acoustic response. Tsadka’s archival installation Sediment, a collaboration with Nawal Arafat and Leoni Schein, used this method to explore decolonization and recognition of a place and people. Originating from a chance encounter during a walk on Mount Carmel, the project traces the layered histories of an abandoned reservoir and surrounding ruins, amplifying overlooked narratives embedded in the site.

Sonic Botany was presented as part of the Women’s Work Series at ISSUE Project Room, New York, NY (2025). Other public presentations include A Way to Walk Through Fear, for string quintet and wind trio, at Zucker Hall, Tel Aviv, Israel (2024); SEDIMENTS, in the exhibition Scattered Shared Spaces, at Beit HaGefen Art Gallery, Haifa (2022); EarthNoise (Raash Adama) at ISSUE Project Room, Brooklyn, NY (2021); and School of Fish, created during the Haifa Museums Art/Place residency (2021). Her writing includes A Field Guide to Sonic Botany: Thoughts About Eco-Composition, published in TEMPO (vol. 75, no. 295, 2020).

Tsadka was an artist-in-residence at the Technion Institute of Technology, Department of Humanities, Haifa, Israel (2023–2024), is a recipient of the ACUM Prize from the Association of Composers, Authors and Publishers of Music in Israel (2012, 2016), and has received two grants from the Rabinovich Foundation for the Arts (2020, 2021).

Tsadka holds a Doctor of Musical Arts (D.M.A.) in Music Composition from the University of California, Santa Cruz (2015).

Maayan Tsadka mid-performance. She is wearing a white collared shirt, glasses, and her hair pulled up. She is standing over a long table covered in a black tablecloth. In Tsadka’s hand she holds a leaf and on the table is an assortment of different objects being used in the performance, including dried leaves and plants, bones, shells, and metal cans covered in foil. In front of her and the table are two microphones on stands pointed downwards towards the objects table.

Performance still from Sonic Botany at ISSUE Project Room, Brooklyn, NY, 2025 presented as part of the With Womens Work Series. Photo by Cameron Kelly McLeod.

A close up of Maayan Tsadka's hands mid-performance in what appears to be a cave-like setting, surrounded by rocks. Tsadka is holding a dried plant in one hand and in the other, partially cut off by the frame, she is holding a tuning fork. Atop an elevated section of rock, near her hands, Tsadka has arranged several other tuning forks of different sizes, dried leaves and plants, and an animal skull, which she is using in the performance.

Performance still from Ra'ash Adama (Earthnoise), 2021. Commissioned by ISSUE Project Room, Brooklyn, NY. Photo by Dani Williamson.

Sculpture installation by Maayan Tsadka and collaborators Nawal Arafat and Leoni Schein in a gallery space. The installation consists of a series of constructed wooden architectural forms reminiscent of shelves, drawers, ladders, and other home objects. There are small piles of organic materials, archival materials, photographs, cups, rocks, books, pvc tubing, an opened accordion folder, among other items throughout. There are also headphones rigged to electrical interfaces present throughout the installation. The floor within the gallery space is ornamental and tiled with repeated star-like forms.

Performance still from SEDIMENTS, archival installation in collaboration with Nawal Arafat and Leoni Schein presented as part of Scattered Shared Spaces curated by Yael Messer, Beit HaGefen Art Gallery - Haifa in partnership with NPO Sikkuy-Aufoq, 2022. Photo by Daniel Hanoch.

Maayan Tsadka performing with Orr Sinay, Nadav Masel, Eran Borovich, and Florentin Ginot, illuminated by overhead lighting. The performers are standing in a line and facing the audience. Tsadka, standing in the center, is behind a small wooden table atop which are scattered dried leaves and other organic materials. In front of her is a mic stand, which is pointed towards her. Tsadka holds a dried leaf up close to the mic, and in her other hand she holds a tuning fork. Underneath the table is a black crate containing other objects being used in the performance. The four other performers alongside Tsadka are each behind a music stand, holding a double bass. Some are standing upright and others are hunched down over the instrument. Behind all the performers are pink graphic posters with abstract forms and writing in Hebrew. Behind the posters a line of black speakers are arranged.

Performance still from The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary (2019). Performed by Orr Sinay, Nadav Masel, Eran Borovich, Florentin Ginot, Maayan Tsadka. Sound technician: Aaron Holloway-Nahum. Commissioned by Tzlil Meudcan Festival, at Hateiva, Tel-Aviv-Jaffa for four double basses, tuning forks and leaves. Photo by Aaron Holloway-Nahum.

A graphic score for two instruments by Maayan Tsadka. The score is broken up into a larger rectangular area, containing the score for double bass, and a narrower area below containing the score for tuning fork. In the top left corner of the double bass score there is text that reads “Deep Sea II.” Beneath this it reads “All: play the following slow gliss, lingering at the circled notes play above/below them. Listen for ebating with the group. Come in and out freely.” Tsadka uses graphic notation to provide the performers with instructions about how to use their bows, either long and steady or build to a swell. Beneath this there is more text, which reads “no leaves. Alternate between the gliss and the patterns.” To the right of the text instructions are a series of graphic notation forms and illustrations, notes notated on a stave, and hertz notation, used to indicate pitch. Beneath this, in the rectangular key-like register, are illustrations which appear to be instructions for the performance using tuning fork and organic materials.

Performance score excerpt from The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary (2019). Performed by Orr Sinay, Nadav Masel, Eran Borovich, Florentin Ginot, Maayan Tsadka. Sound technician: Aaron Holloway-Nahum. Commissioned by Tzlil Meudcan Festival, at Hateiva, Tel-Aviv-Jaffa for four double basses, tuning forks and leaves. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Excerpt from SEDIMENTS, archival installation in collaboration with Nawal Arafat and Leoni Schein
presented as part of Scattered Shared Spaces curated by Yael Messer, Beit HaGefen Art Gallery - Haifa in partnership with NPO Sikkuy-Aufoq, 2022. Video documentation: Daniel Hanoch. Video editing: Dani Williamson. Sound recording and editing: Maayan Tsadka.

Excerpt from Ra'ash Adama (Earthnoise), commissioned by ISSUE Project Room, Brooklyn, NY for the With Women’s Work series, 2021. Video and editing by Dani Williamson. Sound recording by Shaul Kohn, Amir Bolzman, and Maayan Tsadka. Mixing and Mastering by Shaul Kohn.

Excerpt from Museum of Extinct Sounds and Imaginary Water Creatures, presented as part of the this is what happens when you play with electricity series, curated by Hadas Peery, HaTeiva, Jaffa, May 2017. Performed by Adaya Godlevsky, Laila Shuala, Chanan Ben-Simon, and Maayan Tsadka. Narration by Yoav Beirach. Sound by Ronald Boerson. Videography by Shali Boaron Editing: Dani Williamson.