In today’s episode we’re going to Rovigo, in the Veneto region of northern Italy, to meet Francesco Ganassin — teacher, musician, and builder of instruments that think for themselves.

Francesco works on Segment 8 of the river Lech, a threshold zone where the mountains begin to yield to the plains, and where part of the river is diverted into a side channel for hydropower. It is a landscape of transitions — and transition is very much Francesco’s territory.

In today’s episode we’re speaking with Michelle Breslin, a composer, musician, and field recordist based in Toronto, Canada, who goes by the artist name Lostworldsounds.

Michelle worked on Segment 3 of the river Lech, near the village of Stockach in Austria — a stretch that was narrowed over time to serve the communities living alongside it, and has only recently been widened again to restore what the river needed. Michelle heard that story in the water itself.

When she first listened to her field recording, she noticed overtones rising from the river that sounded to her like voices from the distant past. That image became the heart of her composition. She gathered four singers, Adelaide and Madison Santos, Julia Maja, Scotch Camera, and Michelle herself, into a reverberant rooftop room, to recreate those ancient-sounding voices.

In today’s episode we’re speaking with Simon Holmes, a musician from Edinburgh, Scotland, who — for this occasion — teamed up with the Portobello Drone Choir.

Simon worked on Segment 24, the penultimate stretch of the river Lech before it quietly dissolves into the Danube. When he read that the project notes described this section as “the Lech’s quiet goodbye”, he knew exactly where he wanted to go.