Photobook
Discover the

of Shanghai.

Vivid photography and artistic storytelling
unveil the transformation of Shanghai’s spirit into music.

 Bilingual Edition (English / Chinese)

 Limited Collector’s Print

A visual chronicle:
the resonance of seeing.

Screenshot 2026-03-12 at 01.15.39

In Shanghai, art and life converge within a single opera — the City itself.

Explore the Project
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The book unfolds in chapters that trace the project’s journey from its inception to its realization.

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Overview

By means of photography and narrative insight, the book traces how Shanghai’s soul found its voice in music — from ancient Kunqu opera echoes to the futuristic skyline of the Bund. Each image becomes a visual note in the «Opera of a Cosmopolis».

A Photobook by Tatiana Khodova

Texts by Marios Joannou Elia · Iverson Zhende Xu · Antonio Mulone

Chapters

I. Listening is the Most Human of Verbs

An opening prelude on listening as awareness and creation — the primordial act through which perception becomes being, and silence turns into meaning.

II. Sound of Shanghai

The central poetic and philosophical text — a sonic portrait of the city and its people, unfolding through music, sound, and cinematography; a reflection on whether each city holds its own voice — and why Shanghai is the one that listens to itself.

III. The Preparation – Listening to the City

The act of listening as creation.
Research, exploration, and the first encounters with the city’s rhythms, voices, and silences — where observation turns into composition.

 

Listening to the City

Methods, routes, and first sonic encounters; mapping rhythms, pitches, languages, and the contours of silence.

Polyphony of the City – Field recording as a compositional gesture

Each captured soundscape becomes a thread in Shanghai’s living polyphony — a musical architecture of human movement, space, and memory.

IV. The Realization

The act of creation where art, performance, and technology converge. «Sound of Shanghai» unfolds as a living organism of sound — where composition, performance, and science merge into one creative act.

The Art and Technology of Spatial Audio Reproduction

The project expands the boundaries of musical perception through spatial audio design, transforming listening into immersion. Acoustics, space, and digital technology intertwine to form a multidimensional field of resonance, where every sound carries direction, distance, and depth. Technology becomes the unseen partner of art — a conduit through which sound attains physical presence, surrounding the listener with living vibration.

V. Resonances – Voices of Shanghai

Reflections from the city’s cultural life.

«Sound of Shanghai» found recognition among the city’s foremost cultural figures — from the Municipality’s Department of Culture, the Swatch Art Peace Hotel, and the Conservatory of Music, to renowned masters of traditional instruments and opera.

VI. Epilogue – The Presence of Light

Closing reflection on time, trust, and connection.

In the wake of «Sound of Shanghai», what remains is light — the quiet endurance of listening and the harmony born of human encounter. Sound becomes memory, and memory becomes illumination. The work closes where it began: in attention, in relation, and in the shared breath between past and future.

Cultural Project

Powered by
Shanghai’s creative pulse.

An unprecedented alliance led by Marios Joannou  Elia’s vision — uniting performers, sound engineers, and visual artists to forge Shanghai’s first audiovisual symphony of identity and innovation.

0
visual records (photographs and videos), distilled into a curated photographic narrative.
Unified
Concept
1 Artistic Vision
Project
Spaces
93 Audiovisual Points
Where
meets AI acoustics.

A dialogue between heritage and technology gives rise to a new sound-based narrative.

Official Statement

«This remarkable production stands as a powerful example of cultural dialogue. It builds bridges between cultures and demonstrates the unique ability of the arts to foster mutual understanding and bring people closer together.»

Vasiliki Kassianidou · Deputy Minister of Culture of the Republic of Cyprus.

150+ pages

A glimpse
inside the book.

A visual exploration taken in distinctive environs – from the brushwork calligraphy inscribing «Sound of Shanghai» created inside a traditional Chinese scholar’s studio, and the ceremonial world of tea artistry at an exclusive Pudong restaurant, to the qipao culture of high-society women, the guzheng revealing its shimmering, centuries-old sonorities inside the Bavarian-style Music Castle, the ruan ensemble performing atop the Swatch Art Peace Hotel – originally built in 1854 as the Central Hotel and described at the time as «the city’s most luxurious hotel» – shadow-puppet theatre of intangible cultural heritage, and the city’s skyscrapers veiled in fog.

The Making Of

Behind the Scenes:
Anatomy of Sound

Beyond the images, the book presents the full creative and technical process of «Sound of Shanghai – Opera of a Cosmopolis». It uncovers:

  • the acoustic transformation of the Shanghai Conservatory recording hall,
  • the deployment of Wave Field Synthesis (WFS) and a 624-speaker 3D enhancement system,
  • the microphone architecture designed for Chinese orchestras, ruan ensembles, choirs, guzheng groups, and Kunqu opera,
  • the object-based spatial audio production used to create Dolby Atmos and IMF masters,
  • and the philosophical dimension of «spatial folding», where recording spaces are re-imagined into higher-dimensional listening environments.

This framework shows how tradition, technology, and artistic vision merge
to form an innovative sonic language for Shanghai.

 

Sonic Architecture
Sina News (新浪新闻)

«One person's stage,
one city's support.»

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In this behind-the-scenes tribute, titled in Chinese «一个人的舞台 一座城的支撑——致敬《上海之声》幕后逐光人», Executive Producer Zhao Jinyu reflects on the making of «Sound of Shanghai». She highlights how Marios Joannou Elia’s artistic vision inspired an unprecedented collaborative undertaking across Shanghai, transforming the city’s acoustic identity into a large-scale audiovisual work through the collective dedication of hundreds of artists, performers and cultural institutions. Describing his conviction that every city possesses a distinctive acoustic identity, Zhao explains how this idea became the creative foundation of the project.