I am Rafaele Andrade, a Brazilian composer and musician based in the Netherlands. My work reimagines music through interdisciplinary artistic practices and self-developed technologies. Expanding from my background in cello and composition, I created Knurl, an electroacoustic instrument that merges electronic music, creative programming, and material experimentation.

Through my music works, projects and technologies, 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.

As a Brazilian composer, my trajectory has been shaped by structural challenges related to access, space, and recognition—especially for women composers in the classic music scene of Brazil. These conditions led me to continue my studies abroad, first in Germany and later in the Netherlands, where I completed both my Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees. While this move opened important artistic possibilities, it also introduced new complexities. Living as an immigrant brings its own challenges, particularly in building a sense of belonging and connection within a different cultural context. Although based in the Netherlands, I maintain a regular return to Brazil, where I present audiovisual works with my instrument and seek to remain actively engaged with the local artistic scene. This ongoing exchange highlights both the importance and the difficulty of sustaining an artistic presence across different contexts. These experiences inform my work and reinforce my commitment to creating new paths and systems for artistic production.

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. 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.

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.