Joao Orecchia

João Renato Orecchia Zúñiga was born in Brooklyn, NY to a Peruvian mother and an Italian father. He grew up in the city’s mixed immigrant communities, in all their contradictory beauty, displacement and unsettledness. With a strong connection to an elusive somewhere-else, Orecchia had always been drawn towards unfamiliar territory.

While living in London in the 1990’s, Orecchia picked up the guitar and later in Berlin in the early 2000’s, played in dozens of bands and began composing for dance, theatre, film and solo releases throughout the Berlin underground. He began to experiment with electronics while continuing to explore the outer reaches of the sonic capabilities of the guitar.

In 2005, Orecchia relocated to Johannesburg. Plugging into the underground music and visual arts scenes, the city provided an endless source of inspiration and wonderful confusion. Orecchia has carved a space for himself that sits comfortably between these seemingly incongruous spaces, working with Afrorock group BLK JKS, Thandiswa Mazwai, classical and new music pianist Jill Richards and Lukas Ligeti to name a few as well as world renowned visual artists such as William Kentridge and Kudzanai Chiurai.

Orecchia participates in gallery and museum exhibitions with installation, video, drawing and printmaking. Orecchia has received a South African Film & Television Award for sound design and has published in the Leonardo Music Journal and the Oxford Handbook of Sound Studies.