CoMA Festival 2026: Verbaaaaatim Renga by Sonic Bothy

CoMA Manchester ensemble perform Verbaaaaatim Renga by Sonic Bothy at CoMA Festival 2026. ‘Verbaaaaatim Renga’ (2025) is a text instruction score for any music ensemble exploring new inclusive ways of making music. 連歌 – ‘Renga’ means ‘linked poem’ in the Japanese language. It is a traditional Japanese collaborative poetry form in which multiple poets take turns writing alternating linked verses, creating a flowing, interconnected poem sequence that shifts in mood, imagery, and season while maintaining a sense of connection. The first poet writes one stanza in one pattern, the second responds with a stanza in another pattern, and passes it on to the third poet, and so on. Each new stanza builds on the previous one, creating a new poem at each step. This collaborative process gives rise to a diverse, extended form of creative poetry with infinite possibilities and reach. ‘Verbaaaaatim Renga' follows this principle as an artistic collaboration between music ensembles and creative audio captioners who transcribe sound and music to text in real time. The captioners contribute artistically, drawing creative and descriptive language/poetry from their own dynamic life experiences. Each ensemble will create a version of this work that is unique to them. Ensembles can adapt and work with the transcripts in any way they like. The possibilities are limited only by imagination, and that’s what makes it interesting. The final transcript can be shared with another ensemble, which will then create its own 'Verbaaaaatim Renga'. The final version of CoMA Manchester’s transcript was passed on to CoMA Glasgow and CoMA London, who premiered their own iterations during CoMA Festival 2026, on 20 March and 29 March respectively. 'Verbaaaaatim Renga' was formed through conversations and participatory workshops with CoMA in 2025, inspired by 'Verbaaaaatim' (2021), a Sonic Bothy digital piece commissioned by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra Tectonics Festival. Filmed by You Films Recorded on 14 March 2026 at Wandering Sequences, part of CoMA Festival 2026.