YUDÉ RYUJI ZAMPRONIO
Yudé Ryuji Zampronio, a multi-instrumentalist, sound designer, and music producer. She has been studying music since she was 5 years old, learning to play wind, string, keyboard, and percussion instruments. She does not have any musicians in her family or anyone who works in the creative industry; nevertheless, her parents supported her from an early age because of her great interest in music. She had several different music theory and instrument teachers throughout her life, which gave her the opportunity to experience a wide range of different approaches to music.
When the time came to choose a professional path, she didn't believe in her ability to have a successful career in music, and she didn’t know that sound design existed as a field, since this type of degree did not exist in her country. The first course with this approach was created only in 2022. Therefore, she pursued a Pedagogy Bachelor's degree, aiming to work in education, which still allowed her to remain connected to music.
From 2013 to 2019, she had to forge her own path, pursuing professional courses and learning on her own while studying pedagogy and working in education at the NGO Mirante Cultural, where she was a cofounder and music teacher. During this period, she was involved in several music bands, in which she participated as a musician playing acoustic guitar, electric bass, alto sax, accordion, keyboard, voice, percussion, and virtual instruments using DAWs such as Pro Tools and Ableton Live. These groups performed different genres of music such as Reggae, Rock, Forró, Funk, Samba, Soul, and MPB. Over these years, she began using DAWs to produce music for these bands, which led her to study audio and digital processing, opening up a whole new world of possibilities in sound manipulation and creation. She also started musical groups and performances focused on experimental electroacoustic and electronic music (House, Techno, Dub, Drum ’n’ Bass, and more).
In 2019, she obtained her degree in Pedagogy from the Faculty of Education of the University of São Paulo (FEUSP). She began working as a kindergarten teacher while finally having time to take courses related to sound design. She completed a 2-year vocational course in Sound Design at the SP School of Theater, a 6-month course in Sound for TV and Cinema at the Audiovisual International Academy (AIC), and the “Training for Music Teachers” program at EMESP. She also took short courses in specific topics such as RF Systems at Instituto de Audio Visual (IAV); electronics applied to audio and amplifiers in the WRkits online courses; and “Making Music with Arduino” by Gustavo Silveira, where she studied programming in C++ to develop custom MIDI controllers.
Since 2018, she has discovered the power and importance of sound when combined with other languages, such as theater, performance, and visual media. Her first sound art work, “Me? Here? Where?”, was an interactive audiovisual installation that involved the body, vision, hearing, and touch. Since then, she has had the opportunity to work on several audiovisual projects creating soundtracks, sound effects, and foley. What fascinated her most was the realization that she didn't have to follow musical metrics and patterns; she could have more freedom to use different sounds to compose, tell a story, or create sensations.
Although she has been fascinated by video games since childhood, it is an area relatively new to her due to its technical implementation aspects. However, she is deeply interested in the nonlinear compositional nature of games and the endless possibilities of creating interactions between sounds and people.
She has a strong emotional connection with sound; it is both her refuge and her motivation. She aims to create exciting, intriguing, and bold sounds. In the long run, her goal is to work as a sound designer for visual media and to develop her own artistic work in sound art, creating interactive sound installations.
Today, she is finishing her Master`s degree in Music Production for the Entreteiment Industry at ENTI-UB (University of Barcelona), she works as freelance sound designer and music producer at Correnteza Records. She's currently seeking new opportunities in her sound design career, and she believes that the next step for her is to build a strong professional community. She has much to learn, but also much to share.