Juan Posada Abal, ’26
Major: Ethnomusicology and data science
Project title: “Oubliette”
The idea for Juan Posada Abal’s research project came from a trip to the basement of the School of Music.
There, he saw the more than 400 instruments that the Ethnomusicology Instrument Collection had amassed over the years. When the University hosts a guest artist, they often purchase instruments for those visitors to use when they perform. Once they leave, the University stores the instruments for later use, but sometimes, it can take years before they are needed again.
Many of these instruments then sit untouched and falling out of tune.
Posada Abal wanted to hear what these instruments sounded like. He started recording instruments like the Zimbabwean mbira, the Mexican requinto, the guzheng. He asked his friends and musicians in the community to play them, and he incorporated the sounds of the basement, like door hinges or ambient noise, to create a composition. Slowly, his project came to life and he gave it the title: “Oubliette,” which is an old French dungeon. The word comes from the verb that means “to forget.”
“Forces, nature, spaces have agency,” he said. “Many often think it’s neglect that changed these instruments, not nature. This piece is my comment on that.”
Through this process, he learned how to better communicate with an instrument and how to use a room and the surrounding space as part of the recording. It’s work that he hopes more students replicate in the future.
“Thinking about the methodology of the work, even if it’s happening within the performing arts and not the classical sciences, is really important,” Posada Abal said. “It’ll be cool to see if people do a similar project in the future.”
The Symposium helped turn what was once an abstract idea into an actual research project with a clear focus, Posada Abal said.
“This was a really good process of feeling sometimes existentially challenged, like I was never going to get this all done, to actually putting it all together in a presentation,” he said. “It didn’t have to be this massive write-up or crazy documentary. It could just be as simple as, ‘Let me invite my friend over, record something and have a good time.’”
About the Symposium
This undergraduate research project was presented in the 29th Annual Undergraduate Research Symposium on May 15, 2026. The Symposium is one of several opportunities UW undergraduates have to engage in the transformative experiences research provides. It’s produced by the Office of Undergraduate Research and is one of the many ways the Office connects undergraduates to the UW’s research ecosystem.