• Q3A edition 2019

Q 3 A • 2 0 1 9

FRIDAY 12 APRIL 2019

Doors 19:30 – Concerts 20:00-22:30

Oriel Quartett

Clemens Christian Pötzsch

AVA

Lavalu

Simon Goff

Tobias Lichtmann (DJ)

SATURDAY 13 APRIL 2019

Doors 18:30 • Concerts 19:00-22:00

Aidan Baker

F.S. Blumm & Marc Marcovic

Snowdrops

Poppy Ackroyd

CEEYS

Tobias Lichtmann (DJ)

SUNDAY 14 APRIL 2019

Doors 16:30 • Concerts 17:00-20:00

Kinbrae

Steve Luck

Pianofield

Jakob Lindhagen & Vargkvint

Simeon Walker

Diane Barbé

Tobias Lichtmann (DJ)

G A L L E R Y

ORIEL QUARTETT

The Oriel Quartett believes that music is exchange. Its members’ mission is to expand the horizons of quartet-playing through collaboration, experimentation and innovation. This wide-reaching inquiry has led to an array of enriching artistic combinations, winning the hearts of novice concert-goers and seasoned musos alike.

After springing to life at the Royal College of Music in London, the quartet put down substantial roots in Berlin in 2010. Here, notwithstanding having previously enjoyed a variety of grand venues like the National Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum, the quartet embraced the grit of Berlin, favouring ruins, building sites, clubs and all-but-abandoned churches for its interdisciplinary events.

In these eclectic settings they play Byrd, Cage, Mozart, Muhly, Purcell, Pärt, Vivaldi, Vasks, Reich, Riley and an array of pop, jazz, tango and rock. They are inclined to mix the very old with the new.

CLEMENS C. PÖTZSCH

After the acclaimed release of his debut solo album “Menschen und Orte” (People and Places), Clemens Christian Pötzsch now presents excerpts of his new program. At solo concerts in Japan and England, the band “Masaa” has expanded the pianist and composer’s sound universe – in addition to piano sounds, there are also some electronic elements and field recordings that create images of great power and depth.

Musically, the young Leipziger hovers between Chilly Gonzales, Keith Jarret and Ludovico Einaudi. He creates incredibly touching-poetic piano pieces full of power and depth. His new album “Remember Tomorrow” will be released in 2019 at the Berlin label “Neue Meister”.

AVA

AVA is a cinematic composer duo led by Anna Phoebe and Aisling Brouwer. Their first two EP’s, Waves and In Motion, released in the first half of 2018, received outstanding reviews and got radio play on BBC 6 (Mary Anne Hobbs), BBC 3 (Elizabeth Alker), BBC London (Nikki Bedi), as well as stations in Germany, Canada, and Ireland.

The two composers started writing together in 2016, combining backgrounds which result in haunting electronic soundscapes with violin and piano at the heart of it.

London-based Anna is a renowned violinist and performer, who has toured the world with artists such as Roxy Music, Oi Va Voi, Jethro Tull, Jon Lord, Trans- Siberian Orchestra, and is currently working with Nitin Sawhney. She has performed on the top international stages including arenas across the USA, the Royal Albert Hall, RFH, Glastonbury, and Sonar Festival.

Aisling is a Berlin-based ambient classical producer and pianist, with an extensive background in film & tv that has seen her music featured at the Sundance, Tribeca, and Berlinale Film Festivals as well as various shows on primetime tv.

LAVALU

As an artist LAVALU scratches the back of classical music while poking the fires of pop. She recently wrote and recorded a contemporary song cycle, inspired by composers such as Schubert and Debussy.

“Piano. Voice. Honest and bare.”

Lyrics that can be read as stories about blunt desire. She’s a contemporary romantic. ‘Solitary High’ is her finest work to date. She has succeeded in developing a style in which influences of the great singer-songwriters and composers can be heard, combined. This is today’s chamber music.

SIMON GOFF

‘Bittersweet string-based drones’ – The Wire

Simon Goff is a British multi-instrumentalist and composer currently based between Berlin, DE and Yorkshire, UK. A multi-genre musician, classically trained as a violinist, he has worked with artists creating string arrangements, sound installations and interactive live dance performances. In his own music he focuses on string instruments and electronic processing to create atmospheric textures that move and evolve over long durations.

He performs extensively throughout Europe with a diverse range of bands and ensembles including Aidan Baker (Alien8, Gizeh), Andrea Belfi (Miasmah, Constellation), Bee and Flower (Neurot), Molecular (members of Swans, Enablers), Paul Watson (Sparklehorse, Orthatonics), Peter Broderick (Erased Tapes) Thor Harris (Swans, Thor and Friends) and more.

Simon Goff is an assistant engineer at Vox-Ton studios in Berlin working with Francesco Donadello on projects with the likes of Johann Johannsson, Dustin O’Halleron, Hauschka and Erased Tapes Records.

TOBIAS LICHTMANN (DJ)

Tobias Lichtmann makes music, creates events, DJs and teaches.

“I soundtrack the difference between what you get and what you feel you should have gotten: Therefore, my music sounds ∆ (say: Delta). It soundtracks the difference between reality and your wishful thinking. Gloomy moods trigger technoid to industrial tunes. With sunshine on my mind, the tracks turn out to be laid back and loungy.”

AIDAN BAKER

Aidan Baker is a classically-trained multi-instrumentalist using the electric guitar as his primary instrument. Using prepared and alternate methods of playing the guitar, along with various electronic effects, Baker creates music which generally falls within the ambient/experimental genre but draws on in uences from post-rock, shoegaze, electronica, neo-classical, and jazz.

A highly prolific artist, Baker has released numerous recorded works, both solo and with various group projects—most notably his dreamsludge duo project, Nadja, and including collaborations with Tim Hecker, Carla Bozulich, e Jesus Lizard’s Mac McNeilly, among others—on such independent labels as Gizeh Records, Important Records, Alien8 Recordings, and his own imprint, Broken Spine Productions. A frequent live performer, Baker has toured extensively around the world, including appearances at such international festivals as FIMAV, SXSW, Incubate, Unsound, and Mutek, to name a few.

Originally from Toronto, Canada, Baker currently resides in Berlin, Germany.

F.S. Blumm & Marc Marcovic

F.S.Blumm (born ’68) was trained in classical guitar in Bremen and completed his studies in 1996 (art & music LA) with the theme ‘Interdisciplinary Art Flows and Fluxus’. Since then he works in Berlin as a musician and composer (including collaborations with Nils Frahm and David Grubbs). He also creates radio drama and has released materials with labels like Morr-Music, Dust Gold, Sonic Pieces, Pingipung, etc. His radio plays have been broadcast across the world and performed live Stefan with Kaminski, Christian Berner and Britta Steffenhagen. F.S.Blumm has toured internationally in Canada, USA, Mexico, Japan, India, Bangladesh and across Europe.

Marc Marcovic sees himself as the son of endogenous, musical illusionism –an avowed wanderer between the worlds. In the traditional line of autohypnotists, every once in a while he breaks a lance for improvisation as the highest form of art. Through the acoustic genre, he masters the one-tone zen guitar and immediately sings all the languages that do not exist. Connoisseurs of the scene call him “the singing misunderstanding”, perhaps partly because of contradictory outward appearance. As a partner in the spirit, Marc the master of noises finds at his side F.S. Blumm.

SOMA

SOMA was established by Vlad Kreimer, a radio engineer and a musician who lived in Donetsk, Ukraine, and later moved to Moscow, Russia, after war broke out in the city.
Earlier Vlad made high grade studio and audiophile equipment, as well as created unusual synthesizers and music equipment for his music project.
After the demo for LYRA sparked the interest of the synthesizer community, he has decided to start massive production of these synthesizers. This is his first experience with mass production and many things need to be learned from from scratch.
The philosophy behind the instrument was met with support and understanding by the musicians, which motivates to further create a line of electronic music instruments based on similar ideas and approaches.

SNOWDROPS

SNOWDROPS brings together the composer and Ondes Martenot virtuoso Christine Ott and multi-instrumentalist Mathieu Gabry. “When, in 1928, Maurice Martenot creates for the first time the ‘Ondes’ that are to make him famous, he does not suspect that 80 years later, a small red-haired smuggler will strive to cross borders to his invention, ancestor of synthesizer.” (Les Inrockuptibles). Christine Ott has published two albums: Solitude Nomade in 2009 and Only Silence Remains in 2016. She also collaborated with Yann Tiersen, Tindersticks or Radiohead.

Lighting designer during the day and musician at night (or vice versa), Mathieu Gabry is working the «light matter» and the «sound matter» by the same way. Following his meeting with Christine Ott in 2014, they formed the SNOWDROPS duo to create music together for theatrical plays, film concerts, and forms of «immersive» concerts with a cinematographic and visual dimension, each adapted to different venues and festivals (such as the ‘Opéra de Lyon’ or the Archaeological Crypt of Paris). They composed in 2018 the original score for the movie ‘Manta Ray’ by Phuttiphong Aroonpheng, which received the Orizzonti Best Movie Award at Venice Film Festival.

POPPY ACKROYD

Post-classical artist Poppy Ackroyd released her first full-length album, Resolve, with Björk’s One Little Indian Records. A classically trained pianist, violinist, producer, and composer, Ackroyd turned heads in the neo-classical world with her previous works Escapement and Feathers, as well as her involvement in Hidden Orchestra (Tru Thoughts).

“Clicking, whirring, and lots of other onomatapoeia-ing goes on as soft piano and somber violin trace an intricate emotional arc.”
 – Spin

Having played alongside giants of the genre, Hauschka and Nils Frahm, the unique musician has returned, newly signed to Bjork’s label One Little Indian Records, fresh off the back of a mini-album Sketches, and set to release her brand new self-produced full-length record – her most ambitious and progressive piece of work to date.

Through studying contemporary classical piano works and listening to electronic music, Ackroyd quickly developed her signature compositional style on previous albums, using contemporary pianistic ideas whilst also inhabiting the world of sound beyond the keyboard, using extended techniques to ‘play’ other parts of the instruments as well. The artist works by recording improvised contemporary classical piano motifs and then rearranging and manipulating these sounds digitally. The result is a fantastic fusion of acoustic and electronic in a post-classical setting.

 

CEEYS

‘Hybrid’ is a word that’s always been vital to CEEYS’ vocabulary, but its application isn’t limited to the manner in which cellist Sebastian Selke and his brother, pianist Daniel Selke, combine their two instruments so harmoniously. Instead, like the duo’s very name – which merges the words ‘violoncelle’ (cello) and ‘keys’ –  it’s reflective of their overall aesthetic, one in which they integrate the many ingredients that have helped shape them as both musicians and people.

For the Selkes, the idea of bridging divides resonates in a particularly powerful fashion: the two brothers, now based in Potsdam, grew up in East Berlin during the final decade of the German Democratic Republic. CS’ award-winning work is provoked by their urge to explore recollections of their youth, both before and after the fall of the regime, and to apply those lessons and influences to contemporary music.

KINBRAE

Kinbrae is the musical project of twin brothers Andrew & Michael Truscott, based in Edinburgh and Dundee, Scotland. Kinbrae play a mixture of brass, acoustic guitar, percussion and musique concrete to create a uniquely experimental yet accessible form of ambient, classical music. They have shared the stage with a number of notable acts such as Hauschka, Noveller, Lubomyr Melnyk and Ben Chatwin.

In November 2016 the band released their debut studio album ‘Tidal Patterns’ on 1631 Recordings, an album that explores remoteness, seclusion and the feelings that these can invoke. This was then followed by a collaboration with Tony Dekker of Canadian band Great Lake Swimmers as part of artist Gregory Euclide’s THESIS Project.

The brothers are currently working on their next album with the aim of releasing this towards the end of 2018.

CHIKISS

Galina Ozeran aka Chikiss is a singer-songwriter, composer, producer, pianist, dj. Born in Vitebsk, Belarus, spending 15 years in St.-Petersburg and now based in Berlin since 2015. Having released her first album in 2010, Galina Ozeran has created numerous wide-ranging projects, from contemporary piano and electro-acoustic pieces to nostalgic synth-pop songs, noise-rock and spectral electronic avant-music – all as a solo artist and in collaboration with others.

As a child of soviet era sci-fi, Chikiss tinted by the faded glory of suggested futures that never came to be. Her performance draws on nostalgic futurism, both brand new and nodding to obscure numbers by long forgotten, and little known internationally soviet acts. Armed with encyclopediac knowledge of early synth recordings, depicting mischievous romantic mechanical dreams brought into life by analogue machines.

https://chikissecrets.bandcamp.com/

PIANOFIELD

Pianofield’ is a collaboration between composer/pianist Frances Shelley and hardware/software engineer and sound artist Matthew Bickerton.  

 Whether creating their own alluring, ethereal landscape or collaborating electronically with the precise movements of trees via wi fi in Rio de Janeiro, Pianofield blend music and technology to hypnotic effect.  Sultry, slow-burning passages give way to rhythmic crescendo and delicate flights.  Frances’ lilting piano melodies, at once familiar and mysterious, dissolve in and out of stark minimalism as they converse with Matthew’s vast original soundscapes.  

Committed to environmentalism, they enjoy exploring the connection between the the landscape and the artist and communing with the elements, from earth, sea, sky, thunder, and rain to gravity and the movement of trees.  

“Walls of earthy electronic sound over which soars delicate piano led melody…”

SERGIO DÍAZ DE ROJAS

Having studied classical music on piano since the age of 11, Peruvian composer Sergio Díaz De Rojas later started composing his own music, inspired by the works of contemporary composers and popular musicians. Back in 2015, he released his debut album Unsaid Words, a multidisciplinary project that included spoken word, a series of music videos, and illustrations. Continuing on his path of self-expression, he later released an EP called The Morning is a River in collaboration with German visual artist Seraphina Theresa, once again allowing for the project to take on several different art-forms: the four minimal piano pieces are accompanied by a short film and a photo series, and was released with a sold-out cassette edition. 


Despite having explored and expressed himself through different formats, it wasn’t until September 2018 that Díaz De Rojas felt he started to really find his voice as a composer – after various failed attempts he started working on another full-length record, truly searching for and expressing honesty and transparency: “I feel that, for the first time, I have developed an actual relationship with my instrument”, he says, “…taking the time to explore it, understand it, and use it in the way I want.”

JAKOB LINDHAGEN & VARGKVINT

Swedish musicians Jakob Lindhagen and Sofia ”Vargkvint” Nystrand have recently made names for themselves within the modern classical world – Jakob as film music composer, to i.e Cannes-competing ”Push it” and Prix Europa-nominated ”Skörheten” (Fragility) and with solo album ”Paces”, released in 2017 by contemporary classical label 1631 Recordings. Vargkvint originally self-released her debut-EP ”Brus” in 2016, and had it reissued by French label Soft Recordings in 2017. Both acts focus on combining evocative melodies with inventive instrument usage.

SIMEON WALKER

Following a decade working as a musician, UK-based pianist & composer Simeon Walker has quickly emerged as a leading light in the burgeoning Modern Classical scene in his own right, following the release of his EP Preface (2016) and his debut full length album Mono (2017). On the back of this, he has completed a successful 8-date European Tour, been featured with airplay across BBC Radio 3, 6 Music & the World Service, and performed at Latitude Festival, all whilst collaborating with other musicians and artists and working on a follow up album.

With three consecutive official Piano Day playlist features and numerous glowing reviews from across the music world, Walker’s calm, introspective piano instrumentals invite the listener to find stillness and beauty as much in the spaces between the notes as the notes themselves, as musical stories are woven with each tender, intimate performance.

“A tender-hearted collection of thoughtfully composed pieces in slow bloom and wrapped in hushed intimacy” – Stationary Travels

DIANE BARBÉ

Diane is a sound artist and researcher based in Berlin. With a classical training in traverse flute and violin in French conservatories, she soon began to experiment with electronic instruments and field recordings to widen the narrative possibilities of her practice. The key, for her, is to delve deeper into the realm of sound –beyond our hearing range, beyond acoustic waves– to create music as a meditative, environmental  experience.

Diane currently works as a recordist for documentaries and is finished a degree in Sound Studies at the University of Arts in Berlin (UdK). Until its closure in 2019, she hosted the feminist music and political talk show Hystereo on Berlin Community Radio. Diane has performed live in festivals and sleep concerts across Europe and the US, with a particular predilection for outdoor settings where “sound trap” microphones complement her setup. She released a cassette of live performances called The River by the Tree with the experimental label Jungle Gym in early 2019.