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– Polish experimental music in Scandinavia is a presentation of the most important achievements of Polish experimental music. The project shows a broad spectrum of Polish electroacoustic improvised, electronic, and contemporary music. Concerts are preceded by lectures about the Polish Radio Experimental Studio – known from 60’s as a one of the important centre for contemporary experimental music in Europe.
27/09 Tokalynga/Teater Albatross
29/09 Copenhagen
01/10 Stockholm/Fylkingen
Sound:
Krzysztof Knittel, Robert Piotrowicz, Gerard Lebik, Piotr Damasiewicz, Martyna Poznańska, Barbara Kinga Majewska
Lecture:
Michał Libera
Collaboration:
Lotte Anker, Josefin Lindebrink, Martin Küchen, Ralf Meinz
Curator :
Zuzanna Fogtt
Gerard Lebik
Program
27/09 Ätran/Teater Albatross
start, g.17.00
Lecture : Michał Libera
Sound : Gerard Lebik, Robert Piotrowicz, TYTO ALBA -Michał Libera, Martin Küchen, Ralf Meinz, Barbara Kinga Majewska
Tokalynga Teaterakademi
Gunnarp 403
310 61 Ätran
29/09 Copenhagen/LiteraturHaus
Møllegade 7
2200 København N
start, g.19.00
Lecture : Michał Libera
Sound: Krzysztof Knittel, Gerard Lebik, Robert Piotrowicz, Piotr Damasiewicz, Lotte Anker
01/10 Stockholm/Fylkingen
start, g.18.30
Lecture : Michał Libera
Sound: Martyna Poznańska, Gerard Lebik, Robert Piotrowicz, Piotr Damasiewicz, Josefin Lindebrink
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Bios
Krzysztof Knittel (born 1 May 1947 in Warsaw) is a Polish composer of symphonic, chamber, stage and electroacoustic works.
Knittel studied sound engineering and composition with Tadeusz Baird, Andrzej Dobrowolski, Wlodzimierz Kotonski at the Frederic Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw.He also studied computer music with Lejaren Hiller and programming at the Mathematical Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences (1974–75).[1] He attended Summer Courses of New Music in Darmstadt in 1974 and 76. He has worked at the Experimental Studio of Polish Radio since 1973 and at the Center for the Creative and Performing Arts at State University of New York at Buffalo in 1978.
He composes symphonic, chamber, stage, electroacoustic and computer works that have been performed in most European countries, Asia, North and South Americas. He took part in many art performances, built sound installations and played in improvised music groups.
Concerts dedicated exclusively to his music were held in Barcelona, Budapest, Cracow, Kromeriz, Leipzig, Moscow, Sao Paulo, Warsaw. Co-founder of the KEW Composers Group (1973-75, with Elisabeth Sikora and Wojciech Michniewski), Cytula Tyfun da Bamba Orchester (1981), the Independent Electroacoustic Music Studio (1982-84), interdisciplinary group Freight Train (existing from 1986 till today), the European Improvisation Orchestra (1996-98), CH&K&K (since 1999, with Marek Choloniewski and Wlodzimierz Kiniorski), Mad Cavaliers (since 2003). Among his honors are the Solidarity Award in Music (1985), Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award (1998), Norwid Price in Music (2003), Polish Composers’ Union Prize (2003). In 2005 he was awarded by Polish Minister of Culture with “Gloria Artis” Silver Medal.
He served as director of the International Festival of Contemporary Music “Warsaw Autumn” (1995-98), president of the Polish Composers’ Union (1999-2003), vice-president of the Polish Music Council (since 2000) and president (since 2005), the member of the Supervisory Board of Polish public television (2003-2006). Director of international Ad Libitum festival of improvised music since 2006. A member of the Programming Board of Zacheta National Gallery (2004-2012). Professor of the Fryderyk Chopin Music University, he teaches also at the music academies in Krakow and Lodz.
Robert Piotrowicz – sound artist, composer, improviser.
He has authored radio dramas, sound installations, and music for theatre productions, and collaborates regularly with other artists on audio-visual performances. As an instrumentalist, Piotrowicz works mainly with his own live performance setup, developed around the electric guitar and analogue modular synthesiser. His music has as much in common with contemporary electro-acoustic compositions as it does with sound art. His concerts feature saturated, detailed musical forms created with analogue synthesizers and computers. He has developed his trademark sound of intense dynamics seized in dramaticand balanced structures.
Gerard Lebik – sound artist, musician living Wroclaw/Poland. Works with improvised, experimental and intermedia music. H’s the author of sound installations and sound interventions in public space. Creates music and sound either by improvisation, musical notation or through directly manipulation of sonic material using electro and acoustic media. Explores the audible phenomena field through various tools and techniques: saxophones, zopan wave generators, air compressors, VHS recorders, video objects, electronics, analog video feedback, software. In 2007 graduated Wroclaw Academy of Music.
Performed with:Phil Minton, David Maranha, Eryck Abecassis, Kazuhisa Uchihashi, Keith Rowe, Clayton Thomas, Satoko Fuji, Brian Labycz, Hernani Faustino, Miguel A Garcia, Gabriel Ferrnandini, Noritaka Tanaka, Bettina Wenzel, hans w koch, Joker Nies, Rodrigo Pinheiro, Christian Marien, Marc Riordan, Sebastian Meissner, Pawel Janicki, Piotr Damasiewicz, Artur Majewski, Kuba Suchar, Ura Hiroyuki, Yamaguchi Jin Lang…
Events: Kunsthale Basel, Mem Bilbao, LulCec Barcelona, V:NM-Festival in Graz, Bienale Zagreb, TodaysArt Festival Hague, Tokyo Jazz, Festival Umbrella Chicago, Musica Electronica Nova, Sibiu Jazz and More, Avant Art, Musica Electronica Nova, Musica Polonica, Survival Art Review, SuperDeluxe-Tokyo, Alte Feuerwache-Cologne, CSW-Warszawa, Galeria Kordegarda, De Werf-Brugge, Pit Inn Shinjuku-Tokyo, Ftarri-Tokyo, Quite Que-Berlin…
http://gerardlebik.blogspot.com/
https://soundcloud.com/gerardlebik
Piotr Damasiewicz – born in Wroclaw, is a composer, trumpeter, multiinstrumentalist, music curator. He founded the (MATA) association which promotes artists looking for alternative solutions in art. Apart from musicians, the association gathers people from the world of fine arts, who are open to a mutual dialogue. One of the more significant achievements in this area was the exibition of his artwork in the Modern Art Gallery BWA in Katowice. For this project, he experimented with space and form in a dialogue with „Pojęciokształty”(„figures of meaning”) by Stanisław Dróżdż. He collaborated as well with the artistic circles of academies of fine arts in Wrocław and Katowice as a co-author of various multimedia projects. He cooperate as a curator in multicultural Festival Art Meeting, and art platform Melting Pot (Wrocław). He reaches down to the language of jazz, moving towards the free jazz ideas, through the European classical music, all the way to the achievements of the new modern music, including the European improvised music, sound art, electroacoustic improvisation, experimental music. He had opportunity to work with Polish-German cooproduction of Avant Art Festival, Gerngesehen and Mex, Europeans musical platforms JazzPlayesEurope 2010, Take Five European Project 2013, European Jazz Network. He took part an international improvised music summit mixing leading players from Styria in Austria with a wide range of top-draw musicians from Wrocław / Poland. He has an opportunity to presents his work in his own projects Power Of The Horns, ImproGraphic, Mnemotaksja, Hadrons, as well as the ones where is a co-author VeNN Circles, Art Escape Quintet, He played with Phil Minton, Lotte Anker, Raymond Strid, Pall Nilssen-Love, Dave Rempis, Michael Zerang, Samuel Blaser, Magda Mayas, Hans Koch, Joker Nies, Bettina Wenzel, Hernani Faustino, Rodrigo Pinheiro, Gabriel Ferrandini, Satoko Fuji, Rodrigo Amado, Kazuhisa Uchihashi.
http://culture.pl/en/artist/piotr-damasiewicz
Martyna Poznańska – is an artist who works with sound, image and performance. Her research focuses upon performative noise reduction, industrial and urban atmospheres (feld recordings practice). In her installations she investigates the themes of remembering and forgetting, growth, decay and transformation.
She studied voice at the Laboratory of Olga Szwajgier and Sound Art at Te University of the Arts London. Currently she’s a student of MA Sound Studies at the University of Te Arts Berlin.
Commissions include Spor Festival 2013 (Dk), AudioArt Festival 2012 (Pl) and dance sound-scores for Te Place (London), Dam Van Huynh Company. She has also shown her works at the ORF Graz (Au), ohrenhoch-der Gerauschladen in Berlin, Deutsche Oper Berlin. In 2013 she was the recipient of a grant from the Polish Ministry of Culture.
She lives and works in Berlin and London.
Zuzanna Fogtt – co-founder of the Foundation for Contemporary Art In Situ, working on the culture field as a manager, producer, curator and creative director. A graduate of Architecture at Warsaw University of Technology. The author of numerous cultural events and festivals: Contexts, Sanatorium of Sound, Hommage à Kieślowski. In 2006- 2009 initiator and curator the Passengers- first international festival for socially engaged art in Warsaw. The curator of many exhibitions mi.n. in 2011, “Wall Heat”. “An Approach to Being”- Darkness, Infinity, Everyday LifeAn exhibition of Polish Contemporary Art in Kioto, Japan.
Michał Libera – sociologist, freelance music producer, curator and writer. He runs a sublabel of conceptual pop called Populista dedicated to mis- and over-interpretation of music, he organizes irregular concert series collaborating with National Art Gallery Zachęta, CCA, Polish National Museum all in Warsaw, Galerie West in The Hague, Satelita in Berlin. He was a curator of a special mention winning Polish Pavilion at 13th Architectural Biennal in Venice. As librettist and DJ collaborates with Alessandro Facchini, Rinus van Alebeek, Komuna// Warszawa, Joanna Halszka Sokołowska, Ralf Meinz and Martin Kuchen. His essays about sound formed a book “Doskonale zwyczajna rzeczywistość” (“Perfectly ordinary reality”) published by Krytyka Polityczna (Political Critique).
Martin Küchen one of the most appreciated and celebrated saxophonist of contemporary music in Europe. His unexpected engagments vary from free jazz to free improvisation to poetry reading accompaniments and sound art interventions. He has composed for larger groups, participated in dance projects, performed with different poets and created the music for experimental films. He now collaborates with improvisors all over the world, including his trio Angels with Ingebrigt Håker- Flaten, Kjell Nordeson, Sound of Mucus – a trio with the stringchordist Herman Müntzing and Andreas Axelsson, percussion, a duo with guitarist David Stackenås, UNSK: Birgit Ulher, Martin Küchen, lise-Lott Norelius and Raymond Strid
Looper – a trio with Greek cello player Nikos Veliotis and Norwegian percussionist Ingar Zach
Ralf Meinz – sound designer and engineer. His main audio engineering skills come from work in Stuttgart’s Zuckerfabrik Theatre. For 8 years, as sound engineer he used to be a core member of a groundbreaking new music ensemble Zeitkratzer performing his own scores conceived for each piece separately. In Zeitkratzer he workd with musicians such as Lou Reed, Sonic Youth, Carsten Nicolai, Merzbow, Zbigniew Karkowski and many others. Followed by that, he was involved in sound design for artists such as Fred Frith, Catherine Christer Hennix, Garth Knox, Chris Cutler, Phil Minton and many others. As sound artist, collaborated with Berkan Karpat for an installation held at Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia and Katarzyna Krakowiak in a honorary mentioned Polish Pavilion at 13th Architecture Biennale in Venice.
Barbara Kinga Majewska – classicaly trained vocalist, graduate of Music University in Detmold, Germany and Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm is at the moment the most wanted singer in contemporary music in Poland, working recently with such composers as Paweł Mykietyn (“Magic Mountain” opera), Aleksandra Gryka, Andrzej Kwieciński and Wojtek Blecharz.
TYTO ALBA
Sound art performance
about melancholics, birds and their co-hearing
Michał Libera, concept, composition, reading
Martin Küchen, saxophone
Ralf Meinz, sound design
Barbara Kinga Majewska, voice
Produced by Baltic Art Centre in Visby (Sweden), co-produced by Centro Sperimentale di Arte Contemporanea in Ricadi (Italy), developed with a support from The Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of Poland (Młoda Polska stipend).
The notion of MELANCHOLIA covers a vast semantic territory from art history to global politics to most intimate and idiosyncratic psycho-geographies. It tends to become more vibrant in times of transition, even if only imaginary, and it is far from coincidence that last decades witnessed such rises of interest as in cases of „Rings of Saturn” by W.G. Sebald, „Melancholy: Genius and Madness in Art” exhibition in Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin or world awards winning „Melancholia” by Lars von Trier.
The visual and conceptual realms of MELANCHOLIA are well rooted in our collective representations. Yet until now, it has never been a subject of a thorough audio-analysis. „Tyto Alba” is a unique inquiry into sounds of MELANCHOLIA. More than that, it shows that it is an inevitably aural phenomena, which only through sound can reveal some of its features.
TYTO ALBA has been conceived as a theoretical research and a recording studio experiment which resulted in a sound essay published by a leading contemporary music label, Bôłt Records. Blurring the edges between sound genres it is at the same time hörspiel and reading; piece of electroacoustic music as well as plunderphonics; an attempt at sound portraits or simply a collection of songs. All in all, it remains a sonic take on melancholia. But forget weepy piano music and sad boy’s songs. The sound of melancholia is extreme and obsessive. It is painful and pleasureable. Apathy and self-dismissal come not from weary music but from sonic hallucinations, acousmatic sounds and alien voices arriving at a special mode of hearing.
In one of the footnotes in his essay „Stanzas”, Giorgio Agamben points out that the well known melancholic posture of a man leaning his head against the hand is actually an attempt to get away from suffering of his ringing ear. This observation is the main coordinate of the piece’s development. It departs from melancholic listening which turns women into birds. It is depicted in the opening chapter of W.G. Sebald’s „Rings of Saturn”. From there on, the voice imperceptibly meanders between reading, commenting, quoting and misleading the tale – an interpretation of the Sebald’s initial intuitions. Narration wriggles from Auguste Rodin to Bedřich Smetana, from Georges Perec to Alvin Lucier. Their music and words are accompanied by hundreds of found footage samples bringing together laryngological patients, paranormal voices, death rattles, monaural beats, tinnitus sounds but most of all birds, in particular barn owls. They are all mirrored by saxophone playing by the one and only – Martin Küchen.
Live performance of Tyto Alba is a unique, overwhelming and immersive seance in which all the aforementioned sounds merge and collide to form an audio phantasy of melancholic listening, a room-full of sound in which a listener loses a sense of space – designed by one of the greatest sound engineer in Europe, Ralf Meinz.
Michał Libera Lecture
Over the last two decades, the renessaince of polish experimental and avantgarde music, its own history related mostly to 60. and 70. was forgotten. Most of the recent trends in contemporary music in Poland started from a scratch, in a way out of nowhere, as if the only reference points were history books of Western Music which neglected its Central-European heritage, including Poland. The presentation aims at covering this blind spot as well facing the question what is experimental music today, after more than 50 years after its establishing. The focus of the lecture will be the most important phenomena in experimental music of the region with special emphasis on visual / audio art and Polish Radio Experimental Studio, one of its most important institutions.
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