SoundOut 2020 Artist Bios
Achim Kaufmann: piano, Germany
Achim Kaufmann was born into a musical family in Aachen, Germany,
in 1962, and became fascinated by jazz and the possibilities of improvisation
as a teenager. He started writing tunes around that time. Later he studied
music at the Conservatory in Cologne and also took classes with creative
masters such as Dave Holland, Steve Coleman, Muhal Richard Abrams, George
Lewis, and Steve Lacy. From 1996 to
2009, he lived in Amsterdam where he became part of that city’s internationally
renowned improvised music scene. Since
2002, he has been touring internationally with the trio Kaufmann/Gratkowski/de
Joode, an improvising unit which has released four CDs so far, to much critical
acclaim. In the late ‘90s and ‘00s,
Achim led two groups with reed player Michael Moore: trio kamosc and gueuledeloup
quartet. In 2007, he recorded kyrill,
a set of compositions for piano trio featuring Valdi Kolli and Jim Black. Their
follow-up cd, entitled verivyr, was released in 2011. He has also collaborated with his wife,
poet/painter Gabriele Guenther, on the audiodrama Borderline – From the
Shadows of a Journey, and has written music for various chamber
ensembles. In his solo work, mixed
techniques are used to create a fluctuating world of sounds and gestures.
Resonance and reverberation, space and density play an important role in both
his solo and ensemble work. Since his
move to Berlin, he got involved in various new projects, such as the trio grünen
with Robert Landfermann and Christian Lillinger, Oni Kramler (with
Matthias Schubert, Antonio Borghini, and various guests), and a trio with
cellist Okkyung Lee and trumpeter Axel Dörner.
In 2013, the sextet SKEIN (Kaufmann/Gratkowski/de Joode plus
Richard Barrett, Okkyung Lee, and Tony Buck) had its premiere at the dOeK
festival in Amsterdam and subsequently recorded for SWR radio. He recently released duo albums with
long-standing collaborators Michael Moore and Thomas Heberer. In addition, Achim has played and/or recorded
with Han Bennink, Mark Dresser, George Lewis, Steve Swallow, Tobias
Delius, Wolter Wierbos, Mark Helias, Paul Rutherford, Thomas Lehn, Ab Baars,
Paul Lovens, Dylan van der Schyff, Peggy Lee, Chris Speed, Tomász Stanko, Gerd
Dudek, Bill Elgart, Paul Lytton, Harri Sjöström, Andrea Parkins, Harris
Eisenstadt, Ingrid Laubrock, Tristan Honsinger, Shelley Hirsch, Steve Swell,
Thomas Heberer, Urs Leimgruber, Roger Turner, Fay Victor, Fred Lonberg-Holm,
John Hollenbeck, Bob Brookmeyer, Simon Nabatov, Lê Quan Ninh, Gerry Hemingway,
John Hébert, Al Foster, Adam Nussbaum, and many more. He was awarded the German SWR Jazz Award in
2001, and the prestigious Albert Mangelsdorff award in 2015. “For many
years, Achim Kaufmann has been one of the most inspiring and exciting
personalities of the European jazz and improvisation scene. His music bears
witness to great harmonic subtlety and structural depth. A brilliant pianist
and composer, his reflected exploration of tradition has led him to a nuanced,
contemporary sound language that encompasses poetry, energy and abstraction in
equal measure.” http://www.achimkaufmann.com/ https://youtu.be/5wg1MfS4V4M
Alexandra
Spence: electronics and objects, Sydney
Alexandra
Spence is an artist and musician from Sydney, Australia. She makes
performances, compositions, and installations based on (everyday) sound and
listening. Through her practice she reimagines the intricate relationships
between the listener, the object, and the surrounding environment as a kind of
communion or conversation. Her aesthetic favours field recordings, analog
technologies and object interventions. Alex
has performed and presented work worldwide, including the Vancouver Art
Gallery; Late Junction on BBC Radio 3; SoundCamp Festival, London; Ausland,
Berlin; Musée Guimet, Paris; Centre for Contemporary Art, Glasgow; Contemporary
Musiking Hong Kong's Sound Forms Festival, HK; Ftarri, Tokyo; Metro Arts
Gallery, Brisbane; Museum of Contemporary Art ARTBAR, Firstdraft Gallery,
Liveworks Festival with Liquid Architecture, and Open Frame Festival
(forthcoming) in Sydney. Her 2019 debut album Waking, She Heard The Fluttering,
released on Room40, received critical acclaim in The Wire Magazine and The Quietus,
and she has a new EP out now on Longform Editions. http://alexandraspence.net/
Alister
Spence: piano, Sydney
Pianist and composer
Alister Spence has established a reputation as a pre-eminent creative force in
jazz and improvised music in Australia. The Alister Spence Trio has enjoyed
critical acclaim, being nominated twice for Best Australian Jazz Album at the
ARIA Awards (2004/2007). Their 7th release, Not Everything but Enough was voted in ‘Top 10 Jazz Albums 2017’ in
Music Magazine, Japan, and received ‘Honorary Mention, Best of 2017’ in the New
York City Jazz Record. Alister has also
established creative collaborative relationships with internationally
recognised improvisers in Japan, Scotland, Sweden, and the US. Since 2008 he
has toured and performed with acclaimed Japanese pianist/composer, Satoko Fujii
in Japan, Australia, the US and Canada. In 2018 they released three CDs
together, including Bright Force (Libra Records), which was described as
‘awe-inspiring music’ 4.5 stars (allaboutjazz.com). Alister has also recorded
and toured for many years in Europe, Australia and Japan, with Raymond
MacDonald (saxophone, Glasgow). They have released two improvised music albums
as a duo, and three as ‘Sensaround,’ an electro-acoustic open-improvisation
trio which includes guitarist/electronic musician Sia Ahmad. In 2014 Alister’s
improvised piano-duo album, Everything Here is Possible with US pianist
Myra Melford received an APRA/AMCOS Art Music Award, and his improvised music
trio with Swedish musicians Joe Williamson and Christopher Cantillo was
nominated for the same award in 2015. ‘This is the sound of genuine
discovery, founded upon decades of experience but unfettered by habit.’ Bill Meyer, Dusted Magazine, US (review
of intelsat: Spence/Fujii)
‘Spence has that priceless gift of always leaving you wanting more.’ Jazzwise Magazine, UK
Amanda Stewart: sound performance artist, Sydney
Amanda is a poet, writer and performer who lives in Sydney. Since the late seventies she has created and
presented a variety of poetic works, performances, radio and multimedia works
in Australia, Japan, USA and Europe. In 1989, together with Jim Denley, Chris
Mann, Rik Rue and Stevie Wishart, she cofounded Machine for Making Sense, with
whom she continues to collaborate. Also,
in 1995, she founded the trio Allos with Anne la Berge and Jim Meneses.
Besides, Stewart has worked with musicians, dancers and other artists and is
the author of the opera ìthe sinking of the rainbow Warriorî along with the
composer Colin Bright. Stewart works
mainly as a soloist and has performed in a diversity of poetry, new music and Intermedia
festivals including the Sydney Biennale, Ars Electronica (Linz, Austria), poetry
international (Rotterdam, Netherlands), the Geneva festival (Switzerland), Polysonnerie
(Lyon, France), Donaueschingen Musiktage (Germany) and ten years of Soho
festival (new york). her book and cd set of selected poems written between 1980
and 1996 was a finalist in the national digital media awards and won the Anne Elder
poetry prize at the national literary awards, Australia, in 1999. since 1995 she
has divided her time between Sydney and Europe. in 2003 she was elected a
fellow of Stiftung Kulturfonds, Germany, and she is currently working on
several new co-joint projects and on her next collection of poetry. On stage,
she is one of the most powerful and accomplished Australian poets and this will
be her first appearance in Barcelona. Recently she has become part of the new
trio “180 degrees” with Jim Denley and Nick Ashwood with their album Sub Mental
just released. https://splitrec.bandcamp.com/album/submental
Annette Krebs: Konstruktion #4 , Germany
Since 2013, Annette Krebs has developed and recorded instrumental
assemblages of highly amplified metals, strings, objects and microphones. These
assemblages "Construction # 1" to "Construction # 4" were
originally born out of the need to realize sound visions that could not be
played with traditional instruments and setups. Like microscopes, microphones
make the finest, otherwise inaudible sound shades and colors of the sound
objects audible. The construction series combines analogue and digital
techniques and playing styles. The signals of the manually played sound objects
are controlled via tablets, transformed and similar to different colors that
flow into each other, mix together or stand side by side, musically collaged.
The course of time, of stagnant, flowing, frozen time, is explored within the
series and sculpturally processed. Annette Krebs was born in Saarland and lives
since 1993 in Berlin. Since childhood she plays numerous instruments and is
engaged in visual arts. She completed her music studies at the HfMDK in
Frankfurt am Main. Before she began developing the series Construction, she
gradually deconstructed her original instrument guitar. She was portrayed in
2002 in the magazine "The Wire- Adventures in modern music" (UK) with
her first solo CD "guitar solo" ("Fringes Recordings", IT).
Their last guitar composition "rush", an acoustic collage that
reduces the sounds of the guitar to a final cockroach and cracking, appeared in
2014 on the label "Another Timbre - The Berlin Series no.2" (UK). Annette Krebs performs as a soloist and in
various ensembles worldwide at concerts and festivals (including "100
Years of Bauhaus-The Opening Festival", "Donaueschinger
Musiktage", "Heroines Of Sound Festival", "Contacts -
Biennale for Electroacoustic Music and Sound Art"). Her music has received numerous grants (including
"Senate Department for Culture and Europe", Berlin,
"Goethe-Institut", "Cité Internationale des Arts Paris",
"Academy of Arts", Berlin, "EMS Elektronmusik Studion",
Stockholm) and presented on the radio and in the press (eg
"Positions-Texte zur aktuelle Musik", "Deutschlandradio
Kultur", "WDR-3", "BR Klassik"). In addition to her artistic work, she teaches
her techniques and helps others to develop their musical expression. https://www.annettekrebs.eu/
Arthur Bull: guitarist, Canada
Guitarist Arthur Bull
has been active on the Canadian free improvisation scene since the ‘70s. Much
like his compatriot, pianist Al Neil, or the
British guitarist Roger Smith, he has kept a low profile and has remained
cruelly under-documented. His playing draws inspiration in Derek Bailey's
musical vocabulary, with maybe a hint of folk or American roots music in the
phrasing. Bull
is also a poet, with three collections published in Canada and a translator
from Chinese to English. In the early 2000s he was earning a living developing
local resource management programs for fishing communities in Nova Scotia,
Canada. Bull's music
career starts in Toronto where he was living when American free jazz and
European Free Improvisation began to stir interest in Canadian musicians. He
took an active part in the communities of artists active in the '70s and '80s,
playing with the CCMC
-- Toronto's longest-running free improv group -- Michael Snow,
the Bill Smith Ensemble, the Paul Cram
Ensemble, David
Prentice, John
Oswald, and Paul Dutton.
He occasionally accompanied the spoken word/sound poetry quartet the Four
Horsemen (Dutton,
Rafael Barreto-Rivera, Steve McCaffery, and BP Nichol) and shared the stage
with such luminaries as Derek Bailey
and Roscoe
Mitchell when they were in town. In
1990 he moved to Sandy Cove, a small village of fishermen in Nova Scotia.
Momentarily disheartened with music, he focused on his writing, publishing
Hawthorn and Key to the Highway. In 1996 he hooked up with Daniel
Heïkalo, another experimental guitarist -- this one from Montreal -- who
had moved to the Maritime province a decade earlier and lived nearby. The duo
has been playing regularly since 1999. The release of the CD Dérapages
à Cordes on the label Ambiances Magnétiques in 2000 marked Bull's
"comeback" to public music. A solo disc, Guitar Solo, followed in
2001 on his friend's imprint Heïkalo Sound Productions. In May of that year,
the group appeared at the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de
Victoriaville. In 2002 they performed at the Guelph Jazz Festival and
Guitarévolution (Montréal).
Ben Drury: double bass, Canberra
Benjamin Drury is a
composer, sound artist, improviser and beat maker, who lives in Canberra,
Australia. His practise encompasses
experimental, popular and classical music, drawing inspiration from a wide and
varied collection of sources. He
completed a Bachelor of Music from the ANU School of Music in 2017. During his time at ANU he was awarded the
Harold Wesley Allen Memorial prize (2016, 2017) the ANZCA Composition prize
(2016, 2017) and the Dennis Griffin Piano Undergraduate Scholarship
(2017). As a composer, he is fascinated
by all facets of sound and audio culture.
His works explore the presentation and reception of sound as well as
exploring sound itself. He is interested
in challenging traditional performance models and creating new ways of
presenting music. In the past he has
done this through interactive installations like his work Modified Furniture (2017) and site-specific performances like Pieces for Cars Tunnel and Hexagonal Vents
(2016). Sonically his practise explores
acoustics, noise and form, seeking ways to subvert the expectations of both art
and pop music audiences. He has had works performed by Claire Edwards (CSO Solo
Series, 2019, and the Canberra International Music Festival, 2018,), Rohan
Dasika (Canberra International Music Festival, 2017,) and Ensemble Offspring
(Australian National University, 2016).
He had a work read by Eighth Blackbird (2017) for a public workshop with
Musica Viva. He has performed and had
works featured in a variety of festivals including: Canberra International
Music Festival (2017, 2018) SoundOut (2016, 2017, 2018) You Are Here (2015,
2016, 2017) Art Not Apart (2016) Tilde~ (2017).
He also plays bass in the band Helena Pop, improvises with Bomber
Ensemble, and creates experimental pop music under his own name. His debut album, Sentence Fragment: Consider Revising, a collection of deconstructed
hip-hop beats was released in 2017. He is also part of the recently formed
Phage Trio along with invented electronic instrumented builder Brian McNamarra
and wind instrumentalist Richard Johnson.
Brian McNamarra: invented electronic instruments, Canberra
Brian is an experimental instrument builder and sound sculpture
artist based in Canberra, Australia. He mixes his passions for music,
electronics and sculpture into unique objects that should need no explanation
to play or experience but convey a deeper meaning in the context of their
surroundings. Brian builds and performs with a range of experimental
instruments, with a focus on both autonomous soundart sculptures and
interactive installation instruments that require the engagement of multiple
people or unusual kinetic movements to be played. His instruments include
computer programmed elements, percussion, found sounds from used electronics
and purpose designed oscillators. A key
feature of his work is audience movement and participation. Art functions best
when the art space is inclusive of the public so through his exploration of
experimental sounds he uses engagement with the audience as a medium to convey
ideas. These explorations include the link between the environment and
technology, our own movement around the planet with movement of those fleeing
war torn areas and the link between our own minds and those we try to create in
machines. https://www.facebook.com/cupandbow/
Dylan Van Der Schyff: percussion-drums, Melbourne/ Canada
Drummer/percussionist Dylan van der
Schyff was born in Johannesburg, South Africa and immigrated to Canada in the
mid 1970’s. Since the early 90s he has been deeply involved in the field of
improvised and experimental music, contributing to almost 200 recordings with
artists such as: George Lewis, Joelle Léandre, Barry Guy, Dave Douglas, Mark
Helias, Peggy Lee, Nicole Mitchell, Wayne Horvitz, Marilyn Crispell, Torsten
Muller, Robin Holcolmb, Michael Moore, Rob Mazurek, Ken Vandermark, Paul
Rutherford, John Butcher, Louis Sclavis, Mark Dresser, Achim Kaufmann, Wilbert
De Joode, Tobias Delius, Cor Fuhler, and Rene Lussier. He has also appeared
with Roswell Rudd, Kenny Werner, John Zorn, Butch Morris, Wadada Leo Smith, Joe
Lovano, Georg Graewe, Misha Mengelberg, Gary Peacock, Barre Phillips, Fred Frith,
Ellery Eskelin, Satoko Fuji, and Sylvie Courvoisier and among many
others. Between, 2014 and 2019, he curated the annual Vancouver Improvised
Music Meeting. Dylan has performed in almost
every major centre in Europe and North America including international
festivals in Berlin, Lisbon, Madrid Stockholm, New York, Chicago, Montreal,
Italy and Norway. Articles about his work have appeared in publications such as
Downbeat, Jazz Times, The Globe and Mail, The New York Times, The Village
Voice, The Chicago Reader, The Wire, and Coda. In addition to his activities as
performer, Dylan also maintains an active academic career as a researcher in
interdisciplinary musicology. His published work appears in journals that cover
a broad spectrum of fields in the sciences and humanities. These include:
Frontiers in Neuroscience; Phenomenology and Practice; Psychomusicology: Music
Mind and Brain; Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences; Frontiers in
Psychology; Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education; Interference: A
Journal of Audio Culture; and Psychology of Music. He has also contributed
chapters to a number of edited editions, including Oxford University Press
handbooks. He is currently leading a coauthored book project entitled Musical
Bodies, Musical Minds: Enactive Cognition and the Meaning of Human
Musicality. It will be published by the MIT Press in
2020. Between 2017-2019 Dylan was a SSHRC research fellow at the
University of Oxford. Beginning in 2020 he will be Senior Lecturer in Jazz and
Improvised Music at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, University of
Melbourne. https://whirrboom.bandcamp.com/album/kamosc
Elisabeth Harnik: piano, Austria
Elisabeth Harnik, an Austria based pianist and composer has
created a multi-faceted body of work by blurring genre boundaries through various
collaborations in the field of improvised music, interdisciplinary projects and
contemporary compositional works. She studied classical piano and later – with
Beat Furrer – composition at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Graz.
As an improviser she works within an electro-acoustic inspired
sound-world, using specific preparations and extended techniques while pushing
the limitations of the piano. Her performances draw from physicality and
introspection, intuitive playing and high precision. Harnik´s unique approach
to her instrument as well as to improvisation and composition has led to many
concert invitations. She is member of
numerous ensembles for improvised music and has performed and recorded with a
number of internationally recognized representatives of the contemporary jazz
scene in Europe and abroad. She writes commissioned works in addition to her
concert activities, and her compositions are performed regularly at concerts
and festivals for new music. Elisabeth
Harnik is a Deep Listening Certificate Holder [Center for Deep Listening at
Rensselaer in Troy, New York http://www.deeplistening.rpi.edu/] in
performance with Joelle Leandre https://youtu.be/nrQBLRbQ-YQ
Frank Gratkowski: saxophones/wind instruments, Germany
Since
2001 Frank Gratkowski has been performing with a trio including Wilbert De Jode
(NL) on bass and Achim Kaufmann (D) on piano (CDs “Kwast”
and “Unearth”).
Since 2006 he’s working with the Trio Gratkowski / Brown / Winant (CDs “Wake”
and “Vermilion Traces/Donaueschingen 2009”). He is also a co-leader / composer
of the Multiple Joy[ce] Orchestra and got a
commission to compose for the ensemble Apartment House by “November Music “
(Den Bosch NL) and the “Huddersfield Comtemporary Music Fesitival” (England) in
2009. Further actual projects are Fo[u]r Alto, a saxophone ensemble dedicated
to microtonal music and “Artikulationen E” a solo program for saxophone with 8
channel live electronic. Frank Gratkowski played on nearly every
German and on numerous international Jazz and contemporary music Festivals
including Vancouver, Toronto, Chicago, New York, Seattle, Quebec, Les Mans,
Muelhuus, Groeningen, Nickelsdorf, Barcelona, Lithuania, Warsaw, Zagreb,
Prague, Bratislava, Sofia, Bucharest, Odessa and Roma, Huddersfield, London. He has been teaching saxophone and ensembles
at the Cologne, Berlin and Arnhem Conservatory of
Music and is giving workshops all around the world. Furthermore he has performed with Robert
Dick, Phil Wachsmann, Radu Malfatti, Herb Robertson, Marcio Mattos, Eugenio
Colombo, Peter Kowald, Ray Anderson, Michael Moore, Ken Vandermark, Greg Osby,
Kenny Wheeler, Louis Sclavis, John Betsch, Jane Ira Bloom, Connie and Hannes
Bauer, Xu Fengxia, James Newton, Muhal Richard Abrams, John Lindberg, Michael
Formaneck, Ernst Reijseger, Fred van Hove, Theo Jörgensmann, Phil Minton, Peter
Brötzmann, Mark Dresser, Mark Feldman, Hamid Drake, Michiel Braam, Han Bennink,
Mal Waldron, Misha Mengelberg a.m.o. http://gratkowski.com/ https://youtu.be/5wg1MfS4V4M
Jess Green: guitar, Canberra
Jess was born in Canberra. In 2001 she completed a Bachelor of
Music (Jazz Studies) majoring in guitar at the Canberra School of Music, ANU.
She graduated with first class honours, and received the Directors Prize. After
travel through Europe and West Africa, Jess based herself in Sydney for twelve
years, working in a wide variety of styles and settings. Jess has released
three recordings under her own name; The Singing Fish (Contemporary Jazz,
Jazzgroove Records), The New Dynamites (Alt Rock, Vitamin Records) and Tinkly
Tinkly (Contemporary Jazz, Yum Yum Tree Records). Her music has been critically
acclaimed nationally, both in print and on radio. She has been nominated for a
Freedman award, won the inaugural Jann Rutherford Memorial Award, and was
Shortlisted for National Songwriters Association Song Contest ‘Ballad’
category. Jess has worked extensively as a guitarist and guitarist/singer
with many well-known Australian musicians and groups, including touring for The
catholics, Jim Conway’s Big Wheel, Petulant Frenzy, The 10 guitar
project and Alyx Dennison, as a performing session musician she has worked
alongside Katie Noonan, Deborah Conway, Clare Bowditch, Tim Rogers, Urthboy and
many more. From 2012-2015 Jess worked as guitarist, and vocalist for Shaun
Parker Dance Company, touring major arts festivals in Australia as well as
Europe and Malaysia in 2015. Jess has
recorded for television, and dance productions, including channel 9’s ‘Love
Child’ series, and also works as a composer, including original scores
for theatre productions “Adult Child Dead Child” and “Boys Will Be Boys”. In 2016 Jess launched an alt-pop project and
alternate stage name Pheno (fee-no), her debut EP was released in May 2017
(Dragon Year) and launched in Sydney as part of VIVID. As Pheno Jess won a CAPO
award in 2016 and was awarded Australia Council funding to tour the project
nationally in 2017, a recent highlight for the Pheno project was supporting New
York artist “Joan as Policewoman” for her Canberra show (May 2019). Jess, now based in Canberra, continues to
perform nationally, recent highlights include; 2018, as part of an all female
band performing at the Commonwealth Games closing ceremony, with artists such
as Kate Cebrano, Kira Piru, Katie Noonan, Emma Donovan, Dami Im and Archie
Roach. In 2019 Jess was part of the house band for Georgia Mooney’s (All My
Exes Live in Texas) “Supergroup” working with Fanny Lumsden, Tim Rogers,
Urthboy, Ben Salter and many more. Most Recently, Jess was a composer in
residence for the Canberra International Music festival (along side Nick Wales
and Bree van Reyk) and was commissioned for two pieces “Sing To Sky” (a site
specific piece for the James Turrell Skyspace at NGA) and “Shimmer Shimmer”. Jess is also sought-after music educator and
has taught at The Australian Institute of Music, The University of Western
Sydney, ANU, CIT, The SIMA Young Women’s Jazz Workshops, and has toured
for Musica Viva in Schools for over 10 years.
Jim Denley: saxophone and flutes, Sydney
Jim is one of Australia's foremost improvisers of new music and known
for his improvisations on wind instruments and electronics. His radio work Collaborations, produced by
ABC Radio National
radio won the 1989 Prix
Italia for radio production. He was
a member of the group Machine for Making Sense with Rik Rue, Amanda Stewart, Chris
Mann and Stevie Wishart and has performed in Australia, Europe, Japan and the
US with artists such as Chris Abrahams, Clare Cooper, Keith Rowe, Joel Stern,
Robbie Avenaim, Jon Rose, John Butcher, Otomo Yoshihide, Fred Frith, Phil
Niblock, Trey Spruance, Clayton Thomas, Tess de Quincy, Axel Dörner, Adam
Sussman, Ami Yoshida, Oren Ambarchi, Tony Buck, Ikue Mori, Sachiko M, Malcolm
Goldstein, Michael Sheridan and Annette Krebs. https://soundcloud.com/jim-denley https://youtu.be/eTTsouLU8AA
Louise Curham: 8 & 16mm film projections, Canberra
Louise Curham is an Australian film maker/visual artist. Working
predominantly with found and obsolete moving image materials, Louise’s work
addresses the givens of cinema – specifically its usually fixed relationships
between projection, audience and image. She works in film performance,
installation, experimental film and the re-enactment of live art. She also has
performed with leading Improvising musicians such as Chris Abraham (from the
Necks); Alister Spence; Australian Art Orchestra to name a few.
Michael Norris: Electronics & feedback (Queensland)
Michael has been creating experimental music since 1988 and has
been performing both collaborative and solo Music, noise and Sound Art since
2000, mostly in Brisbane with collaborators including Joe Musgrove and Andrew
Kettle. He currently lives back in Queensland after residing in Canberra for a
number of year where he also presented the “Subsequence” – a weekly radio
program of specialist experimental/electronic music broadcast live on 2XX FM,
Canberra and nationally on the Community Radio Network. In 2004, while in the
UK for postdoctoral work in computational psychoacoustics, he performed
regularly with improve trio Analograk in Totnes, Devon. At Electrofringe 2002
and 2007 he presented workshops on home made instruments and feedback. Since
moving to Canberra in 2007 Michael has performed solo and collaborative improvisations
with the likes of Richard Johnson, Steve Barass and Rhys Butler. He has
performed at many iterations of the SoundOut festival see review “Spartak/Mike
Majkowski/Michael Norris performance on the Sunday afternoon where “Pitch,
tonality and form achieved a beautiful harmony” (BMA mag review)
Nick
Ashwood: prepared guitar, Tasmania
Nick works in the
field of experimental, improvised and composed music. His main focuses over the past three years
have been exploring and utilizing the acoustic possibilities of the steel
string acoustic guitar. Developing a
set of techniques that draw on the history of the prepared guitar. Nick is
expanding on this language by bring his own individualized approaches using
methods of just intonation, preparations, bows and percussion. Currently
Nick is working with number of groups and composers that include; Laura Altman,
Jim Denley, Catherine Lamb, Clara de Asis, Robbie Avenaim, Dale Gorfinkel,
Amanda Stewart, Splinter orchestra and Fredrik Rasten. From 2017 Nick has been running his own
programming in Hobart with a focus on improvisation /experimental the program
has now had over ten successful shows and four workshop and a two-day festival.
The programming has had artist come from both Australia and around the world
including, Isabelle Duthoit, Franz Hautzinger, Robbie Avenaim, Laura Altman,
Jason Kahn, Jim Denly and Cor Fuhler, Amanda Stewart and Greg Kingston. 2019
will see Nick release his first CD on the Sydney label Splitrec followed by a
solo acoustic guitar cd – Strings and a composed work by Catherine Lamb to come
out on Edition Wanderlweiser records (Berlin) And a piece written for him by
Clara de Asis.
Peter Hollo: Cello, Sydney
Raven is the solo
musical project of Peter Hollo, cellist in FourPlay String Quartet, Tangents and many other ensembles. Started as a response to his growing fandom
of idm and experimental electronic music in about 1997, raven continues to
reflect his musical interests, which can be seen in some detail via his radio
show Utility Fog on FBi Radio. The multi-instrumentalist
uses cello, piano, found objects, looping and other fx pedals and laptop
programming/processing. His last album
was described by Sydney Scoop as “ostensibly a neo-classical release, but
heavily influenced by ambient and industrial music, folk, and even breakbeat
electronica”. In addition to his bands,
Peter is known for countless collaborations, including regular appearances live
& recorded with Sophie Hutchings and Close to Forever, as well as: a live
improvisation on the stage of the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall with Lisa
Gerrard (view on YouTube); a live solo accompaniment to an exclusive
hallucinatory prose-poem by Grant Morrison, also in the Sydney Opera House
Concert Hall; live and recorded work with: Oren Ambarchi, Manyfingers, X, Shoeb
Ahmad, Ollie Bown, Exhibitionist, Deborah Conway, Gerling, Karma County, Jimmy
Little, Monsieur Camembert, Ollo, Part Timer, Paul Mac, Setec, the Stiff Gins,
Sub Bass Snarl, Holly Throsby, The Whitlams.
Rhys Butler: alto sax – Canberra
Rhys has
come to know the cities he has lived in through improvised and noise music. The
trio Dinner Sock (Stephen Roach (drums), David Keyton (feedback), and Rhys
Butler (saxophones)) formed from the weekly Fugue State Sessions in Guanzhou.
The group performed with local experimenters such as Yan Jun, Feng Hao and Li
Zenghui and collaborated with musicians transiting China such as Uwe Bastiansen
(Faust) and Lucas Abela. Despite living in different corners of the world,
Dinner Sock has continued to participate in China's experimental music scene
and played Beijing's Sally Can't Dance festival and NOIShanghai in 2012. In
Santiago, Chile, Rhys participated in events run by Productura Mutante and
played in the free-for-all Collective Improvisation NO. Now residing in
Canberra, Rhys has been working in a duo with Reuben Ingall (live processing).
More recently he has been part of the Psithurism trio with John Porter and
Richard Johnson, which have a new release called Lure out with French
clarinetist Xavier Charles. See the SoundOut bandcamp and Francois Houle site
in the following links: https://soundoutrecordings.bandcamp.com/
Richard
Johnson: wind instruments, Canberra
Richard performs with the texture of sound on
soprano/baritone saxophone and bass clarinet and is experimenting with use of a
bass drum with soprano saxophone to create a language of microtonal textural
resonance. Also he has been making instruments from conical gourds from PNG,
which allow the stripping back of the wind instruments to their most visceral
and most sensuous form and allow for the exploration of extended techniques. He
has performed at the SoundOut 2010 – 2019 festivals; What is Music Festival,
Nownow Festival; the Make it Now performances; also performances with the Brice
Glace Ensemble and the 102 Club Orkestra in Grenoble France; “Whip it“ series
in Sydney; various Precipice annual Improv workshops hosted by Tony Osbourne as
well as hosting local, interstate, and international improvisation nights in
Canberra. He is the Director, Curator, Producer and Administrator at SoundOut
festivals. As a sound artist he worked with renowned visual Artist
Savanhdary Vongpoothorn for the Australia Exhibition at The
Casula Power House as well collaborated with conceptual-visual artist Denise
Higgins on soundscapes. He has performed with the likes of Jaap Blonk, Jon Rose,
Hans Koch, Guylaine Cosseron, Jim Denley, Kim Myhr, Annette Giesreigl, Rodrigo
Motoya, Antonio Panda Gianfratti, Thomas Rohrer, Luc Houtkamp, Clayton Thomas,
Isaiah Ceccarelli, Yan Jun, Laura Altman, Michael Norris, Evan Dorian, etc.
Currently performs in a wind trio with John Porter and Rhys Butler called Psithurism, which has a digital release
with the renowned Canadian clarinetist Francois
Houle and a new Cd release called
Lure on the SoundOut label with
Xavier Charles in 2017 SO-003. Also in June 2016 released Cd with Rhys
Butler; Guylaine Cosseron and Stephen Roach called Swarm on SoundOut Cd’s
SO-001. Lure CD Review. He also have a number of field recording releases available from the SoundOut label catalogue bandcamp site.
http://apraamcos.com.au/news/2015/august/art-music-award-winners/ http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/canberra-life/canberra-experimental-music-wins-apra-award-20150826-gj80c3.html
Roger Turner: percussion, UK
Turner has been working as an improvising
percussionist since the early 1970’s, collaborating in numerous established and
ad hoc configurations: solo work, work with electro-acoustic ensembles
& open--form song, extensive work with dance and visual artists, plus
specific jazz-based ensembles have brought collaborations with the most
interesting european & international musicians and performers from Annette
Peacock to Phil Minton, Cecil Taylor to Masahiko Satoh, Charles Gayle to Lol
Coxhill, Derek Bailey to Otomo Yoshihide, Alan Silva to Keith Rowe, Josef
Nadj to Min Tanaka, Toshinori Kondo to Axel Dorner, etc. etc. He has toured and played
concerts worldwide from Sydney to the Arctic, Tokyo to Belfast, New York to
Beirut.
Shoeb Ahmad: guitar / electronics, Canberra
Shoeb offers a rich and extensive background in Australian
music, creating idiosyncratic music over the last decade. Using guitar,
keyboard, voice and computer, Shoeb works both as singer/composer and
improviser when performing solo and in collaboration. Shoeb has released a
diverse range of original music while also working on sound design for
dance/theatre, installation pieces and contemporary chamber composition,
inspired by 20th Century avant-classical works, Indian ragas and minimalist
electronic music. Shoeb has performed throughout Australia, Japan, New Zealand,
the UK and the SE Asian region as a solo artist and with groups such as
Sensaround, Spartak, Tangents and the Australian Art Orchestra.
Scott Thomson: trombone, Canada
Scott Thomson is an improvising trombonist and composer based in
Montreal. He writes songs based on published authors’ texts for singer and
dance artist, Susanna Hood, to be played in many contexts, from duo to octet
and sometimes including her choreography. Monicker (with Arthur Bull and Roger
Turner) is a good example of Scott’s ongoing commitment to open improvisation.
He co-founded the Association of Improvising Musicians Toronto (AIMToronto) in
2004 and served as a director until 2009, and co-directed the AIMToronto
Orchestra, formed for a project with Anthony Braxton in 2007. In 2016, he
convened the Montreal-Toronto Art Orchestra to play Roscoe Mitchell’s music. He
founded Somewhere There, a Toronto creative music venue that hosted 850
concerts during his tenure, 2007-10. He has composed a series of site-specific
works for mobile musicians and audiences in unconventional performance
contexts including, notably, the National Gallery of Canada and the Art
Gallery of Ontario. Scott programs the Guelph Jazz Festival with Karen Ng.
Wilbert de
Joode: double bass, Netherlands
Wilbert de Joode (1955) is a veritable research scientist of bass
pizzicato and bowing techniques. A self-taught musician, he has been playing
the double-bass since 1982. He began
working in groups that improvised within a jazz framework. Other musicians were
soon drawn to his idiosyncratic style, and in the mid 80s he played in groups
led by Vera Vingerhoeds, Armando Cairo and Ig Henneman where he further
developed his improvisation skills. He
came into contact with such musicians as J.C.Tans, Rinus Groeneveld, Michiel
Braam, Han Bennink, Han Buhrs (Schismatics) and Ab Baars. De Joode is currently one of the most active
bass players on the European improvised music circuit. His individual style and
musicality transforms the double bass into an equal partner in the most varied
ensembles. A personal tone colour, exploration of the outer registers, quirky
improvisations and the use of gut strings contribute to an instantly recognizable
and intriguing sound. The seventeen
improvised pieces on his first solo cd Olo (distributed by ToonDist) show how rich and complex his sound
on the double bass is.
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