Manafonistas

Zapp4 is a band with the line-up of a string quartet. It combines groove, improvisation, and fantasy with passionate solos. On stage the group is a blast: They interact with high speed and have a wide musical spectrum. No matter how wild or mild they get, there is always a poetic side to their music. Another striking item about the quartet is that all four members compose for the band. The uniqueness of the group and its repertoire makes Zapp4 very acceptable for a large audience including all sorts of music lovers. Because of this quality Zapp4 won the Sena Toonzetters Performers Award (a contemporary award for the best ensemble of the year) in 2012 and the Kersjesprijs (a prestiguous classical award) in 2005. The band continues to look for new adventures so there is much more to expect for the (near) future. Whoever is present at a Zapp performance will be guaranteed to leave the place with a big smile and freshly washed ears!

Zapp4 – The art of an improvising string quartet
 

The members of Zapp4 have gathered a broad variety of improvising styles, during the last 15 years. Not only as individuals playing jazz and improvised music in the dutch scene, but also in their projects as an ensemble they have developed a hybrid way of playing.

In this seminar Zapp4 will tell about their experience in this field of playing as a chamber music group. They show different ways of improvising and all kind of textures, colors and grooves which they use. Also they tell about their inspirations and play several pieces as examples of how they work and interact.

Laurie Anderson’s recording career, launched by “O Superman” in 1981, includes the soundtrack to her feature film “Home of the Brave” and “Life on a String” (2001). Anderson’s live shows range from simple spoken word to elaborate multi-media stage performances such as “Songs and Stories for Moby Dick” (1999). Anderson has published seven books and her visual work has been presented in major museums around the world.

In 2002, Anderson was appointed the first artist-in-residence of NASA which culminated in her 2004 touring solo performance “The End of the Moon.” Recent projects include a series of audio-visual installations and a high-definition film, “Hidden Inside Mountains,” created for World Expo 2005 in Aichi, Japan. In 2007 she received the prestigious Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize for her outstanding contribution to the arts. In 2008 she completed a two-year worldwide tour of her performance piece, “Homeland,” which was released as an album on Nonesuch Records in June 2010. Anderson’s solo performance “Delusion” debuted at the Vancouver Cultural Olympiad in February 2010. In October 2010 a retrospective of her visual and installation work opened in Sao Paulo, Brazil and later traveled to Rio de Janiero. In 2011 her exhibition of new visual work titled “Forty-Nine Days In the Bardo” opened in Philadelphia, and “Boat,” her first exhibition of paintings, premiered at the Vito Schnabel Gallery in New York. She has recently been appointed as a three-year fellow at both EMPAC, the multi media center at RPI in Troy, NY, and PAC at UCLA. Anderson lives in New York City.

Mike Harding (Touch) describes how changes over the past generation have affected the working relationship with artists and the impact this has had on their work. From analogue to digital (and back again?), there have been substantial changes in the way audio is perceived, marketed and consumed and this has had a pronounced and perhaps fundamental effect on the way artists work now.

Jana Winderen responds, describing her approach to her work, why she works like she does and how Touch has influenced her choices. Jana will describe how her investigations unfold and how the compositional process begins before anything may even be recorded. Also how format decisions are made for a new project, for public distribution of the work, whether commercial or not.

Both presenters will illustrate their talks with audio examples of these processes and respond to questions from the audience, some of whom may have been through this process themselves.

Henning Bolte is a music journalist and writer based in Amsterdam contributing to printmedia, online magazines and radio in The United States, The Netherlands and Germany. He curated the Amsterdam series Amsonanza and co-programmed / presented the pianolab.Amsterdam-series at Goethe Institut, worked as a jury member (a.o. Dutch VPRO Boy Edgar Award, Danish Annual Music Awards) and acts as advisor to the Arts Council of the Netherlands as well as to the Dutch Fund For The Performing Arts. He holds a Ph.D. in linguistics and had been long-standing affiliated to the University of Utrecht.

Seducing the seducer – a conversational navaid to Bangsonics

A conversation a time ago planted the seed to re-enter that realm and that mode to share (some of its) resonances and transpositions with people interested in the work of Jan Bang.

Our conversation will plumb the depths of electronic sound qualities and its shaping in improvisational action, touch upon issues as how to dig into (and trust on) the potentials of one’s intuitions, how to stay in concordance with one’s sense of form and to be aware it is a game played with the other(s) who have to be invited and drawn in. Related the tension of letting music happen and steering it determinedly will pass in review. The nature of melody, the quality of ether and the indeterminacy of form might be a punkt as well as the differences between the process of creation and the semiotics of interpretation.

Michael Engelbrecht is a music journalist and trained psychologist who has worked in psychotherapy and adult educational centers. He has written for “Die Zeit”, and “Sueddeutsche Zeitung”, and since 1990, he has been working at the Deutschlandfunk, Cologne, and other German radio stations. With people of very different professions, he has created the English/German blog “manafonistas.de“.

Storytelling for burning songs (Or: how to make radio magic)

There are some radio shows in the world that ignore the limitations of genres.

For instance, Fiona Talkington´s „Late Junction“ (BBC) or Michael Engelbrecht´s „Klanghorizonte“ (Deutschlandfunk). A song by Mark Hollis (Talk Talk) can be played in a row with a John Cage piano track, an interplanetary Sun Ra excursion, Brian Eno´s „Lullaby for the End of the World“, some weirdness from the infamous „Punkt“ family, an ECM classic from the 70´s – and a field recording from the Outer Hebrides. The question is how to create a unified vison from such different sources without delivering a “high brow” post-modern exercise in „anything goes“. One answer: you have to spend a lot of time on the „sequencing“ of the tracks, and the stories you´re telling. In fact, the future of non-mainstream radio is in parts connected to old traditions of griot, campfire stories, and very personal contribitions of the „nighthawk“ at the microphone. Listen to a special „radio perfomance“ by Michael Engelbrecht that will combine controversial thoughts on music, with a series of tracks from the broad field of „textural minimalism“ – and some late night stories told in the middle of the day!

P.S.: A lot of stuff for 25 minutes performance time, before the Q&A-section for the listeners. The music I’ll play therefore has to be quite short and differs from the „post-modern“ list in the official announcement. But, yes, there will be one beautiful ECM-track, two pieces from the new catalogue of HUBRO, and, promise, Eno’s „Lullaby for the End of the World“! (m.e.)

Ja, es ist einige Jahre her, dass ich dieses Telefongespräch mit Robert Wyatt führte, ich fand es zufällig, und lauschte den 28 Minuten von Anfang bis Ende. Ich war überrascht. Natürlich ist der Anlass des Gespräches, die erstmalige Veröffentlichung von „Theatre Royal Drury Lane – Robert Wyatt & Friends In Concert“ (8. September 1974) keine essentielle Aufnahme, allenfalls als Zeitdokument. An grosse Wyatt-Alben (s.u.) kommt das Werk nicht heran.

Es war ein  munter drauflos improvisiertes Interview über Gott (den nicht!) und die Welt (kleine, grosse). Zur Erinnerung: 1973 fiel der Mann von Soft Machine aus dem dritten Stock eines Londoner Hauses, sturzbetrunken, und ist seitdem querschnittgelähmt. Keith Moon war auch auf der Party und erledigte seinen geheimen Todeswunsch gründlicher. Das besagte Konzert war sein erster öffentlicher Auftritt, es folgte das Meisterwerk ROCK BOTTOM. Und noch viel mehr.

Hören Sie, JETZT, wenn Sie mögen, ein Gespräch, das en passant Nat King Cole, englische Kinderbücher der 50er Jahre, indische Gesangstraditionen, Bela Bartok, die Siebziger Jahre, englische Politik, Krankenhausanrufe, Brian Eno, Mike Oldfield, John Peel, Billie Holidays Spätwerk, Phil Manzanera und die Lust am Gucken auf grosse Eisenbahngeleise vorüberziehen lässt. Normal würde man hier ein paar sog. „Leerstellen“ schneiden, aber das mindert eher den Reiz eines solch „gefundenen Objekts“.

Highly recommended for beginners and time travelers, drifting through decades …

1) Cuckooland

2) Rock Bottom

3) Shlepp

4) Dondestan

5) Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard

6) Old Rottenhat

7) Soft Machine: Third (incl. „Moon in June“)

Hier die Besetzung des – allemal – denkwürdigen Konzerts:

Robert Wyatt – voice

Dave Stewart – keyboards
Laurie Allan – drums
Hugh Hopper – bass guitar
Fred Frith – violin, guitar, viola
Mongezi Feza – trumpet
Mike Oldfield – guitar
Julie Tippetts – keyboard, voice
Nick Mason – drums
John Peel – voice
Ivor Cutler – voice

Wo hoeren die Manafonistas heute Nacht „“ Klanghorizonte „“?

Im Bett mit einem Smartphone am Ohr? In einem Ohrensessel neben einem Grundig Radio?

Oder trimedial in ihrem PC aufm Tisch?

Heute geht Rafik Will in der „junge Welt“ der Frage nach, welche Chance das Radio in dem

Gesamtpaket mit Internet und TV hat.

“ Den Apps der Öffentlich- Rechtlichen begegnet man in letzter Zeit haeufiger in der Werbung. Mit vielen dieser Apps kann man vor allem Radio hoeren.

Die Websites vieler Sender haben in den letzten Monaten ein neues luftiges Design bekommen. Die Praesentation wird immer moderner und benutzerfreundlicher.

Leider auf Kosten der Inhalte. Dafuer sorgen Programmreformen wie vor kurzem beim Deutschlandradio Kultur oder demnaechst bei WDR5…“

Ich werde die Sendung gemuetlich auf meinem Longchair liegend in einem Tivoli Audio Radio hoeren, leider nicht mit optimaler Tonqualitaet, sic.

 

 
 
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Lawrence English WILDERNESS OF MIRRORS / To Rococo Rot INSTRUMENT / Graham Lewis ALL OVER / Emanuele de Raymondi ULTIMO DOMICILIO / Hildur Gudnadottir SAMAN / King Creosote FROM SCOTLAND WITH LOVE / Arve Henriksen THE NATURE OF CONNECTIONS / Spaxe Monkey THE KARMAN LINE / The Flaming Lips 7 SKIES H 3 / Louis Sclavis SILK AND SALT MELODIES / Larry Heard ALIEN / Craig Leon NOMMOS VISITING / Salab Ragab A TRIBUTE TO SUN RA / Kronos Quartet FLOODPLAIN / Gary Burton SEVEN SONGS … / Ingram Marshall FOG TROPES / Dieter Moebius ANOTHER OTHER PLACES / Pjusk SOLSTOV / Illuha AKARI / Taylor Deupree FAINT / Seaworthy & Taylor Deupree WOOD, WINTER, HOLLOW / Ryuichi Sakamoto & Taylor Deupree DISAPPEARANCE (added: some background sounds from Brian Eno’s THURSDAY AFTERNOON) 

live stream: www.dradio.de  (starting at 1.05 after midnight, German time)