Tuesday 7 April 2026, 7.30pm
Kamilya Jubran and Werner Hasler unravel a musical universe of possibilities; “a unison of timbres, cultures complementing, the complicity of verses, and modes and languages confronting each other” in the duo’s own way of communicating respective origins and contemporaneity. Lyrical, within a sound full of contrast and ornamentation, they pursue an expansion of their repertoire with imaginative interpretation and improvisation.
Hinging on a practice of interrogating their hearing and their expression, their research and their desire, Kamilya Jubran and Werner Hasler draw a universe where everything seems possible. It is a unison of stamps, cultures completing each other, sentences colliding with each other, modes and languages meeting each other. It's a way of communicating their respective roots and presents. Kamilya Jubran and Werner Hasler let us gradually see the tenants and secrets of their artistic conversation. The alchemy of their exchange unveils a voyage into a unique, unheard sound.
As part of Kamilya Jubran’s Beyond 1932 Residency at King’s College London, the duo will perform و WA (Arabic for ‘and’), their third album (2019 Everest Records er_093 ). With widely open ears and expanding desires to enrich their capacity of dialogue, of interplay, the 20-years-old-duo continue their exploration of new sonic and phonetic territories with monthly residencies at Prozess Bern where they extended و, during 2022-2023.
The performance will be followed by a short Q&A with the artists.
The residency series is organised by Dr Rim Irscheid, practice-led researcher at King’s College London. The Beyond 1932 project is funded by the EPSRC via the UKRI/EC HE Guarantee ERC scheme (funder Award Reference: EP/X022749/1).
Musician, composer and one of the most revered figures for today’s younger generation of experimental and alternative Arabic music scenes, Kamilya Jubran (text, oud & vocals), collaborates with long standing musical partner, composer, accomplished trumpet player and seasoned electronic musician Werner Hasler (trumpet & electronics). They have been collaborating since 2002. Their first collaboration Mahattaat was their earliest experiment into bringing together disparate cultural and artistic roots. Their next collaboration, Wameedd, released in 2004, combined Jubran’s vocal skill and limitless imagination with Hasler’s melodies and his original aesthetics in electronic music. The duo then released Wanabni in 2010 followed by Wasl in 2016, featuring French double bass player Sarah Murcia. 2019 they have released Wa, a 45’ Suite of music.
After her long career as a singer and qanun player with the Palestinian band Sabreen, Kamilya Jubran moved to Europe in 2002 and continued her search for innovative musical expression in voice and oud, exploring new spaces and horizons for her melodies and compositions through the various projects she launched and participated in. Werner Hassler and Sara Murcia participated in her first solo project, “Mahattaat,” in Switzerland in 2002. Since then, they have become her main musical partners. She collaborates with many other artists - Sylvain Cathala, Mela Meyerhans, Sawsan Darwaza, Mark Tompkins, John Balk, Elliott Sharp, Florentin Ginot, Jeff Mils and Isabelle Fruleux in various musical projects. Jubran is the artistic director of Zamkana- a non profit association, which she founded in Paris in 2014. Zamkana encourages freedom of expression and supports and accompanies innovative artistic projects. Sodassi project with Youmna Saba, Dina El-Wedidi, Maya Khalidi, Ayed Fadl, Rasha Nahhas, and Samaa Abdel-Hadi is Zamkana's first artistic production in 2018. Terrae Incognitae project—an open platform that hosts musical dialogues and compositions in-real-time of musicians practicing different contemporary musical styles, was created in 2021.
http://www.kamilyajubran.com.
https://www.thewire.co.uk/audio/the-wire-tapper/the-wire-tapper-54/10
https://www.youtube.com/user/kamilyajubran/
Werner Hasler is a composer, trumpet player and electronic musician who is known for his emphasis on live sampling and spatialisation. In addition to his sustained collaborative engagement with Jubran, he has engaged in numerous additional collaborative endeavours (in collaboration with Hugo Ryser, Carlo Niederhauser, Vincent Courtois and numerous additional artists) to create hybrid forms combining exhibition and installation with live performance. The OUT works (2016, 2018, 2019, 2022) comprise space-filling audio-visual installations, incorporating live sets with audio-surround. In the series of OUT Sessions, the artist creates site-specific hexaphonic audio surround sound bubbles in collaboration with the cellist Carlo Niederhauser. Werner Hasler is currently engaged in a number of collaborative projects. These include work with the composer, piano and synthesizer player Stefan Schultze, as well as 'Discontinued Rhythm' with the drummer Jim Black. Werner Hasler has also collaborated with a number of notable artists and composers, including Karl Berger, Jon Hassell, Sidsel Endresen, Hardi Kurda and Don Li, amongst many others. Furthermore, he is engaged in academic instruction, lecturing at the Hochschule der Künste in Bern, specialising in the fields of electronics and music.
Rim Irscheid is an ethnomusicologist, curator and textile artist working with hand embroidery, field recordings and found materials. Combining ethnographic research, curatorial practice and arts-based methods, her work looks at artist-led institution building, emotional aspects of creative labour and interpretations of care in curatorial activism. Some of her research-based articles and essays can be found in Sonic Matter, field notes Berlin and Norient. Her mixed media installations address sensory aspects of memory making and ambivalent feelings towards ‘home’ and have been exhibited at Cafe OTO, Modern Art Oxford and London Design Festival.
