Two of the most influential and important figures of the European avant-garde together on one night. Dutch vocalist/sound-poet Jaap Blonk and the post-industrial electronic music of German composer Asmus Tietchens.

JAAP BLONK

Jaap Blonk (born 1953 in Woerden, Holland) is a self-taught composer, performer and poet.He went to university for mathematics and musicology but did not finish those studies but instead took up the saxophone and started to compose music.A few years later he discovered his potential as a vocal performer, at first in reciting poetry and later on in improvisations and his own compositions. For almost two decades the voice was his main means for the discovery and development of new sounds.

As a vocalist, Jaap Blonk is unique for his powerful stage presence and almost childlike freedom in improvisation, combined with a keen grasp of structure. He performed in many European countries, as well as in the U.S. and Canada, Indonesia, Japan, South Africa and Latin America. With the use of live electronics the scope and range of his concerts has acquired a considerable extension.

Besides working as a soloist, he collaborated with many musicians and ensembles in the field of contemporary and improvised music, like Maja Ratkje, Mats Gustafsson, Nicolas Collins, Joan La Barbara, The Ex, the Netherlands Wind Ensemble and the Ebony Band. He premiered several compositions by the German composer Carola Bauckholt, including a piece for voice and orchestra. A solo voice piece was commissioned by the Donaueschinger Musiktage 2002. On several occasions he collaborated with visual computer artist Golan Levin.

www.jaapblonk.com



ASMUS TIETCHENS

Tietchens has started his musical career at the electronic end of the Krautrock movement, releasing albums on the Sky label and being in a group with Conny Plank and Moebius (Liliental). He quickly moved into the genre of industrial music and became one of its most prominent german artists, releasing regularily on international labels such as Discos Esplendor Geometrico, Barooni or Staalplaat. He has left the bruitist concrete experiments of the 1980s behind and has concentrated on the detailed sculpting of sound itself, very often just working from the very basic elements, sine waves and white noise. He is also a very active collaborator and has worked with artists such as Richard Chartier, PBK, Thomas Koener, Vidna Obmana and Terry Burrows (to name a few).