Kammer Klang presents Christian Kesten and Andrea Neumann, for a taste of the latest Berlin sound, and Martin Creed Band performing new songs and old favourites.

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PROGRAMME:

Christian Kesten - untitled (white noise for voice) (2014)
Andrea Neumann - Letraton 9 for solo inside piano and tape (2014)

Martin Creed Band


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CHRISTIAN KESTEN



Christian Kesten – composer, sound and intermedia artist, vocalist and performer – explores in his work the relation between sound and space, by focusing on the physical activity of creating the sound, the physical presence of the performer and the listener in space. This results in compositions which work with space as an own parameter, and/or site-specific works, often exploring the interaction of the audible and the visible. As a vocalist he has developed a repertoire of extended vocal techniques, focusing on noise and subtle nuances of timbres, working with the voice in a rather instrumental way.

Christian Kesten studied music at UdK Berlin, especially experimental music with Dieter Schnebel. Solo performances as a composer-performer in Europe, North America, and Japan. Ensemble compositions at MUMOK Vienna, MusiMars Montreal, Ontological New York, Operadagen Rotterdam/De Player/Witte de With, Radialsystem V Berlin, Théâtre 2.21 Lausanne, a.m.o. Kesten is a member of the ensemble Maulwerker and artistic director of the series ‘maulwerker performing music’. He co-curates the concert series ‘Labor Sonor’, and is co-editor of the book echtzeitmusik berlin (Wolke 2011). Teaching positions and guest lectures in Europe, Israel, and the United States.

untitled (white noise for voice) uses a technique of seamless inhaling and exhaling to produce monochromatic textures in fixed proportions. The breathing technique was developed by Kesten to be able to sustain a sound longer than the length of one breath. Through a series of monolithic sonic events, the piece explores different perceptions of time. untitled (white noise for voice) is premiered at Cafe OTO.


ANDREA NEUMANN



Andrea Neumann, photography by Sebastian Bozon

Born 1968 in Freiburg, Studied classical piano at the Hochschule der Künste, Berlin. Has been active primarily as musician and composer in the fields of new music and experimental music since 1994. Her exploration of the piano for new sound possibilities has led her to reduce the instrument to its strings, its resonance board and the cast-iron frame. Playing this unmounted ‘leftover’ of a piano, with the help of electronics to amplify and manipulate the sound, she has developed several of her own playing techniques, sounds, and ways for preparing the instrument. For reasons of weight, a lighter special instrument was crafted in 2000 according to the measurements of the original heavier inside piano (piano builder, Bernd Bittmann, Berlin).

She has been significantly involved in the formation and development of the "echtzeitmusik" scene in Berlin, which borders on fields as varied as noise, electronica, contemporary composed music, performance, and sound art. (see ‘echtzeitmusik berlin selbstbestimmung einer szene’ published atwolke-verlag). She has co-organized “Labor Sonor,” a series for experimental music, film and performance in Berlin since 2000. She has engaged in intensive cooperations in the mixed border areas between composition and improvisation, between electronic and hand-made music, between instrumental and performative music with ensembles like “Les Femmes Savantes”, “Phosphor”, “Splitter Orchestra” and with musicians like Sophie Agnel, Burkhard Beins, Sabine Ercklentz, Bonnie Jones, Annette Krebs, Hanna Hartman o.a.

Letraton 9 for solo inside piano and tape is an interpretation of a graphic score by Till Sperrle and was commissioned by H. Leichtmann for the Letraton Festival 2014.


MARTIN CREED BAND



Internationally acclaimed artist Martin Creed and his band will give their first UK performance of the year at Cafe OTO in London. Following last year's album "Love To You", released on Moshimoshi, and "All the bells", his music for the opening of the London Olympics, Creed is currently working on a new album scheduled for release later this year. Martin does not separate music from art or life. The straight-forward, humorous and open-hearted lyrics and beats in his music share something in common with the simplicity of his Turner Prize-winning Work No 227: Lights going on and off or his neon saying 'LOVE'.

"I like the way people move" Creed explains. Fair enough. (Michael Cragg, The Guardian)

It'd be inaccurate to say that Creed had let go of systems and sequences entirely - his lyrics are cyclical and simple – but it's formulaic in the best way, like three chord punk – a communal uproar, gleeful and energising in repetition, rather than seeming predictable or stuck. Mind Trap is a triumph of feelings over ideas, of making sounds bigger and more mobile than the spaces (or heads) that contain them. (Amy Pettifer, Quietus)