In January 2021, veteran Madrid-based electroacoustic improviser Wade Matthews met with London-based improviser and performer Blanca Regina to record four short improvisations. Now, these short cuts have become Shortcuts, four brief glimpses of how two experienced and creative improvisers understand each other in sonic dialogues as surprising to them as to listeners.
Limited edition print version of the album available here.
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Blanca Regina: voice, electronics, objects and toys
Wade Matthews: digital electronics, realtime processing of recordings and amplified objects.
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Recorded, mixed and Mastered by Wade Matthews at Smiling Cow Studio in Madrid, January 2021
Cover Photo: Etching by Blanca Regina made at Taller de Grabado Fernando Sandoval, Oaxaca, México 2018.
Blanca Regina is an interdisciplinary artist, tutor, and independent curator who works with spontaneous composition systems creating multimedia landscapes using voice, objects, electronics, and visuals. She is also looking at book arts, immersive media, and design. Between London and Madrid together with Steve Beresford, she founded the Unpredictable Series, which focused on spontaneous music and experimentation in visual arts following her first collective Mademotion founded in Madrid. She has produced three albums with Beresford, mixed and mastered by Dave Hunt in London, ‘What Blue’ (2020) Duets with Steve Beresford; ‘Duets with Blanca Regina, Spontaneous Music’ featuring duets with Leafcutter John, Jack Goldstein, John Butcher, Benedict Taylor, Matthias Kispert, Aneek Thapar, Steve Beresford, Sharon Gal, and Hyelim Kim and and ‘Art of Improvisers’ (2017) a collection album with several artists concentrating in women improvisers. With longtime collaborator and artist Leafcutter John capturing their live performances in 2017 they created ‘Miga’ a limited edition Pendrive and digital release. Other collaborations in music and audiovisual performances include duos with Matthias Kispert, Peter Cusack, Matt Black, Sr Arribas, Terry Day Sharon Gal, Adriana Camacho, and David Toop...She has produced exhibitions, performances and workshops internationally with presentations in London - Cafe Oto, Turner Contemporary, Barbican, Tate Modern - in Madrid - PhotoEspaña, La Casa Encendida, Cruce - in Mexico - Fundación Pedro Meyer, Biblioteca Henestrosa, in Berlin - HKW, Sowieso .- She has provided guest lectures and workshops in the UK and internationally including at the University of the Arts London, Goldsmiths University, Guildhall, Ravensbourne University…Her work has been supported by Arts Council England, Sound & Music, BMC, Amexcid, Photo-España, and Garage Cube.
After studying woodwinds (flute, clarinet, saxophone) at the New England Conservatory in Boston, Wade Matthewsobtained his doctorate in composition at Columbia University, where he studied electronic synthesis at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center with Mario Davidovsky. Since then, Matthews has been active on five continents as an improviser, presenting his music in spaces such as the Experimental Intermedia Foundation, Issue Projects Room, Symphony Space and Museum of Modern Art (NYC), The National Center for the Arts (Mexico), the Museum of Contemporary Art (Santiago de Chile), the Reina Sofía Museum (Madrid), Fylkingen (Stockholm), etc. He has also taught workshops and masterclasses in France, Spain, Lebanon, Argentina, Mexico, Chile and Uruguay, including a three-day masterclass at the Conservatoire de Paris. He is the author of Improvisando. La libre creación Musical(Turner, 2012), eleven volumes of the Historia de la Música Deutsche Grammophon, and numerous essays. Besides his own CDs, he has recorded for the Atelier de Création Radiophonique of Radio France, RTVE in Spain, the BBC, SODRE, etc. As a musical creator, he has received commissions including a Commande d'Étatfrom the French Government, a Meet the Composer Grant from the New York State Council on the Arts, and touring grants from the United States Department of State, the Spanish Cervantes Institute and the Fundación Autor. www.wadematthews.info
