Mike Majkowski presents two recent releases: August (Gusstaff Records 2024) for solo double bass and November (Gusstaff Records 2024) for solo electronics.

Michael Thieke, solo clarinet set

Mike Majkowski's latest releases are paired records, one acoustic (August ) and the other electronic (November), both with their own distinctive atmosphere. Each album contains pieces that are closely linked in terms of approach and structure.

Clarinetist and composer Michael Thieke explores the minutiae of sound, timbre, and noise, with a particular interest in microtonality and related sound phenomena. The qualities of slowness are another field of his research. 

After years of acquaintance, Burkhard Stangl and Christof Kurzmann founded the duo Schnee in 1999. On a snowy December night, they went to the Amann Studio in Vienna and recorded Schnee (erstwhile records 2000). This first album, inspired by favorite films (Fassbinder, Marker, Godard, Albert) and Robert Walser's poetic meditations, "set to music" this prismatic splendor, including its smallest facets and compact crystal worlds, and made big waves in the world of improvised music because it harmonized acoustic guitar and electronic sound manipulation, a rarity at the time.

Program:

•  Schnee (Burkhard Stangl and Christof Kurzmann)

•  Schnee & Guests (surprise)

•  Schnee & Guests (Kai Fagaschinski & Michael Thieke)

Burkhard Stangl (guitars, tools), Christof Kurzmann (ppooll, computer), Kai Fagaschinski (clarinet), Michael Thieke (clarinet)

Schnee continues its two-day event with a duo performance and ensembles old and new. 

Program

•  Tierfilm und Kamillentee (Annette Krebs, Christof Kurzmann, Andrea Neumann, Burkhard Stangl)

•  Schnee & Guests (Lorena Izquierdo)

•  Schnee (Burkhard Stangl and Christof Kurzmann)

Burkhard Stangl (guitars, tools), Christof Kurzmann (ppooll, computer), Annette Krebs (konstruktion#4), Andrea Neumann (inside piano) & Lorena Izquierdo (voice) 

Yannick Guédon (baritone) performs Karl Naegelen's Chaconne (2024) and Éliane Radigue's OCCAM XXII.

Marianne Schuppe & Deborah Walker, Aus dem Zeltbuch (2022/23)

In Karl Naegelen's Chaconne, the obstinacy of the pitches serves as the pillar of a composite harmony. The bass melody is layered with breaths, whistles and harmonics. A polyphony for solo voice unfolds slowly. The word "chaconne" evokes both a three-beat dance and the idea of a piece of music derived from this dance, unfolding a repetitive bass that lends itself to variations. It is to these two imaginary worlds—dance and variations—that the title echoes.

Éliane Radigue's OCCAMs are instrumental pieces that she refers to as her “sound fantasies," in which bespoke compositions are created in collaboration with her performers. 

Schuppe & Walker's joint composition Aus dem Zeltbuch (2022/23) unfolds a surface of word-sound-textures in low dynamics on the edge of acoustic intelligibility. Aus dem Zeltbuch is questioning our perception of language in a musical context by creating bilingual areas of sound. As words and sounds are superimposed they may unclose a sounding path through narration, meaning, and understandibility. 

Exhaust  Camila Nebbia (tenor saxophone), Kit Downes (piano) & Andrew Lisle (drums) 

Saxophonist Camila Nebbia, pianist Kit Downes and drummer Andrew Lisle will release their first album Exhaust on NYC label Relative Pitch in early 2025, after touring throughout Europe at festivals and venues such as Berlin Jazz Festival, Bimhuis in Amsterdam, Cafe Oto in London, and Jazz Jantar in Gdansk. 

Salim(a) Javaid (saxophone) performs solo works by Billone, Bedrossian, Netti, and Posadas.

Program:

Pierluigi Billone, Misura. Obliquo (2021; rev. 2023) for alto saxophone 

Franck Bedrossian, La Solitude du coureur de fond (2000; rev. 2023) for alto saxophone   

Giorgio Netti, Ultimo a lato (1998) for soprano saxophone 

Alberto Posadas, Serán Ceniza (2015) soprano saxophone  

Rebecca Lloyd-Jones performs Sarah Hennies' Thought Sectors for solo percussion.

One hour in length, Thought Sectors explores concepts of divided consciousness—the active and receptive brain—with the composition being based on these conditions and their manifestation through sound exploration. The virtuosic percussion solo consists not only of conventional instruments, such as the vibraphone and bass drum, but also items such as a flower sifter, stapler mixing bowl, and large pitcher of water. 

Labor Neunzehn's Cluster #38 

Aida Shiraza, solo voice, sanṭūr, and electronics, with a film screening curated by Valenina Besegher

Aida Shirazi focuses on timbre when structuring her works and draws inspiration from both Iranian and British literature. Poetry plays a central role in her work, combining the spoken word with acoustic and electronic sounds in her compositions. Shirazi sees the presence of poetry in her work as a link to her childhood in Iran, where poetry is an integral part of the shared cultural heritage and everyday language. The use of the sanṭūr is also central to this aspect of her work, as this instrument is traditionally used to play short pieces in one's free time accompanied by sung verses of classical Persian poetry. 

Queer Irreverence (as an Antidote to Authoritarianism)

A screening program featuring films by Ania Nowak, Kerstin Honeit, Pauline Boudry & Renate Lorenz, and Liad Hussein Kantorowic, followed by a discussion with several of the filmmakers. 

Ania Nowak, To the Aching Parts! (Manifesto) (2019, 15min)

Kerstin Honeit, Panda Moonwalk or Why Meng Meng Walks Backwards (2018, 8min)

Pauline Boudry and Renate Lorenz, Charming for the Revolution (2009, 11min)

Liad Hussein Kantorowicz, No Democracy Here (2018, 25min) 

This program (organized by Angela Anderson) is part of the event series Thinking Toward Feminist Futures curated by Agata Lisiak and supported by Janina Schabig, Bard College Berlin, and the Experimental Humanities Collaborated Network.  

Adrian Myhr Trio present their debut release Kokong (Øra Fonogram 2024), together with solo sets by Gismervik and Kjorstad.  

Adrian Myhr (double bass), Rasmus Kjorstad (violin, langeleik), Jan Martin Gismervik (drums, hanging vibraphone, harmonium)  

Chris Corsano (drums), Tizia Zimmermann (accordion) and Chris Pitsiokos (alto sax) 

Corsano, Pitsiokos & Zimmermann first played together in New York in the summer of 2023 during Tizia's six-month stay there. The trio quickly found a common language that feeds on their shared interests in free jazz, improvised music, drone, and noise. 

On Strike: Screenings & Talks about Striking Berlinale is a program that makes space for films and filmmakers who have been censored or who choose to withdraw their work from the Berlinale or from other festivals that have actively silenced voices critical of the genocide against Palestinians.

•   A Fidai Film (2023, Palestine, 78 min), directed by Kamal Aljafari (Arabic, Hebrew & English with English subitles)

In the summer of 1982, the Israeli army invaded Beirut. During this time, it raided the Palestinian Research Center and looted its entire archive. The archive contained historical documents of Palestine, including a collection of still and moving images. Taking this as a premise, A Fidai Film aims to create a counter-narrative to this loss, presenting a form of cinematic sabotage that seeks to reclaim and restore the looted memories of Palestinian history. It’s a poignant exploration of identity, memory, and resistance, told through a unique blend of documentary and experimental filmmaking techniques.

•   Some Listeners Become the Warned, Others Become the Threat (2024, various, 4 min), excerpted from Preemptive Listening, directed by Aura Satz (language: English)

In an age of intersecting political, man-made and ecological disasters, Preemptive Listening is an ode to the sirens that are and those that could be. Siren compositions from over 20 contemporary musicians form a resonant voice to ask: Does an alarm have to be alarming?

On Strike Berlinale is honored to host an evening of short films by directors who either withdrew their films from Berlinale 2024, or who dropped out of the Berlinale Talents 2024 program. The title of this program, Nation Isn’t Mother, taken from Sanzgiri’s film Two Refusals, reflects the shared character of the films’ exploration of the meaning of nation: oppressor, savior, a place to flee, a non-place, a site of love, memory, and resistance. The screening is followed by a discussion with the directors via video chat moderated by Tobi Haslett. 

•  Death Mask, John Greyson (2023, Canada, 10 min)

This experimental opera reenacts the lesser-known history of Chinese medical student Li Shiu Tong, and his lover Magnus Hirschfeld, a much older German sexologist and gay rights pioneer during Nazi Germany.

•  Two Refusals (Would We Recognize Ourselves Unbroken?), Suniel Sanzgiri (2024, 35 min)

An experimental film focusing on interwoven narratives around the mutual struggle against Portuguese colonialism between India and Africa, and the bonds of solidarity that developed between the two continents. Told through a mix of interviews and fictional narratives, Two Refusals utilizes a blend of CGI animation, super 16mm film, and hand-processed and destroyed archival film to uncover lost layers of world-building, kinship, and the material and immaterial network of relations that developed between historical figures in Goa, Mozambique, Angola, and Guinea-Bissau.

•  Atmospheric Arrivals, Ayo Tsalithaba (2021, 6 min)

A restless spirit returns home through time, space, and memory. This film is at once a living archive/poly temporal memory bank and a love letter to my other selves. Tsalithaba says, "I am inspired by the work of Akwaeke Emezi, Keguro Macharia, Sylvia Wynter, José Esteban Muñoz, and others who have pushed me to think about queer elsewheres and Black diasporic desire and (be)longing. This film has helped me articulate what I call 'atmospheric arrival', which refers to the ways in which one can come into being through imagination and by reaching across spacetimes to 'fetch' the self."   

•  Illanga Aliko (The Sun Is Missing), Advik Beni (2021, 8 min)

An experimental landscape film with an element of poetry. The film follows the son of the professional mourner who has now taken up the mantle of his father. He is confused. He does not want to mourn anymore, but it is all he knows how to do. He goes to the local flea market and purchases some chickens for a sacrificial ceremony in the name of his ancestors. Soon enough he is traversing the vast mountainous landscape of Kwa-Zulu Natal as he struggles to find a place where he belongs.