So Sner  Susanna Gartmayer (bass clarinet) & Stefan Schneider (electronics)

Miki Yui, solo electronics 

So Sner is the duo of Susanna Gartmayer and Stefan Schneider, presenting their latest release, The Well (TAK 2024). Schneider and Gartmayer began their collaboration in 2015, recording the album Reime in Kraftwerk’s former Kling Klang studio and in Düsseldorf-Kaiserswerth at Stammhaus church, whose interior wood paneling facilitated their organic sense of acoustics. 

Susanna Gartmayer has worked as a musician and composer in various realms including experimental rock, improvisation and multimedia sound performance since the early 2000s.  Stefan Schneider is a founding member of Düsseldorf's electronic outfit Kreidler and has also been a third of the internationally acclaimed trio To Rococo Rot. He has also pursued numerous collaborations with, among others, Joachim Roedelius, Arto Lindsay, Bill Wells, Dieter Moebius, Klaus Dinger, Sofia Jernberg, Koshiro Hino, John McEntire, and visual artist Katharina Grosse. 

Miki Yui presents her eighth solo album As If (Hallow Ground 2024). Since 1999, Yui has been known for her uniquely minimalist and organic approach towards music. From a tiny delicate hiss to a distant hum, electronic sounds and field recordings are woven into music with a narrative tension. She has collaborated with Klaus Dinger, Rolf Julius, Asmus Tietchens and Rie Nakajima and performs with Carl Stone in the duo Realistic Monk.

A celebration festival of the life and music of Radu Malfatti, featuring compositions for large and small ensembles and improvisations

Day 1 Program 

(all works by Radu Malfatti)

• Orchesterklang (2009) for large ensemble

• Düsseldof Vielfaches (2007) for large ensemble

• Kid Ailack 3 (2008) for shō and two electric guitars 

• Improvisation by large ensemble 

with Radu Malfatti, Rasha Ragab, Christoph Nicolaus, Germaine Sijstermans, Catherine Lamb, Deborah Walker, Michiko Ogawa, Sam Dunscombe, Koen Nutters, Heather Frasch, Rebecca Lane, Biliana Voutchkova, Quentin Tolimieri, Joe Kudirka, Ángeles Rojas, Derek Shirley, Alexander Markvart, Eric Wong, Seiji Morimoto, Bryan Eubanks, Christian Kesten, Hannes Lingens, Lucio Capece

A celebration festival of the life and music of Radu Malfatti, featuring compositions for large and small ensembles and improvisations

Day 2 Program 

(all works by Radu Malfatti)

• Naryamu Sextet (2010)  

• Keizoku (2025) for large ensemble  

• Solo improvisation for bass harmonica and playback

with Radu Malfatti, Rasha Ragab, Christoph Nicolaus, Germaine Sijstermans, Catherine Lamb, Deborah Walker, Michiko Ogawa, Sam Dunscombe, Koen Nutters, Heather Frasch, Rebecca Lane, Biliana Voutchkova, Quentin Tolimieri, Joe Kudirka, Ángeles Rojas, Derek Shirley, Alexander Markvart, Eric Wong, Seiji Morimoto, Bryan Eubanks, Christian Kesten, Hannes Lingens, Lucio Capece

Harmonic Space Orchestra presents new works by Catherine Lamb, Michiko Ogawa and Marc Sabat as well as a joint composition by Thomas Nicholson, Rebecca Lane, and Jonathan Heilbron.

Program:

•  Thomas Nicholson, Rebecca Lane & Jonathan Heilbron, A Sequence of Chords (January/February/March) (2025)

•  Marc Sabat, Partial Branches (2025)

•  Michiko Ogawa, So-jo in just intonation (2025)

•  Catherine Lamb, The Being/The World: Scenes 1, 2 and 3 (variation for HSO) (2024) 

M.O. Abbott (trombone), Michael Griener (percussion), Jonathan Heilbron (contrabass), Catherine Lamb (viola), Rebecca Lane (microtonal flutes), Dina Maccabee (voice), Thomas Nicholson (viola), Michiko Ogawa (clarinets), Fredrik Rasten (guitars) and Marc Sabat (violin) with guest conductor Max Murray 

Olivia Block, songs for piano, voice and electronics

Paolo Thorsen-Nagel, guitar and voice

Jan St. Werner, solo electronics

Olivia Block has developed a body of songs consisting of scored and improvised performances for synthesizers, amplified breath, inside-piano, electronics, organ and various materials, including metal pieces and shards of broken glass. Her current work features vintage synth sounds, voice and piano. Her most recent solo album, The Mountains Pass (Black Truffle Records) is a series of experimental songs about a mountain range in New Mexico. 

Paolo Thorsen-Nagel is a musician and artist who, in his sound, performance, and moving image works, concentrates on the materiality of sound and its relationship to physical and psychological space, as well as its visual dependency.

Jan St. Werner is head of the Fiepblatter catalog and artistic director of the Insitute of Pop Music at Folkwang University of the Arts, where his focus is on an expanded concept of sound that goes beyond music; experimental spatial concepts; and the artistic-critical examination of new technologies.

Composer-performers Evelyn Saylor and Dina Maccabee premiere new works for vocal duo, mixed vocal ensemble, and accompanied voices. The new works reflect multi-faceted engagement across contemporary and folk singing practices. Their ongoing collaborative development practice results in a shared vocabulary of interlocking shapes, “human delay,” and textural vocal play.

Program: 

•  Dina Maccabee, Anywhere in Any City (UA), free canon for vocal ensemble

•  Dina Maccabee, Still Life (UA), free canon for vocal ensemble

•  Evelyn Saylor, For After for vocal ensemble 

•  Evelyn Saylor & Dina Maccabee, Synchronized Swimming for two voices (UA)

•  Evelyn Saylor & Dina Maccabee, Upswell for two voices, viola, and shruti box (UA)

performed by Dina Maccabee, Evelyn Saylor, Laurel Pardue, Chris Peck, Marco Wessnigk, Johanna Ackva, Ragnar Ólafsson & Ruby Bilger

Kate Ledger performs solo piano works by Christopher Fox, Lauren Redhead, Linda Catlin Smith, and Christian Wolff.

Program:

•  Christoper Fox, Figures of Light (2023) (UA) 

•  Lauren Redhead, the spark which escapes (2019) 

•  Linda Catlin Smith, Thoughts and Desires (2007)

•  Christan Wolff, For Piano I (1952) 

•  Christoper Fox, senza misura (2018)

Ledger's recital is bookended by two Christopher Fox compositions that will appear on her soon-to-be-released album of Fox's works Unmeasured (HCR/NMC). The pieces Figures of light and senza misura reflect the composer's preoccupations with music as light and music as resonance, respectively.

Fear of the Object

Kjell Bjørgeengen (Jones VideoSynth), Aimée Theriot (cello) & Ingar Zach (vibrating membrane)

Fear of the Object is a site-specific intervention utilizing live video and sound performance to put into dialogue the architectural resonances and dissonances found within physical space, sound and light. The music is based on the frequencies and resonances of Ingar Zach´s transducer driven membranes and their relationship to Aimée Theriot´s subtle textures and feeting harmonics on the cello. Audio-generated video projected from Kjell Bjørgeengen is fed back into sound and blurs distinctions between hearing and seeing.

Shira Legmann performs Michael Pisaro's Barricades for piano & electronics.

Michael Pisaro Barricades is a 63-minute piece consisting of thirteen studies (piano pieces, some with electronics) and two electronic interludes.

"Barricades has a distant but decisive relationship to the keyboard music of Louis and François Couperin. The title refers to Les Barricades Mystérieuses by François Couperin – and to the technique of overlapping, interlocking voices, creating a thicket or web-like texture. I have loved the music of the Couperins since college, but it was when Shira sent me some of her favorite music to play, and Les Barricades Mystérieuses was among the scores, that the idea for this piece began to crystallize. The process of writing and working on the piece with Shira was one of watching the barricades, which I pictured as a network of twisted vines, unravel." (Michael Pisaro)

Joseph Houston and Quentin Tolimieri perform solo and duo piano works by Klaus Lang, Chiyoko Szlavnics, Quentin Tolimieri and Koen Nutters.

Program: 

• Klaus Lang, Fließende Berge 

• Chiyoko Szlavnics, Constellations I-III 

  Joseph Houston (piano)

• Quentin Tolimieri, As Yet Untitled (UA)   

  Quentin Tolimieri (piano)

•  Koen Nutters, Everyone I know that you know that I know (I-VI) for 2 pianists (UA)

  Joseph Houston & Quentin Tolimeiri (piano)

Michelle Lou and Stefan Maier, mutli-channel electronics duo

Since February 2023, composers Michelle Lou and Stefan Maier have been performing live electronics together. Lou's constantly shifting cloud of spectral densities and angular textures are juxtaposed by Maier's throbbing drones and pointillistic interjections. Lou and Maier explore the material excess of sound, endlessly proliferating, in a state of unruly becoming.

Tryon

Erik Leuthäuser (voice), Jeremy Viner (alto sax, clarinet), Camila Nebbia (tenor sax), Peter Van Huffel (baritone sax), Andrew Moreno (guitar), Joakim Rainer Peterson (piano), Kellen Mills (bass), and Quentin Cholet (drums)

Tryon is a unique large-ensemble project playing songs written by bassist and composer Kellen Mills. The ensemble blends free improvisation with complex compositions, drawing influences from Anthony Braxton and Charles Mingus and seamlessly integrating electronic and acoustic sound worlds.The group has released two albums with Double Moon Records: Läuterung (2022) with a 13-piece ensemble and Freaky Squash Baby (2023), expanding to 18 members.