New works by Ramesh Vinayakam, Cathy Milikin, and Jeremy Woodruff, and Teerath Majumder, performed by Shantala Subramanyam (South Indian flute and voice) with Anirudh Bhat (mrdangam), Theodor Flindell (violin) and Theo Nabicht (bass clarinet)

+ open workshop (19:00 to 20:00), Shantala Subramanyam on Carnatic music as listening practice and gamaka/rhythmic concepts 

The Sonic Borderlines Festival 2024 presents music that integrates new playing techniques across cultural sound boundaries. Sound production, vocal and instrumental techniques are still largely unexplored in Western musical practice because of the immutability of our concept of notes (on paper) in this respect. Most non-European classical traditions are characterized by a more fluid, ornate and flexible sound of voices, instruments and rhythm. In Indian, Turkish and Arabic music, sound production is based less on the concept of notes on a page and more on, for example, swaras (region of sound) or naghmas (originally referring to both "modulation" and "singing“).

program

Ramesh Vinayakam, Arrangements
Cathy Millikin, Unswarad?
Jeremy Woodruff, Intramelodies April 2024
Teerath Majumder, Lines that Divide, Lines that Connect

with kind support from INM Berlin e.V. & Musikfonds

Elias Stemeseder (piano, harpsichord, synthesizers), Camilo Ángeles (flute, electronics) & Christian Lillinger (drums, electronics)

Stemeseder & Lillinger released their trilogy Penumbra, Umbra, and Antumbra from 2022-24 and have now tapped Camilo Ángeles to form an electroacoustic trio that debuted in Mexico City and Guadalajara in Feburary 2024.

Double record release concert for Theo Nabicht's Circle Line Project. Two separate LPs are released for the London and Vienna segments of the cycle, following on individual productions for Berlin, Tokyo, and Moscow. The Circle Line Project focuses on the sonic imprint of transportation lines used by countless passengers in cities around the world. 

Theo Nabicht (contrabass clarinet) with Alexandre Babel (drums, percussion) and Joke Lanz (turntables)

Divide by Zero #3 

Zeynep Ayşe Hatipoğlu, solo cello 

Sarah Rossy, voice, electronics

Henrik Olsson, friction, piezo elements, turntable

Marina Cyrino, amplified flute and piccolo

Making Waves #1

Between You and Me It Stinks in Here

Emily Dische-Becker & Basma al-Sharif lead a talk on censorship in Berlin, accompanied by the German premiere of Basma al-Sharif's short film Capital. 

Doors 20:00 / start 20:30 / entry by donation

Emily Dische-Becker is a writer, organizer, and curator. She’s the German director of Diaspora Alliance, an international organization dedicated to fighting antisemitism and its instrumentalization, as well as a researcher for Forensic Architecture. 

Basma al-Sharif is a Palestinian artist working in cinema and installation. Her practice looks at cyclical political conflicts and confronts the legacy of colonialism through satirical, immersive, and lyrical works. 

richard valitutto, solo piano, plays Julius Eastman’s Piano 2 (the only surviving fully-intact composition for solo instrument by the late queer black American composer); Linda Catlin Smith’s half-hour cycle nocturnes and chorales; and shorter works by Federico Mompou, Michael Finnissy, and Frederic Chopin.

Anne Gillis is a visual artist, composer and performer. Her music consists of usually short tracks built from looped sound samples originating mostly from found objects and, prominently, her own voice purring, hushing, and growling. There is an animal and primitive quality to her sound palette, her concrete music being made of closely miked bodily sound samples, but also because of the elementary means of composition she uses: only brief instruments, simple loops of admittedly elaborated sounds. 

Augustė Vickunaitė is a sound artist using reel-to-reel tape recorders to play, record and create sound installations, articulating diverse layers of recordings including found material, field recordings, voice, music instruments, objects, and the whole spectrum of malfunctions of decaying technology. 

Members of the long-standing European Music Project (EMP) performs Olivier Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time and other works.

Emanuelle Bernard (violin), Mathis Mayr (cello), Manfred Preis (clarinet) & Antonis Anissegos (piano)

Flare Gun Hour performs Privacy, a "KOPFKINO" work featuring an interplay of text projected as film and composed and improvised music. A curiously visual effect sprung from the audience’s private imaginations. 

Ruby Bilger (text), Fabiana Striffler (violin), Johannes Schleiermacher (flute, saxophone, synthesizer) & Jörg Hochapfel (piano, melodica, synthesizer)

New works by Elias Aboud, Bakr Khleifi, Mathis Mayr, Cathy Milikin and Jeremy Woodruff performed by Elias Aboud (riq), Claudia van Hasselt (mezzo soprano), Bakr Khleifi (oud) and Mathis Mayr (cello),

+ open workshop (19:00 to 20:00) on Arabic maqam and oud led by Bakr Khleifi

The Sonic Borderlines Festival 2024 presents music that integrates new playing techniques across cultural sound boundaries. Sound production, vocal and instrumental techniques are still largely unexplored in Western musical practice because of the immutability of our concept of notes (on paper) in this respect. Most non-European classical traditions are characterized by a more fluid, ornate and flexible sound of voices, instruments and rhythm. In Indian, Turkish and Arabic music, sound production is based less on the concept of notes on a page and more on, for example, swaras (region of sound) or naghmas (originally referring to both "modulation" and "singing“).

Austin Larkin, solo violin, presents Violin Liquid Phases, which focuses on the psychoacoustic possibilities of the violin (harmonic tuning, rhythmic phasing, spectral bowing) as well as and landscapes of energy (catharsis, ekstasis).

Quentin Tolimieri performs new works for solo piano and quadraphonic sound.

A split bill featuring Chris Abrahams (solo piano) and The Still, the instrumental quartet of Chris Abrahams (piano), Rico Lee (electric guitar), Derek Shirley (double bass) & Steve Heather (drums)

Chris Abrahams is a pianist and composer who has released 12 solo piano albums to date. His collaborative projects include duos with Melanie Oxley, Mike Cooper, and Alessandro Bosetti and trios including TREE with Burkhard Beins and Andrea Ermke, AAA with Oren Ambarchi and Robbie Avinaim, and The Necks with Lloyd Swanton and Tony Buck.

Originally formed as a soundtrack project for Stephen Eastaugh's Winterover (documenting a winter residency in Antarctica), The Still creates song-forms diluted by overtones and resonances that melt together into a cyclical trance, promising no resolution. Their debut album The Still (Seriés Aphōnos) was deemed "a beautifully recorded future classic" and named one of Mojo Magazine's Top 30 albums of 2016. Their followup Got It  (Seriés Aphōnos) was released in 2021.