In 2010 Ismal Ivo was commissioned by Paestum Festival of Naples in Italy with the foundation of a modern dance company under the name "Les Danseurs Napolitains". During a longer workshop in March, 14 dancers were chosen from about 30 candidates coming from Naples or the surrounding region (a video in Italien about the audition can be seen here). In the middle of June rehearsals for the choreography "Le Sacre du Printemps" started until the premiere on 16 July in front of the world famous temples of Paestum. 3 more shows were given, among others one in Pompeii's Teatro Grande. For the choreography I was asked to write an introduction for Stravinsyi's music which is only about 30 min. long. The first scene - we called it the "honey scene" - demanded a magical music which should refer to a text of Vergil's "Georgics" where he already mentioned Paestum about 2000 years ago and where he described the life of bees as a role model for human community. I turned a passage of this text into a canon for female choir and counter tenor of which an excerpt can be heard above. The voice of the counter tenor belongs to Martin Wölfel, the female choir was sung by Almut Kühne. The second piece of music, "insect invasion", consists of various insect calls and noises from crickets, cicadas, bees and others, they are accompanied by percussion instruments as well as cello and violin. With the beginning of Stravinsky's "Sacre" rose petals rain on the stage, the impressive scenography and the majestic background of the Ceres temple can also been viewed in this photostream. » more
In March 2010 the Belgian internet radio SilenceRadio.org asked me to compose a piece for the relaunch of their website. At that time I was interested in how sounds could be mirrored in other sounds and how the meaning of sounds shifts depending on context. The title of the piece – “A Pot Calling The Kettle Black” – is an old English phrase already found in works by Cervantes and Shakespeare that is still used today to refer to hypocrisy. The idiom can be interpreted as follows: A pot is sooty from being placed on an open fire, while a kettle, being placed on coals, remains clean and shiny. The pot only sees its own sooty reflection in the shiny surface of the kettle and accuses it of being black, a property that only belongs to the pot itself. » more
I'm happy to announce that my radioplay after Roland Barthes' famous book is finally finished and will be broadcast on March 19 at 11:05 pm at German public radio WDR3. Roland Barthes died 30 years ago after a car accident in Paris. "A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments" is possibly one of the most ambitious and intelligent texts on the philosophy of passionate love, still of great relevance just as before. In this radio adaption I superimposed his glossary of love with Goethe's "The Sorrows of Young Werther", Barthes' principle witness and supplier of keywords for passionate love. Thanks to outstanding performances by the actors Sebastian Blomberg, Ludwig Trepte and Hannah Herzsprung and with the help of a lot of friends and the people of Berlin providing words for the definitions of Barthes' "figures of thought" I hope we can follow the racing minds of lovers in an unusual and fascinating radioplay. For both Barthes and Goethe, the lover is someone who stands outside society. He lives in an “unreal” world, in an illusion that becomes his truth, while what other people call “reality” he experiences as an illusion. “Love is blind: the proverb is false. Love opens its eyes wide, love produces clear-sightedness. […] What the world takes for ‘objective’, I regard as factitious; and what the world regards as madness, illusion, error, I take for truth.” (Roland Barthes) » more
"Das Haus" voted radio play of the month 29.05.2010
The German Akademie der Darstellenden Künste voted the WDR-production "Das Haus (House of Leaves)" the best radio play of December 2009. The jury wrote: "The three directors and composers developed an acoustic aesthetic for everything that is tempting and threatening. As long as the ear can reach it is whimpering and rumbling in an endless loop of horror. A radio play for the remote control? Yes, but not only. The experimental play reflects in one and the other way existential challenges. The listener becomes an adventurer searching for lost pieces of a central theme."
A radio feature from Peter Meisenberg about the collapse of the Historical Archive of Cologne. Directed by Martin Zylka, music written by me. broadcasts: 24.02. / 22:05 Uhr / SWR2 27.02. / 13:05 Uhr / Bayern 2 28.02. / 09:05 Uhr / Nordwestradio 28.02. / 11:05 Uhr / WDR5 28.02. / 18:05 Uhr / hr2 Kultur As download from 28. Feb. on available for a week here. » more
Sounds: Radio – Art – New Music 12.02.2010
At Berlins n.b.k. the exhibition “Sounds: Radio – Art – New Music” starts today. 5 radio art pieces of the project “rádio d-cz” are at the center of the exhibition. On listening stations in the showroom one can hear over hundred additional pieces of German broadcasters, one is my composition “windscapes“.
Ehrensenf is sick of winter and says it's enough to listen to some ice 03.02.2010
German online video show Ehrensenf has enough of winter. In its latest edition it links to the ice recording posts on my silent listening blog and claims to feel more comfortable listening to the sounds than skating through the cold outside...
Ice Sounds in the Net 19.01.2010
After The Music Of Sound pointed to my silent listening blog and my post about Dispersion of sound waves in ice sheets, several other sites have linked to it and created some kind of buzz, among others BoingBoing, kottke.org, MetaFilter and Sound and Music. The ice recording is in fact part of the piece fire and frost pattern and will be released in June this year by German label Gruenrekorder. Everybody interested into some more spectacular ice and fire sounds can subscribe to the RSS feed of this site or the newsletter and I'll keep you informed when the release is available. By the way: you can listen to the ice sounds here on this site as well, you can even download it.
As I saw Lars von Trier’s Antichrist recently, I had to constantly think of David Sylvian’s album Manafon and the artwork, that in some strange way interacts with von Trier’s latest movie. There are three animals in Antichrist, represented by star constellations and symbolizing grief, pain and despair: deer, fox and raven. » more
(essay for the field notes #2 by the German label Gruenrekorder) Speech, music and noise all reach our ears in the form of sound. In spite of this, we have grown used to considering them as separate spheres. Overcoming this separation results in a kind of listening that integrates sensual and... » more
I'm currently working on a TV film score with a story line dealing with illegal african immigrants in Germany. To give the african characters a certain "ethno" tone, the director and me decided to work with this big "wok" thing that he saw lying around here, which is in fact a hang or better know as the hang drum. » more
Just returned from a lovely evening of comtemporary music played by a string quartet and a percussionist on various acoustic and electronic gadgets at C3-Festival at Berlins notorious club Berghain. There seems to be a "trend", by some called "neo-classic" or "modern classical/electronic music", that follows the intercourse of classically trained musicians and composers with club culture and electronically produced music. My friend Me Raabenstein recently released a compilation of such endeavours under the name "XVI Reflections on Classical Music" together with Universal Classics, who established the "Yellow Lounge" already in 2001 and brought together stars of the classical music scene and well-known DJs. » more
The first podcast I heard from radiolab, a programme at New York based public radio station WNYC, was called staying alive. When it comes to the point where a scientist claims that he can play back voices from thousand years ago captured in the grooves of ancient pottery with a stylus like an old grammophone-type recording, I had to burst out laughing. » more
Silent Film and Foley Artists 14.08.2009
Did you know that the lack of sound in silent film was not a question of technological limitations but an aesthetic decision? If you don't, check the guys at You Look Nice Today who produced a nice video to honor the early foley artists who embraced the "purity of silence"...
To get to the Art Biennale of Venice the way to go is usually by a waterbus, the so called vaporetto. The Vaporetto station at Biennale is particularly noisy as one section of this sound recording mix can bear witness. The swimming stations are connected to the waterfront with metal bridges that swing up and down with the waves coming in, causing high screaking sounds. » more
Ismael Ivo’s latest dance choreography „The Waste Land“ was premiered in Venice on 20th June 2009. The first two performances were a great success and the Biennale scheduled two extra performances on 29th and 30th June. The choreography lasts for about an hour and is devided in two halfs marked by the compositions of mine and Igor Stravinskys „Sacre du Printemps“. During the first half the dancers turn their backs to the audience and move separated from each other in tight borders of squares described by the light. The bodies appear to be twitching, lonely parts of flesh exposed to archaic natural forces, symbolized by the ice and fire sounds of mine. After half an hour the dancers step in front of the stage and for the first time the audience can see their faces. In this moment the first notes of Stravinskys „Sacre“ come in to great effect representing the beginning of civilization and the rise of culture that finally formed out of a long evolutionary process as characterized in the first half of the choreography. Ismael then wisely avoids to illustrate each musical nuance of Stravinskys legendary piece, the audience is given the chance to re-experience the physical strength and power of the composition after half an hour of concrete sounds and so do the dancers who linger on the rim of the stage with closed eyes like newborn babies, the gummed up eyes trying to get attuned to the bright light. From this point on the choreography speeds up and becomes more and more complex, typical conflicts of human relationships are suggested, pairs and groups build, break up and re-build in new configurations. The peak of the piece is an oil fountain that bathes the dancers in black muddy liquid in which the bodies celebrate their last animistic feast. » more
Ismael Ivo invited me to work on a sound composition for his new choreography "The Waste Land" that will be premièred on 20th June 2009 at Venice Biennale. On Friday and Saturday I spent time with Ismael, his very friendly staff and the dancers at their rehearsals at Teatro Piccolo Arsenale to develop a sound composition for the first half of the dance piece. The second half will be Stravinsky's Sacre Du Printemps and it is Ismael's idea to relate to new forms of slavery and the exploitation of natural resources which earth responds in unpredictable ways. This vulnerable and shrinking planet will be represented through my sound recordings of volcanos, glaciers and breaking ice, that are composed according to the movements of the dancers. In fact, the composition will turn out to be a very condensed version of my radioart piece "fire and frost pattern". Stravinsky's Sacre, then, stands for the human reaction: the physical body in a ceremony of survival and confrontation. I'm looking forward to hear how the confrontation of my sound piece with Stravinsky's classic turns out, but I imagine it will be very effective to wait for more than half an hour for the first "real" musical tone and that this might give the Sacre even more strenght. » more
On the recent conference „recycling sampling jamming“ held in Berlin in February this year, Leigh Landy spoke on the subject of sampling in music. Unfortunately I was ill during the course of the festival but the lectures are still available in mp3 format here for those who missed it like me... » more
Chronostasis wins Silver World Medal at New York Festivals Awards 25.05.2009
My recent sound piece chronostasis has received a Silver World Medal in the category „Best Sound“ and a finalist certificate in the category „Best Editing“ at the prestigious New York Festivals Award for Radio Programming & Promotion. The composition was commissioned by Westdeutscher Rundfunk for Studio Akustische Kunst presented by Markus Heuger. For 52 years the New York Festivals Radio Programming and Promotions Awards has recognized The World's Best Work in radio broadcasting judged for their production values, organization, creativity and use of the medium. The full list of winners can be viewed in this pdf.
Carsten Nicolai aka Alva Noto talks about his work and a new book called "grid index" in an interview on Gestalten TV. The grids he presents in his publication remind me partly of the Penrose tiling and particularly the islamic ornaments of 15th century buildings such as the Darb-i-Imam shrine in Iran... » more
I saw Gus Van Sant's movie "Paranoid Park" on TV recently. Van Sant is well known for his controversial cinematic endeavours between mainstream success like "Good Will Hunting" and arthouse cinema as in his "death trilogy" comprising "Gerry", "Elephant" and "Last Days"... » more
Constantin Popp made this beautiful "remix" of my piece "Tagesringe", basically he played around with some granular features and boosted the noisy parts of the piano track without the field recordings of the original composition. Constantin just finished his diploma thesis on sound diffusion and... » more
In 2010 Ismal Ivo was commissioned by Paestum Festival of Naples in Italy with the foundation of a modern dance company under the name "Les Danseurs Napolitains". During a longer workshop in March, 14 dancers were chosen from about 30 candidates coming from Naples or the surrounding region (a video in Italien about the audition can be seen 
I'm happy to announce that my radioplay after Roland Barthes' famous book is finally finished and will be broadcast on March 19 at 11:05 pm at German public radio 
As I saw Lars von Trier’s 
To get to the Art Biennale of Venice the way to go is usually by a waterbus, the so called vaporetto. The Vaporetto station at Biennale is particularly noisy as one section of this sound recording mix can bear witness. The swimming stations are connected to the waterfront with metal bridges that swing up and down with the waves coming in, causing high screaking sounds. 
Ismael Ivo invited me to work on a sound composition for his new choreography "
On the recent conference „recycling sampling jamming“ held in Berlin in February this year, Leigh Landy spoke on the subject of sampling in music. Unfortunately I was ill during the course of the festival but the lectures are still available in mp3 format here for those who missed it like me... 
