Concerts RR 2021

TUESDAY, November 23, 2021

Jewish Cultural Center “Oneg Shabbat”, 8 pm:

• Ensemble Studio6: Re-Interpretations (SRB/GB)

Ensemble Studio6 performs a program of electroacoustic re-interpretations of compositions created in the Electronic Studio of Radio Belgrade in the 1970s, by composers Ludmila Frajt (Nocturne) and Janez Matičić (Fusions). The program also includes a structured improvisation of Codex XXI by Richard Barrett, which is based on recordings of electronic compositions by Király Ernő. We end the program with a new piece written for the Studio6 Ensemble – Snake Fiction for trumpet, harp, accordion, percussion and tape, by composer Jug Marković. The electronic part of this piece is based on unnamed archive recordings from the Electronic Studio of Radio Belgrade, which the author modified and permeated through his composition. This concert was financially supported by SOKOJ – Fund for Cultural Giving. The recording of the concert will be found on the CD of the Ensemble planned for 2022, which will be realized within the European project UMSCENE, under the leadership of the Third Program of Radio Belgrade. Members of the Studio6 Ensemble in this program are: Nenad Marković (trumpet), Milana Zarić (harp), Vladimir Blagojević (accordion), Aleksandar Radulović (percussion) and Richard Barrett (electronics).

• Szene Instrumental feat. Irina Karamarković & Denovaire: Dystopian Pleasure III (A/SRB)

Dystopian pleasure is a multimedia performance that had premiere 5 years ago. Now in Belgrade, it will be the third version featuring four musicians: 60 minutes of composed and improvised space / noise / industrial / avant-garde sound, choreographed elements and scores. Both electric and acoustic instruments are used: bicycle, drums, gongs, metals, contrabass, electric bass, amped bass flute, keyboards, sampler, electric violin. Our guest will be Serbian singer and composer Irina Karamarković.

THURSDAY, November 25, 2021

Studio 6 of Radio Belgrade, 8:30 pm:

• Frances-Marie Uitti/Elisabeth Harnik/Milana Zarić (NL/SAD/A/SRB), a world premiere

Frances-Marie Uitti, composer/performer, pioneered a revolutionary dimension to the cello by transforming it for the first time into a polyphonic instrument capable of sustained chordal (two, three, and four-part) and intricate multivoiced writing. Using two bows in one hand, this invention permits contemporaneous cross accents, multiple timbres, contrasting 4-voiced dynamics, simultaneous legato vs articulated playing. György Kurtág, Luigi Nono, Giacinto Scelsi, Jonathan Harvey, Richard Barrett, Horatio Radulescu, Lisa Bielawa are among many who have used this technique in their works dedicated to her. Versatile musician, active in classical, contemporary composed and freely improvised music, harpist Milana Zarić combines orchestral and ensemble work with solo performance, connecting the classical idiom to contemporary sensibility and new technologies. Organizer as well as performer in collaborative projects, she aims to create new bridges and challenge the boundaries between the traditional roles of composer, performer and improviser. Milana has been principal harpist at the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra since 2005. Together with trumpet player Nenad Marković, Milana formed a contemporary music collective named Ensemble Studio6. Elisabeth Harnik, an Austria based pianist and composer has created a multi-faceted body of work by blurring genre boundaries through various collaborations in the field of improvised music, interdisciplinary projects and contemporary compositional works. As an improviser she works  within an electro-acoustic inspired sound-world, using specific preparations and extended techniques while pushing the limitations of the piano. Her performances draw from physicality and introspection, intuitive playing and high precision. Harnik´s unique approach to her instrument as well as to improvisation and composition has led to many concert invitations. She is member of numerous ensembles for improvised music and has performed and recorded with a number of internationally recognized representatives of the contemporary jazz scene in Europe and abroad.

FRIDAY, November 26, 2021

Drugstore, 8 pm:

• Szilárd Mezei & Albert Márkos (SRB/H)

Szilárd Mezei completed his violin studies in Senta and Subotica and studied composition for four years at the University of Arts in Beograd. As violinist, violist, double bass player and composer and in various formations (from duo to nonett) held many concerts in Serbia and abroad. He leads the Szilárd Mezei Trio, Szilárd Mezei Quintet / Sextet / Septet / Octet / Ensemble) and plays in many formations (duo, trio, etc.) for improvising music. His orchestra plays contemporary improvised music, mostly performing his own compositions. As a composer, Mezei is interested in exploring the relationship between improvisation and composition (similarly to Witold Lutoslawski’s aleatoric and Anthony Braxton’s creative music methods), incorporating elements of jazz and authentic folk music as well. Mezei is also very actively involved in composing scenic music and plays authentic Hungarian folk music on genuine folk instruments. Albert Márkos, composer, improviser, cellist, was born in 1967 in Kolozsvár (Romania) where he studied at the Music Academy. Between 1988 and 1992 he worked in several orchestras in Transylvania. In 1992 he moved away from classical music, and since then he has tried to find new goals for his work as a performer and a composer. Since 1993 he has lived in Budapest, pursuing a career as a composer for theatre, film and dance productions. His main interest in music as a player and listener is on free improvised music. He is an active member of several groups.

• Akosh S. Trio (H)

Akosh Szelevényi is a Hungarian saxophonist, multi-instrumentalist, improviser and composer. He has been living in France since ’86. As the leader and founder of his group Akosh S. Unit, he has released many records at Universal. He recorded and toured with the rock band Noir Désir and he works with choreographer Josef Nadj, cultivates improvised music with Joëlle Léandre, Gildas Etevenard, Hamid Drake, etc. He composes music for theater, contemporary dance, films, and collaborates with French rappers Marc Nammour. Since 2016, he has been working with Hungarian musicians – double bassist Peter Ajtai and drummer Szilveszter Miklòs. New drummer, Aron Porteleki,  joined Akosh and Peter a couple years ago (Aron already performed on Ring Ring festival in 2018 together with Marina Džukljev)  These two young figures are already emblematic of current creative music in Hungary and a joy to see.

SATURDAY, November 27, 2021

Drugstore, 7 pm:

• Laurent Bigot: D’un air instable (F)

In a dreamlike night, malleable or unstable objects are awakened, animated by the flow of air blown into their bronchi. Taking life, they rock, crack, move, breathe, whistle, belch, whirr… they speak, answer each other. It is tempting to play with them. Laurent Bigot builds a music in their company. However, they are clever and unpredictable partners. Glass bottles, plastic bottles, metal cans, baudruches, pipes, aquarium faucets… Two fridge engines, some microphones… Laurent Bigot instills the living in the inanimate object. He draws unsuspected sounds and movements. Musician, it brings out the possibility of unfolding without narration. “Unstable air” stages disposable objects, discarded. Abandoned, as if returned to the wild, they indulge in their rites of sounds and gestures. They live their own world, uncanny echo of ours, not playing without humor about their refound vitality.

• Thark – Kӣr & Mangulica FM (SRB), a world premiere

Kӣr is the solo production epithet of Bane Jovančević, resident live artist and program manager of Belgrade’s club Drug§tore. His first release Imrali was on Creme Organization and second one Mramorje was released on Yerevan Tapes. By combining traditional and experimental influences in electro-acoustic music, Kӣr creates the sound in which drone-navigated post-industrial logos transgresses into a tribal mythos, in search for the traces of future. The clash of synths and acoustics invoke an audio landscape of Byzantine sacral traditions and Balkan folklore rhythms. Kӣr’s symbolic language (Dimiskija, Imrali, Mramorje, Balčak) layers it up with an ancient temporality and its logic of being that is not past but our own. The basic concept is to challenge conventional and predominant rhythmic structures in music by juxtaposing traditional rhythms with contemporary electronic sound design. The visual imaginary invoked in the sound – that of a forest air, a river, a hum of birds – delivered through the ruthlessness of the machine, insist on an active listening, to all the otherworldly of this world. It is music that hypnotizes, contemplates and raves. And it always dances. Mangulica is the only surviving autochthonous Serbian breed of domesticated pig. Other two, SiSka and Sumadinka died out. A breed, also known as “woolen pig”, due to its good qualities, is considered a “noble”, but it almost died out in the 1980s. Its fat has up to 80% cholesterol and triglycerides less than a common, white pig. In 1998 Mangulica was introduced in Zasavica, but unlike Podolian cattle, they are left to roam free in the reservation, becoming feral since then. A cases of breeding with wild boar are known. Mangulica FM recreates hypothetical discotheque in which turbo folk mantras meet esoteric rituals. Mangulica FM’s live sets are a dancing journey in a shaky local bus, taking only the back roads and frequently crossing the borders between Serbia and its neighboring countries

• Kim Myhr You ǀ me (N/S/AUS)

Kim Myhr’s album You | me comprises two long, pulse-oriented tracks, each of which fills an entire side of the record. The album is the result of a five-month-long studio process, and is Myhr’s most cohesive, richly orchestrated and outstanding release so far. For the past few years Kim Myhr has played a key role in the Norwegian experimental music scene as both a composer and a guitarist. His collaboration with Jenny Hval and Trondheim Jazz Orchestra on the album In The End His Voice Will Be The Sound Of Paper in 2016 received rave reviews.  Later that year he released his second solo album, Bloom – whose varied tracks took his music in a more electronic direction. Recently percussive features have become increasingly prominent in Myhr’s music, and on You | me he has expanded the rhythmic element by inviting three of his favorite drummers to join in: Tony Buck, Ingar Zach and Hans Hulbækmo. After the release of the record, Kim decided that this would be the line-up that will perform at the most important festivals. “This is the first time I’ve made a record where everything is derived from one specific musical idea,” says Myhr. “It’s also the first time I’ve composed music with one pulse present throughout the entire record. I wanted the music to be saturated with details, up to the point where you feel that you’re almost swimming in them, while at the same time keeping a simplicity in the form – so that the music could be experienced as one continuous state.” This approach makes You | me quite different to Myhr’s previous albums. “During the creative process I thought a lot about opposites, and about the sometimes invisible line that separate them. One of the interesting things in working with longer forms is that you can erase that border, and let lush and idyllic material gradually become something more difficult and inaccessible. This can remind us that contrasting conditions are present within each other all the time; that inside something, there is always a trace of ‘the other’.” You | me is an elaborate, evocative, rhythmically driving and sonically overwhelming album from Kim Myhr, who is constantly expanding his musical palette. Kim has already performed at the Ring Ring Festival in 2014.

SUNDAY, November 28, 2021

Drugstore, 8 pm:

• Ana Kravanja & Tijana Stanković  (SLO/SRB)

Ana Kravanja (1983) is a very active artist , involved in various projects. In music group Širom she plays a myriad of homemade, traditional or classical instruments. As a violinist she has been free improvising with Slovenian and foreign musicians and dancers as Samo Kutin, Tomaž Grom, Irena Tomažin, Vid & Jošt Drašler, Andrej Fon, Noid, Matija Schellander, Aleksandar Škorić, Henrik Olsson, Susanna Gartmayer, Raphael Roginski, Ryuzo Fukuhara, Lotus Edde Khouri, etc. She makes author music for storytelling, poetry, dance performances, theatre, animations and films. In 2013 she formed a project Glacies, where musicians performed on refrigerator shelves. She is also a part of Slovenian tentet Olfamoštvo. Tijana Stanković (1984) is a violin player and singer. She studied Ethnomusicology in Novi Sad. Fields of her interest include folk music of the Balkans, free improvisation, contemporary music, world misic as well as applied music. She has collaborated with many eminent musicians and composers such as Mezei Szilárd, Iancu Dumitrecu, Ana Maria Avram, Márkos Albert, Nikolaus Gerszewski, Miroslav Tóth… She has been working in different duo-projects, with Ana Kravanja, Sofia Labropoulou, Luka Toyboy… As a member of some formation or within a solo-project she has played in many festivals in Europe. Ana Kravanja i Tijana Stanković released their first album trkam kličem odganjam / kucam dozivam teram in 2019 as a result of two musical residencies in Budapest (Hungary) and Lesno Brdo (Slovenia). The goal of residencies was research in sound, vocal and violin expression as well as a search for a connection between each player’s idioms, style of improvisation and traditional and contemporary elements in playing. They have performed in various venus and festivals in Hungary, Slovenia, Austria, Serbia…

• Zlatko Kaučič & Tomaž Grom (SLO)

In the early seventies, Zlatko Kaučič (percussion, objects, amplified zither) fled across the border, recorded and performed in Italy, collaborated with the musical co-operative Swiss in Switzerland, than he moved to Barcelona in 1976, started playing in clubs and festivals as a soloist and in collaboration with various musicians, including Steve Lacy. In 1981 – 1983 Zlatko taught drums at the Taller de músicos jazz school in Barcelona. Since 1984, when he moved to Amsterdam, he joined the extremely powerful scene of improvised music and became a composer in the field of performing arts and dance. After the independence, he settled back in Slovenia and stepped wide into an extremely fertile creative period. Tomaž Grom (double bass, electronics) understands music as a medium of communication rather than aesthetic pleasure. He wants to find reasons for making music. Uncompromisingly he prods at social norms. Music for him is a form of seeking, unanswered questions, flow of ideas, unpredictable situations. Composition is improvisation. Improvisations offers him space to lose himself, to make mistakes, to come up with intriguing solutions. Tomaž and Zlatko released two albums together so far.

MONDAY, November 29, 2021

Jewish Cultural Center “Oneg Shabbat”, 8 pm:

• Zbigniew Chojnacki (PL)

Zbignjev Hojnacki (1992) is accordionist and improviser using, also, live electronics. He is open to all types of sound sources, considering that “old washing machine, a blade of grass, the sound of the engine of the bus, or even usually a chair in the middle of a scene can be inspiring”. Despite his young age he already worked with many distinguished musicians on improvised music scene: Adam Pierończyk, Krzysztof Knittel, Joelle Leandre, TOC, Marcin Albert Steczkowski, Anna Gadt, Krzysztof Gradziuk, Michał Urbaniak, David Kollar, Ramon Prats, Yuhan Su… “Chojnacki’s deconstructed and reimagined what this traditional (and often archaic) instrument is through effects pedals, gadgets and nobs, producing a cacophony of strangeness from his deep meditative creative trance. The drones squelches and reverberations that emanated from the stage were difficult but enthralling, sounding like both the end of the world and a way to rebuild it” (James Thornhill / Under the Radar Magazine).

• Jane in Ether – Biliana Voutchkova/Magda Mayas/Miako Klein (BG/D)

The Berlin trio Jane in Ether founded in early 2019, is comprised of Miako Klein (recorders), Magda Mayas (piano) and Biliana Voutchkova (violin, voice). The three musicians are internationally renowned for their live shows and numerous recorded works in the fields of improvisation, contemporary music and performance. Originating from independent musical backgrounds, genres, and styles, the trio concentrates on developing real time compositions exploring the dynamic and tonal possibilities of their respective instruments extending them unconventionally. The primary focus of the trio resides in the variety of timbres that arise from the combination of instruments as they overlap or coexist side by side, on patiently creating fragile textures which hover on the edge of audibility only to spontaneously shift direction creating a dynamic space for dense clusters of noise or the sonic suspension of minimal tonal soundscapes. This year the trio will be playing a number of concerts throughout Europe and recording their debut album.

FRIDAY, December 3, 2021

Studio 6 of Radio Belgrade, 8:30 pm:

• Der Lange Schatten (N/D/I)

The members of Der lange Schatten are: Håvard Wiik (piano), Michael Thieke (clarinet) and Antonio Borghini (bass). This Berlin-based trio was established in summer 2009. It is a collective project exploring improvisation through original compositions brought by each of the musicians involved. Piano, reed and string instrument is a line-up deeply rooted in chamber’s music tradition, “transparent” and yet capable of shaping a strong counterpoint, either of melodic lines or abstract soundscapes. The group released the first self-titled CD in 2014 . Besides, they did recordings for the German radio station SWR and played, amongst other things, concerts at Umlaut Festival (Paris), Vinterjazz Festival (Copenhagen) and had gigs in Norway, Switzerland and Germany.

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