RÖHRENTIER

Antonia Baehr composing for/with Johnny Chang & Neo Hülcker & Lucie Vítková

engl.

Röhrentier

“Tonight I dreamt that I wanted to bond you together, interlace you, combine you with crickle-crackle like a child. In the dream, I simply found a literal, physical solution to the challenge of composing for multiple voices. Similar to a system of communicating vessels, you were then connected through plastic tubes. Sound was coming out of you and going into you. Your polyphonicity not only became tangible acoustically, over invisible sound waves, it was invested with thingness, too. The tubes quivered between the bodies, blew all the way into the bellies of your instruments and made them quake. You became one single cyborg-being, human-animal-child-machine all at once. An imitation machine. A parroting machine. A childhood machine. A hydra. It made voices, lifetimes, species, things, bodies meld.

The structure of the piece you were playing reproduced an evening dog-trio concert. In the countryside there is a moment at sunset when the dogs bark from the doorsills. They raise their voices and bark at each other, without straying from their place.

The dream was based on what you showed me from your music, your sense of time, making coffee, composing soup ingredients, your instruments, toys, recordings, character traits, their favorite hobbyhorses.” – Antonia Baehr

Lucie Vítková, Neo Hülcker and Johnny Chang were sought our for Antonia Baehr by Christian Kesten and Andrea Neumann – a blind date of sorts.

There is a balance between the columns of a homogeneous fluid, when all of these columns are the same height, & they constantly tend to achieve this equality of height, even though they are contained in communicating vessels, however far apart they might be.“ (Volume 1 Page 305) Plate XIX, Le cabinet de Physique de Sigaud de La Fond

de.

Röhrentier

„Heute Nacht habe ich geträumt, dass ich Euch zusammenbinden, verknoten, mit Krickelkrakel verbinden wollte wie ein Kind. Im Traum habe ich die Herausforderung, mehrstimmig für ein Trio zu komponieren, einfach physikalisch gelöst. Ähnlich dem System der kommunizierenden Röhren wart ihr dann durch Schläuche verbunden. Es ging Klang aus Euch raus und kam Klang in Euch rein. Eure Mehrstimmigkeit war nicht nur akustisch über unsichtbare Klangwellen erfahrbar, sondern dinghaft gemacht. Die Schläuche schlotterten zwischen den Körpern, pusteten bis in die Bäuche Eurer Instrumente hinein und ließen diese erbeben. Ihr wurdet zu einem einzigen Cyborg-Wesen, Mensch-Tier-Kind-Maschine zugleich. Eine Imitationsmaschine. Eine Papagei-Maschine. Eine Kindheitsmaschine. Eine Hydra. Sie ließ Stimmen, Lebenszeiten, Spezien, Dinge, Körper verschmelzen.

Die Struktur des Stücks, das ihr spieltet, reproduzierte ein abendliches Hunde-Triokonzert. Auf dem Lande gibt es diesen Moment bei Sonnenuntergang wenn die Hunde von ihren Türschwellen aus bellen. Sie erheben ihre Stimmen und bellen sich zu, ohne dabei ihre Plätze zu verlassen.

Der Traum basierte auf dem, was Ihr mir gezeigt habt von Eurer Musik, Eurem Zeitempfinden, Kaffee kochen, Suppenzutaten komponieren, Euren Instrumenten, Spielzeugen, Aufnahmen, Charakterzügen, Steckenpferden.“

– Antonia Baehr

Lucie Vítková, Neo Hülcker und Johnny Chang wurden für Antonia Baehr von Christian Kesten und Andrea Neumann ausgesucht und miteinander verkuppelt.

quote in french orig.:

Il y a équilibre entre les colonnes d’une masse homogène liquide, lorsque toutes ces colonnes sont de même hauteur, & elles tendent constamment à atteindre à cette égalité de hauteur, lors même qu’elles sont renfermées dans des vaisseaux communiquans, quelques éloignés qu’ils soient. (Tome 1 page 305) Planche XIX Le cabinet de Physique de Sigaud de La Fond

Röhrentier

engl.

Composition/Choreography: Antonia Baehr
Violin: Johnny Chang
Voice and electronics: Neo Hülcker
Accordion: Lucie Vítková
Sound: Shades McKenna
Produced for LABOR SONOR: MOVING MUSIC transdisciplinary festival & symposium
23 & 24 September 2016 / Ballhaus Ost Berlin
For more info visit: www.laborsonor.de

de.

Komposition/Choreografie: Antonia Baehr
Geige: Johnny Chang
Stimme und Elektronik: Neo Hülcker
Akkordeon: Lucie Vítková
Ton: Shades McKenna
Produziert für LABOR SONOR: MOVING MUSIC transdisziplinäres Festival & Symposium
23 & 24 September 2016 / Ballhaus Ost Berlin
Mehr Infos unter: www.laborsonor.de

Neo Hülcker is a composer-performer whose work focuses on music as anthropological research in everyday life environments. Their compositions evolve as situations, performance-installations, actions and interventions, and work with different kinds of public spaces. Neo Hülcker studied composition with Dieter Mack and Harald Muenz at Musikhochschule Lübeck, and with Manos Tsangaris and Franz Martin Olbrisch at Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber Dresden. They graduated with a Masters degree in 2013. In 2014 they have been a fellow of the Junge Akademie at the Akademie der Künste Berlin. Neo Hülcker founded the youtube channel feminist ASMR (in collaboration with Stella Veloce and Katie Lee Dunbar), as well as the channel ASMR studio berlin (in collaboration with mam.manufaktur für aktuelle Musik). They perform as the ASMR artist Thousand Tingles and are a part of the agency ASMR yourself with whom they performed at HAU Berlin, PACT Zollverein, Akademie der Künste Berlin and Münchner Kammerspiele. Their work has been performed by ensembles such as Ensemble ascolta, Ensemble Radar, mam. Manufaktur für aktuelle Musik, Ensemble Garage and decoder ensemble among others. Neo Hülcker has collaborated with Mario de Vega, Tomomi Adachi, Stella Veloce, Lucie Vitkova, Andy Ingamells, Elisabeth Hager, Matthias Kaul, Eva Zöllner and Bastard Assignments. Their compositions have been performed at Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik, Wien Modern, London Contemporary Music Festival, Münchener Biennale, Blurred Edges Festival Hamburg, Frontiers Festival Birmingham, soundacts festival Athens, Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik Darmstadt, Klangwerkstatt Berlin and elsewhere.

More Info on neelehuelcker.de

Johnny Chang engages in extended explorations surrounding the relationships of sound/listening and the in-between areas of improvisation, composition and performance. As composer and performer, his articulated performances have been featured in: Moment Musicaux (Aarau), Sonic Acts Festival at Paradiso) / DNK at Muziekgebouw / STEIM (Amsterdam), Plattfon (Basel), Sonic Arts Research Centre – Queen’s University (Belfast), Q-O2 workspace (Brussels), reiheM (Cologne), Donaueschinger Musiktage (Donaueschingen), Wandelweiser Klangraum (Düsseldorf), cave12 (Geneva), Stark Bewölkt (Hamburg), University of Huddersfield, Oblò Sonic (Lausanne) Cafe OTO (London), Disney Hall / REDCAT Theater / The Wulf (Los Angeles), Klang im Turm (Munich), Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall / Cooper Union (New York City), Umlaut festival (Berlin & Paris), Dotolim (Seoul), Künstlerhaus / Säulenhalle (Solothurn), Crow with No Mouth (St Paul, Minneapolis), Arnold Schönberg Center / echoraum / rhiz / Reheat Festival (Vienna) to various experimental music series/venues in Berlin such as ausland, Errant Bodies, Labor Sonor, Quiet Cue, N.K., Studio 8, Sophiensaele, Uferstudios, WestGermany. Since November 2010, Johnny Chang and Koen Nutters initiated and co-curated concert series Konzert Minimal which presents performances and events centered around the music of the Wandelweiser group. Currently collaborates with: Peter Ablinger, Antoine Beuger, Lucio Capece, d’Incise, Claudia Garbe, Catherine Lamb, Hannes Lingens, Radu Malfatti, Mike Majkowski, Chris Newman, Koen Nutters, Morten J Olsen, Michael Pisaro, Derek Shirley, Rishin Singh, Taku Sugimoto, Takako Suzuki, Stefan Thut, Manfred Werder.

More Info on wandelweiser.de/johnny-chang

Lucie Vítková is a composer, improviser and performer (accordion, harmonica, voice and tap dance) from the Czech Republic. Her compositions focus on sonification (compositions based on abstract models derived from physical objects), while in her improvisation practice she explores characteristics of discrete spaces through the interaction between sound and movement. She graduated in accordion performance and studied composition with Martin Smolka, Michael Pisaro a.o. in Brno, The Hague, and at CalArts (USA). Along with her study of music she used to teach tap dance at the Faculty of Theatre of JAMU. She is a member of the Brno Improvising Unit, Ensemble Marijan, Dunami, Dust in the Groove and Prague Improvisation Orchestra. She is a founder of Temporary Ensemble (2011). In her PhD. studies (UdK Berlin with Marc Sabat, now Columbia University New York City with George Lewis) she is analysing music of Christian Wolff, researching on the hierarchy and relations in his music and looking for the composition techniques which express these phenomena. Furthermore, she is placing his music and scores into the context of free improvisation to explore the definition of composition and improvisation.

More Info on vitkovalucie.com

 Antonia Baehr composing for/with Johnny Chang & Neo Hülcker & Lucie Vítková

Röhrentier, by Mathias Traxler

de.

Mathias Traxler about Röhrentier, Berlin, 24th of September 2016.

(…) (es) haben sich während eurem Röhrentier immer wieder Öffnungen nach aussen gezeigt, also räumlich aus den Instrumenten heraus, aus dem Gemäuer des Ballhaus, und zeitlich, in Landschaften in ganz anderen Tageszeiten. Am stärksten war es als das Pferd in den Instrumenten wieherte, da war die Landschaft, mit kaum Häusern, am weitesten. Und das Bild mit den Haaren liess oft an ein Schiff denken, an ein Spielen auf einem Schiff, was ja immer auch ein Bild für Dichtung ist.