biegungen im ausland dedicate this evening to the work of guitar player and composer Michael Renkel. He was a core member of the first Berlin Echtzeitmusik generation and long time organizer of the legendary concert series 2:13 Club and Quiet Cue. Michael Renkel is featured as an improviser (with Activity Center) as well as a composer, presenting his moving graphic score Nomos Alto.
https://youtu.be/-_mkqzkT9f4
Over the course of the last three decades Burkhard Beins’ and Michael Renkel’s duo Activity Center has developed a unique style of musical performance. Their distinctive way to “create spontaneous compositional structures” has been described as improvised sound art or hand-played musique concrète. “Beins and Renkel’s fractured instrumentation rocks out to a scattered beat of madness, joy and sheer bedlam.” (The Wire). Vocalist extraordinaire Mat Pogo is best known for his work with Jealousy Party, one of the most advanced musical units in Italy, mixing with personal touch soul, improv, avant rock, noise and error music. He has developed a fully integrated sound world of live and sampled voice fragments. In collaboration with Activity Center he is focusing on the pure acoustic potential of his voice.
vimeo.com/177828428
Nomos Alto is a moving graphic score for flute, violin, vibraphone and piano, here interpreted by Miako Klein, Johnny Chang, Emilio Gordoa and Rieko Okuda. It is based on Michael Renkel’s thoughts on semiotics and the semiosphere. Michael Renkel, born in north Germany, is based in Berlin since 1996. Renkel studied classical guitar in Hamburg. The main emphasis of his work is an interest in open methods of composition and the impossibility of repeating. His guitar playing straddles tradition and the development of a personal language that includes extended playing techniques and the preparation of the acoustic guitar. In a logical continuation he also extends the instrument via computer technology and he’s the first classical guitarist who connected the instrument in realtime-live processing to the computer. The acoustic guitar is modified in a way that blurs the delineation between acoustic preparation and electronic variance. In his works the instrumental material is altered in realtime using preparations, laptops, MAX/MSP, percussion instruments, a 16 channel sampler-sequencer, synthesizers and a vibraphone, the further development of this setup is his self-constructed amplified stringboard. Renkel also works with field recordings and composes works that experiment with genetic processes via generation, mutation, hybridization and coding also video animated compositions in which the performers interpret a permanently changing score in a live situation. As “Greekeeper in a Shadow Meadow” he also works on video projects as an actor and musician. His compositions are published at Verlag Neue Musik / Berlin.
Supported by Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Europa and Konzert des Deutschen Musikrates.
biegungen im ausland: Michael Renkel: ‘Nomos Alto’ + Activity Center & Mat Pogo
Saturday, 3rd November 2018 | Doors 20:30 CET | Starts 21:00 CET
ausland | Lychener Str. 60 | 10437 Berlin
ausland berlin | Event @ Facebook
