REFLUX – Festival for Contemporary Electroacoustic Music presents on 9 evenings in September, October and December 2022 each three different artists & composers from almost all continents.
REFLUX is the international continuation of FLUX FESTIVAL – Electroacoustic Music from Berlin which took place in 2018 on seven evenings with a total of 28 positions at Spektrum Neukölln. For each of these evenings we will present a classic in addition to two contemporary positions, so three concert parts of 30-40 minutes each. The program will be adapted to the acoustic and spatial peculiarities of each location or composed especially for these locations. The invited musicians each have an individual sound and formal language and are rarely heard in Berlin. We asked all artists for conceptual proposals, so that the program will be a balanced mixture of composition commissions/premieres, already existing works and rarely heard classics.
Philip Samartzis’ The Blizzard is a multichannel composition solely comprising sound recordings of the presence and effects of high velocity katabatic wind recorded in Eastern Antarctica in 2010 and 2016. The composition draws on hundreds of hours of field recordings to express an immersive and visceral experience of the extreme forces transforming our planet. Many of the recordings were made during the most intense blizzard ever registered at the Australian research station Casey during which time wind gusts exceeded 100 knots. The Blizzard draws on a unique repository of recordings made in extremis to demonstrate the complexity and consequences of extreme climate and weather in places seldom seen or heard, yet integral to our daily existence.
Bernard Parmegiani, from “La Création du Monde” (1982-1984). The first movement “Lumière noire” was premiered on January 31, 1983 at the Acousmatic Cycle in Studio 104 of the French Maison de la Radio in Paris, the final version then on May 14, 1984 also at the Acousmatic Cycle in Studio 104 of the French Maison de la Radio in Paris.
“It was not Genesis according to the Bible, much too anecdotal, that inspired my itinerary, but rather scientific and para-scientific books by Hubert Reeves, Carl Sagan, Robert Clarke, Steven Weinberg, that gave me the main markers. The words that describe astrophysical phenomena are incentive enough to stimulate our musical imagination and feed this world’s reverie. Nothing is more exciting for it than a paradoxical acousmatic vision of the creation of the world.” – Bernard Parmegiani
Thomas Ankersmit (replacing Beatrice Ferreyra) is a musician and sound artist based in Berlin and Amsterdam. He plays the Serge Modular synthesizer, both live and in the studio, and collaborates with artists like Phill Niblock and Valerio Tricoli. His music is released on the Shelter Press, PAN, and Touch labels, and combines intricate sonic detail and raw electric power, with a very physical and spatial experience of sound. Acoustic phenomena such as infrasound and otoacoustic emissions (sounds emanating from inside the head, generated by the ears themselves) play an important role in his work, as does a deliberate, creative misuse of the equipment.
“Ankersmit constructs a musical world that feels alive and capable of going anywhere, and yet also manages to give the music a strong sense of structured purpose, a degree of compositional control unusual in this area of live performance. It is the fine balance between the sense of chaos that threatens to pull everything apart and the controlled formation of the music into clearly defined sections of differing intensities that raises the work above that of so many of Ankersmit’s contemporaries.”
— Richard Pinnell, The Wire
REFLUX – Festival for Contemporary Electroacoustic Music
Philip Samartzis: »The Blizzard « (2022)
Bernard Parmegiani: »La création du monde« (1982-1984)
– First movement, “Lumière noire” 17’36
– Métamorphose du vide 23’03 Diffusion: Valerio Tricoli
25.10.2022 | Doors 19:30 | Starts 20:00 CET
Museum Kesselhaus Herzberge | Herzbergstraße 79 (Haus 29) in 10365 Berlin-Lichtenberg
REFLUX Festival is a production of zangimusic.wordpress.com with the financial support of Hauptstadtkulturfonds. Tickets are 15/10 Euro Festivalpass 90/60 Euro. Tickets are available at the door. Curated by Ignaz Schick and Werner Dafeldecker
