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.
In the opening concert, Pierre Berthet presents his interactive installation Musical Chairs, consisting of sound-producing chairs and his piece “Expirateur” for prepared vacuum cleaners. In an installative performance, the artist and/or the audience activate different and surprising sound actions triggered by prepared chairs by sitting down. In “Expirateur” vacuum cleaners themselves become actors and make different objects and instruments sound.
Douglas Lilburn‘s involvement with the electroacoustic medium – which began in the mid- 1960’s, when he was already a mature composer of conventional instrumental music – marks a major turning point in his career. From 1964 onwards, he concentrated almost exclusively on work in the electroacoustic medium, for in this he found a strong affinity between the potential sound-world of the medium and his own internal conceptions of the sensation of rhythm and timbre. In other words, a medium without direct and obvious links to the European instrumental connections and structuring of rhythm. In this way, environmental influence and the acknowledgement of the uniqueness of his own geographical and cultural identity were significant factors in Lilburn’s approach to the electroacoustic medium. The simple integrity of Lilburn’s stance as a composer – finding the means which best suit the expressive requirements of the individual – remains a valuable model for many younger New Zealand composers.
Katsura Mouri uses the amplification of the hum from portable record players. „(…) contact sounds from touching the arms, noise and scratches: all kinds of sounds fly past, warped into a tough, tenacious sound world”. She amplifies the motorized part, and as such, I could think that lots of other devices have a similar dark rumble. It is a low-frequency festival. My notes read ‘field recordings’, cross that out, ‘noise’, ‘synthesizer’, ‘dark drone’. There is indeed quite some noise on this album, but I didn’t have the volume all the way up, so it felt more like dark ambient with the occasional noise touch. When I opened up the piece in my audio editor (to get an extract for the podcast), I realized that it was all heavier than I had first heard. I listened with a different approach, now more on the overall noise aspect and the heavyweight of the bass. In my opinion, sounds do not fly by, but there is indeed change throughout the album. Not super fast, but every few or so minutes, the music changes, going deeper, noisier, or quieter.” Frans De Waard, Vital Weekly
REFLUX – Festival for Contemporary Electroacoustic Music
Pierre Berthet: »Musical Chairs«
Pierre Berthet: »Expirateur«
Douglas Lilburn: » Soundscape with Lake and River« (1967-1979)
Douglas Lilburn: » Poem in Time of War« (1967)
Douglas Lilburn: » Summer Voices« (1969) Diffusion: Werner Dafeldecker
Katsura Mouri: »New Work« (2022)
14.9.2022 | Doors 19:30 | Start 20:00 CET
St. Elisabeth-Kirche | Invalidenstraße 3 in 10115 Berlin
zangimusic.wordpress.com | Event @ Facebook
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
