Club Zho 97 as part of Liquid Architecture 12
Marc Behrens (Germany) and Ross Bolleter (Western Australia)
8pm Monday 27 June 2011
The Bakery, James Street, Northbridge
$10/$15 (Club Zho members $5) www.nowbaking.com.au
Marc Behrens
Marc Behrens plays concrete music with spatialized sound sources, mobilizing cerebral and physical energy fields. His live pieces are specifically conceived to addressing a group of listeners in a space. Most of the sound material used live derives from field recorded natural and urban environments as well as from studio recordings of various percussion instrument-like constructions. Behrens links live performance to the agility or rigidity of the body (breathing, tension, movement, position). The flow between compositional modules enters into a feedback loop with the inner state of the performer's body, thus a physical energy can be perceived by the audience.
Depending on the condition and dimensions of the spaces he finds himself in, Marc Behrens will eventually rearrange furniture, install specific lighting or mount small speakers on tripods to distinguish two spheres of diffusion: a more intimate array of mobile, personal sound sources and an immersive 4-channel array of fixed PA speakers.
Ross Bolleter
Piano Archeologico: Accordion into the Abyss
"This piece was inspired by a photograph from Genoa of a famous Italian coloratura accordionist Lunardi playing a Super 6 Piano accordion and an electric organ simultaneously. I intersperse the musical episodes with stories of the ruined accordion and ruined piano, and additionally refer to music that was played on these decaying instruments in their more pristine early years. Piano Archeologico: Accordion into the Abyss will be enclosed by a series of short improvisations on the ruined piano and the ruined accordion, singly". RB
Liquid Architecture 12
A national sound arts project, Liquid Architecture occurs annually with events and presentations across a range of sound art practices. LA features some of our most imaginative musicians, composers, sound designers and media artists in a sense-specific feast for the ears. Tura New Music is proud to again present the WA leg of Liquid Architecture.
About the Artists
Marc Behrens
Behrens has performed and exhibited extensively across Europe, the Middle East, South Africa, North America, and East Asia, and developed collaborations with Jeremy Bernstein, Ana Carvalho, Bernhard Günter, Nikolaus Heyduck, Francisco López, Paulo Raposo, Achim Wollscheid, among others.
2006–2010 Marc Behrens was a lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts, Saarbrücken, Germany (HBKSaar), and 2007–2009 at the University of Applied Arts Darmstadt-Dieburg, Germany. He is a member of the Frankfurt Association for Contemporary Music (FGNM), the German Association for Electroacoustic Music (DEGEM), Granular (Lisbon), subscriber to the Electronic Music Foundation (EMF), and a citizen of The Kingdoms of Elgaland~Vargaland. 2003–2007 he was co-director of the Portuguese music label Sirr.
Behrens has been active as a performer and recording artist for more than 20 years and has recorded more than 30 album releases and productions for radio up to date.
Ross Bolleter
Ross Bolleter is a West Australian improviser/composer. His love of ruined pianos started in 1987 with the discovery at Nallan Station:
“I respectfully approached the ruined piano in the tractor shed at Nallan sheep station and took hold of the fall to lift it. It was so rotten that it came away in my hands. I shoved batteries into my Marantz recorder and slung microphones over the dusty rafters. As I played, ants appeared journeying in concentric circles on the front panel of the Jefferson (Chicago ’26)... I knelt to pull back the bass strings and then released them - firing off huge arrows. The piano roared and groaned.”
“Bolleter is a consummate musician, who extracts a unique musicality from every instrument. This is fabulous music.”
Chris Reid, Realtime Magazine, April - May 2002
“What beautiful, beautiful music this is.”
Walter Horn, Cadence, November 1999
“….there’s something very direct about all his work, and yet it tells us things that no other music does…..whenever I’m pressed, really pressed, by people outside Australia (and even in Australia) to say what Australian music sounds like…I usually end up with Bolleter’s ruined pianos. As with Sculthorpe’s music, there’s some¬times an explicit connection with the landscape of the country.”
Andrew Ford, ABC 24 Hours, August 1999
The Ruined Piano
A piano is said to be ruined (rather than neglected or devastated) when it has been abandoned to all weathers with the result that few or none of its notes sound like those of an even-tempered upright piano. However, a ruined piano has its frame and body¬work more or less intact (even though the sound board may be cracked wide open), so that it can be played in the ordinary way. By contrast, a devastated piano is usually played in a crouched or lying position.” Ross Bolleter
Club Zho
Established in 1999,Club Zho has been a stalwart for local new music practitioners in Western Australia. Providing a club style performance atmosphere, Zho has brought international and interstate musicians, composers, sound artists, improvisers, noise artists, laptop performers, audiovisual artists and experimental music makers together with local artists, providing Western Australian audiences with a surprising earful.
Club Zho membership was launched in 2011, members are entitled to discounted tickets at all Club Zho concerts – membership is FREE.
Club Zho is a Tura New Music project. Tura New Music is supported by the Government of Western Australia through the Department of Culture and the Arts in association with Lotterywest and the Australian Government through the Music Board of the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.
