Improvisation Summit: Lehn, Bertoncini, Bischoff & Brown

Presented by Center for New Music

Vienna-based composer-performers Tiziana Bertoncini, violin and Thomas Lehn, synthesizer perform as a duo, and also with Bay Area electronic musicians John Bischoff and Chris Brown. Lehn first met and performed with Bischoff and Brown as members of The HUB, the computer network band the HUB in 2005 in Cologne, Germany. TIZIANA BERTONCINI, violin and THOMAS LEHN, synthesizer have been collaborating as a duo since 2002. The special feature of their duo is the alchemy created by the meeting of the classical and the electronic instrument. The different nature of sound, the characteristics and histories of violin and analogue synthesizer could create a friction. What happens is a sort of mirror game, in which the roles of the instruments are continuously exchanged. Bertoncini and Lehn move in an abstract territory, and their approach to sound is contemporary. Nevertheless their approach to music is quite classical insofar as it is based principally on tension/release, rupture, intensity and expressivity in all its facets. Their first CD Horsky Park, was released in spring 2011 on the British label Another Timbre. They have been performing together in Austria, Germany, England, France, Switzerland, Italy, Slovakia and The Netherlands. They collaborated on multimedia and collaboration projects: for ZAM Zentrum für aktuelle Musik, initiationing the comprovise, festival for contemporary composed and improvised music, in June 2009 in Cologne. In 2016 and 2021 the 2nd and 3rd edition followed produced by Wien Modern. In 2024 together with Austrian composer Peter Jakober they created the concert project samen which embraces both practices of contemporary music: compositon and improvisation. JOHN BISCHOFF (b. 1949, San Francisco) is an early pioneer of live computer music. His recent performances combine hands-on analog circuitry and digital synthesis in open dialog where sonic attributes in one domain inform music unfolding in the other. The ebb and flow of discontinuity in these systems spontaneously generates form. He was a founding member of the League of Automatic Music Composers in 1978 and co-authored an article on the League's music that appeared in ""Foundations of Computer Music"" (MIT Press 1985). He is also an original member of The Hub, a band he has performed and recorded with for over 3 decades. In 1999 he was a recipient of a ""Grants to Artists"" award by the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. Recordings of his work are available on Artifact Recordings, Lovely Music, Tzadik, 23Five, Centaur, and New World Records. As a teacher, he was on faculty for many years in the legendary Music Department at Mills College in Oakland, California. www.johnbischoff.com CHRIS BROWN, composer, electronic musician, and pianist, makes music with self- designed sonic systems that include acoustic and electroacoustic instruments, interactive software, computer networks, microtonal tunings, and improvisation. His compositions are designs for performances in which people bring to life the musical structures embedded in scores, instruments, and machines. As a member of the computer network music band The Hub he received a 2018 Giga-Hertz Award for Lifetime Achievement in Electronic Music from ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany.. https://cbmusc.com

Date:
Organization:
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City: San Francisco
Price Range:
$15 General, $10 Members & Students

Performers

Tiziana Bertoncini violin
Thomas Lehn synthesizer
John Bischoff electronics
Chris Brown electronics

Center for New Music

Center for New Music

55 Taylor Street
San Francisco, CA 94102
United States