Screenshot © YouTube channel Chuchchepati Orchestra: September 18, 2021 live at "Rümlingen Neue Musik" Festival
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Patrick Kessler, concept, composition, double bass, orchestra manager [CH]
dieb13, concept, composition, software, turntable [A]
Special Guest: Charlotte Hug, viola, voice [CH]
Photo on the left: © Kathrin Schulthess
Thematic concert installation for an 8 to 32 loudspeakers orchestra, an oversized record player, plus a various number of musicians.
Pardon? Chuchichäschtli?
If you only understood Chuchichäschtli when hearing Chuchchepati you’re not completely wrong. The two terms from Nepali and Swiss German are some of the few that have three "ch" in them. With his Chuchchepati Orchestra, the Appenzell-based double bass player, experimental musician and sound art mediator Patrick Kessler combines the two terms and lets them ring true. "Chuchchepati" (pronounced djudjepati) is the name of a town district of Kathmandu. The name of the orchestra refers to the origin of the 32 large loudspeakers that function as a polyphonic sound installation.
Feeding them live on stage is the Chuchchepati Orchestra, which performs in changing line-ups; the permanent pool includes both local and international experimental and jazz musicians. The soundtrack is developed collectively during performances. The open concert space is transformed into a laboratory-like "chuchi" (the Swiss German term for kitchen) in which the sounds, noises and tones simmer, bubble, boil up and cool down, and the interactions between orchestra, loudspeaker installation and audience become a horizon-expanding listening and viewing experience.
The Makrograph is a giant record player on a scale of 2.77:1, on which sound carriers with a diameter of 33⅓ inches (82.9 cm) of very different materials and surface finishes can be "played".
While in a classic record player a needle slides in the groove and translates vibrations into audible sounds, in the Makrograph, a laser beam scans the surface of the sound carrier. The digital data obtained in this way form the starting material for the composition. The basic principle of the macrograph is the translation of form into music. For the composition process this means that the "translation" of the data into music can be determined according to freely definable parameters, and even non-musical topologies can be translated into interesting musical results.
In addition to Patrick Kessler and dieb13, the orchestra at this concert in the MUG also includes the Zurich violinist and vocal artist Charlotte Hug.
The Makrograph is supportet by Pro Helvetia, Swiss Arts Council. 
Location: MUG – Munich Underground at Einstein Kultur
Entrance fee: 15 Euro, members of Offene Ohren e.V. 12 Euro, free admission up to 21 years (inclusive)
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Kazuhisa Uchihashi, e-guitar, daxophone [Japan]
Chris Biscoe, soprano / alto saxophone [GB]
Roger Turner, drums[GB]
Photo source: www.areasismica.it/event/swipe-trio-gb-jp/
Three grand masters of improvisation!
The band itself is quite new, but Roger Turner has played in duos with both Kazuhisa Uchihashi and Chris Biscoe for a long time already.
Chris Biscoe comes from a time when jazz was experiencing a period of awakening and change. He is one of the musicians who built a bridge between the worlds of jazz, free jazz and improvised music, with musicians from both sides of the Atlantic. He has recorded with leading composers such as George Russell, Mike Westbrook and Chris McGregor and has explored the compositions of Eric Dolphy and Charles Mingus.
Roger Turner has been active as a drummer and percussionist since the early 1970s, earning himself a firm place in the world of improvisation.
He was also an integral part of groups that helped shape international improvised and new music: The Recedents, The Tradition Trio, The Phil Minton Quartet, Konk Pack and so on.
Solo percussion, work with electroacoustic and vocal ensembles, extensive work with dance and visual artists as well as special jazz ensembles led to collaborations with the most interesting European and international musicians and performers from Annette Peacock to Phil Minton, Cecil Taylor to Yuji Takahashi, Charles Gayle to Lol Coxhill, Derek Bailey to Otomo Yoshihide, and countless others.
Kazuhisa Uchihashi has helped to define the language of Japanese improvised music for forty years, both in Japan and the world beyond. A pioneering Japanese guitarist, he has worked with a wide range of musicians, from Derek Bailey to Kevin Ayers, but he remains committed to free improvisation.
Born in Osaka in 1959, Kazuhisa Uchihashi began playing guitar at the age of 12 and later studied jazz music. He was a member of Otomo Yoshihide's Ground Zero from 1994 to 1997. He also plays the daxophone, and in addition to his role as a free improviser, he has been the musical director of the Ishinha theatre group in Osaka and has held improvisation workshops (a project called New Music Action) in various cities in Japan, as well as in London, Oslo and Vienna.
A live recording of a performance at the end of 2023 at London's Café OTO is available on the CD THE SWIPE TRIO.
Location: MUG – Munich Underground at Einstein Kultur
Entrance fee: 15 Euro, members of Offene Ohren e.V. 12 Euro, free admission up to 21 years (inclusive)
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Li-Ping Ting, dance, voice, performance [Taiwan]
Michel Doneda, soprano saxophone [F]
David Chiesa, bass [F]
not in the picture: Christophe Cardoen, light installation [F]
Photos: © Agata Majcherowicz
The four artists involved have already collaborated on various projects and are artistically well acquainted with one another.
What unites them is a poetic engagement with space and time – a place where sound, light, and movement meet and unfold in their own individuality, guided only by intense listening.
In each of us, this activates the vortex of our perceptions – that raw animality in which our reptilian brain experiences its first sensations. A glimpse of SIGHTINGS can be found on YouTube (live at Petersburg Art Space 22/11/2018, filmed by Oleg Tailakov).
While Michel Doneda and David Chiesa have previously appeared as guests of Offene Ohren e.V. – Michel Doneda most recently in April 2021 with Natacha Muslera, and David Chiesa in February 2016 in a duo with Sophie Agnel – we now welcome Li-Ping Ting and Christophe Cardoen to MUG for the first time.
Li-Ping Ting (dance) is an interdisciplinary artist born in Taiwan. Her artistic work is based on an exchange with the people on-site and revolves around themes such as interpersonal relationships, the questioning of the body, and the transformation of the mind.
Michel Doneda(soprano saxophone) has developed one of the most multifaceted musical vocabularies in free improvisation. His music, marked by the highest level of instrumental expressiveness, is the pure manifestation of his being.
David Chiesa (double bass) has been a prominent figure in the international improvisation scene for decades. His work as an improviser is in close dialogue with other art forms such as dance, poetry, experimental film, light art, visual arts, and theater.
Christophe Cardoen (light installation) is a self-taught artist who has been creating machines and installations for over twenty years. His works emerge in a wide variety of locations: in theaters, squatted houses, galleries, museums, schools, abandoned buildings, gardens, or basements – always operating in the dynamic interplay of light, space, and perception.
Location: MUG – Munich Underground at Einstein Kultur
Entrance fee: 15 Euro, members of Offene Ohren e.V. 12 Euro, free admission up to 21 years (inclusive)
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Florian Stoffner, guitar [CH]
John Butcher, soprano / tenor saxophone [GB]
Chris Corsano, drums [USA]
Photo: © H. Schneider [Nickelsdorf 2024]
This trio is more than capable of lifting off the stage roof — if they so desired. But each of the three also had always an inherent instinct for subtlety, for the overtones that emerge at the moment of attack, and for the spaces between the notes.
The Austrian magazine freiStil [#115 Sept/Oct 2024, translated] writes about their trio concert at the Nickelsdorf Konfrontationen 2024: „(Butcher), the great stylist among saxophonists, conjures up sound figures of extraordinary beauty, usually at a lowered tempo, both on the soprano and tenor saxophone. Corsano – as always – drums with sovereign ease, and Stoffner consistently impresses with original guitar interventions. A masterclass in poetry and beautifully controlled microtonal mechanics."
John Butcher is a master of subtle overtones and seemingly random resonance oscillations – which, of course, he controls with precision. These vibrations surround the notes and return from the walls and the audience.
Chris Corsano's rhythms – especially, and even more so when he plays freely – are like spiderwebs on a misty morning.
Flo Stoffner possesses the same precision of touch and the same keen sense for absolute detail. The guitar has long been the instrument of choice for those who, with a few simple chords and strumming, could feign expertise. But it is also an instrument of extraordinary refinement, loaded with secret sounds: sighs, music box-like tinkling, or the theatricality of powerful chords.
„Quiet is the new loud“ – this evening promises music for concentrated listening and the musicians’ readiness for a collective musical tightrope walk – a wonderful challenge!
This concert is made possible also by the Federal Culture Prize Applaus, which Offene Ohren e.V. was awarded in autumn 2024.
Location: MUG – Munich Underground at Einstein Kultur
Entrance fee: 15 Euro, members of Offene Ohren e.V. 12 Euro, free admission up to 21 years (inclusive)
Audrey Lauro, alto saxophone [B]
Éric Normand, e-bass [CND]
Xavier Charles, clarinet [F]
Photo: www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4iar6Sec2s [Concert Les Bourd'off/51, April 2024, aboard L'Armande ASBL, Liège (Belgium)]
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Peter Orins, drums [F]
Photo: © Michel Laborde
Limules, or horseshoe crabs, have lived almost unchanged on Earth since the Mesozoic era – for approximately 250 million years – likely thanks to their already highly optimised morphology. Their blue blood coagulates immediately upon contact with harmful bacteria.
Éric Normand, a chamber-punk-jazz musician from northeastern Canada, has named his new ensemble of Belgian and French improvisers after this ancient arachnid – inspired by its parallels to the world's oldest musical form, improvisation. Like the Limules, improvisation has demonstrated remarkable stability over millennia, yet remains constantly under latent threat posed by current social developments.
The line-up of Limules varies: around the core collaboration between Belgian saxophonist Audrey Lauro and French clarinettist Xavier Charles, pianists such as Sophie Agnel or Barbara Dang are occasionally featured. Our concert at the MUG will be completed by French percussionist Peter Orins.
This concert is made possible also by the Federal Culture Prize Applaus, which Offene Ohren e.V. was awarded in autumn 2024.
Location: MUG – Munich Underground at Einstein Kultur
Entrance fee: 15 Euro, members of Offene Ohren e.V. 12 Euro, free admission up to 21 years (inclusive)
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Casey Moir, voice [AUS/S]
Elisabeth Coudoux, cello [D]
Die Musik dieses Duos legt Stimme und Cello offen und präsentiert eine reichhaltige Intuition, die über die Grenzen vorgegebener Strukturen hinausgeht. Es entsteht eine Mischung aus professioneller Handwerkskunst und intimen Vertrautheit mit dem eigenen Instrument.
Es entstehen Texturen und Spannungen, Kontraste zerfließen, Feinheiten kommen zum Vorschein, und überraschende Wendungen sind allgegenwärtig.
Casey Moir (geb. 1984) ist eine in Australien geborene Vokalkünstlerin, Improvisatorin und Komponistin experimenteller Musik mit Sitz in Stockholm, Schweden.
Ihre künstlerische Praxis konzentriert sich auf die erweiterten Möglichkeiten der Stimme. Sie testet und verschiebt gerne konventionelle Grenzen, erforscht, wie Vokale und Konsonanten geformt, verzerrt und manipuliert werden können und gestaltet und modelliert Klänge mithilfe von Zunge, Lippen, Stimmritze und Händen.
Diese eher unkonventionellen Ansätze kombiniert sie mit musikalischen Aspekten wie Form, Richtung, Gesamtgestalt, Struktur und Bewegung.
Sie interessiert sich außerdem intensiv für das Konzept von Raum und dessen Einbeziehung in Performance, Improvisation und Komposition. Dafür komponiert sie großformatige Werke, die einen ganzen Raum als Bühne nutzen und in denen sich Musiker und/oder Publikum bewegen können – Richtungen, Bewegungsabläufe und Nähe zu Klängen, Objekten und anderen Dingen werden dabei verändern können.
Die Suche nach neuen Klängen und Spieltechniken führte die Cellistin Elisabeth Coudoux (geb. 1985) von einem klassischen Instrumentalstudium über den Jazz zur Neuen Musik und freien Improvisation.
Das Ausloten des Klangspektrums am Cello ist für sie eine sich stets ausweitende Suche nach der eigenen Stimme. Aus der Analyse intuitiver Bewegungsmuster entstehen poetische Miniaturen, geräuschhafte Erzählungen und Erkundungen unbekannter Klanglandschaften.
Als Solistin liebt sie die Herausforderung spontaner musikalischer Begegnungen. Sie spielte unter anderem mit Michael Zerang, Mark Dresser, Biliana Voutchkova, Mick Beck, Sandra Weiss, Xavier Charles und Marcus Schmickler. In ihrem 2013 gegründeten Ensemble Emißatett (Offene Ohren e.V.-Konzert im November 2016) resoniert das Cello als orchestraler Klangkörper, gleichberechtigt neben den anderen Instrumenten, wobei sich die Gewichte stets zwischen individuellem Ausdruck und freier kollektiver Energie verlagern. Zu verhandeln ist dabei eine Balance zwischen improvisierendem Eigensinn und gemeinsamer musikalischer Form.
Location: MUG – Munich Underground at Einstein Kultur
Entrance fee: 15 Euro, members of Offene Ohren e.V. 12 Euro, free admission up to 21 years (inclusive)
The friends of improvised music of the Offene Ohren e.V. would like to thank the Kulturreferat München for its continuous help allowing to present improvised music in Munich.