Lecture Performance 
Rediscovering Brian Ferneyhough's Carceri d’Invenzione 2c.  
Yuri Matsuzaki | Flute, electronic, lecture 

Lecture Performance 
Saatgut Proxy  
Martin Heinze | composition, electronic, live-performance 

Tertiary Protentions 
Nicola L. Hein | composition, electric guitar electronic, musical agent system 

Homage à Luigi Nono  

Luigi Nono: ...sofferte onde serene...for piano and tape (1975-77, 14 min)  

Pavlos Antoniadis: 你們是蟲子 (You are bugs) - Hommage à Liu Cixin, for Piano, ROLI Seaboard RISE 2, BITalino R-IoT sensors and AI agents SOMAX2 & GesTCom, avant- première (2024)  
Pavlos Antoniadis | piano, electronic, composition 

Program Notes 

Rediscovering Brian Ferneyhough's Carceri d’Invenzione 2c.  

The aim of this lecture performance is to explore and update decoding, rehearsal and performance strategies for Ferneyhough's music using new technology, and most specifically to revisit the piece “Carceri d’Invenzione 2c”.  

Brian Fernyhough’s catalog includes solo pieces for the entire flute family. His unique scores can be regarded as multimodal platforms. They invite performers to develop a variety of interpretive strategies and to achieve different sonic results. However, performers often find it difficult to free themselves from interpretative traditions and habits of earlier Western musical styles. This is a precarious situation. Ferneyhough's scores contain so much information that their decoding is not only a question of personal interpretation, but allows a wider reflection on the interpretive realization of contemporary music based on new aesthetic approaches and technologies.  

Ferneyhough's cycle Carceri d'Invenzione was composed between 1981 and 1986. The Flute Concerto Carceri d'Invenzione 2a stands out as the heart of the cycle. Given its popularity, Ferneyhough made three arrangements with reduced instrumentation. The arrangement Carceri d'Invenzione 2c for flute and tape however, has been woefully neglected in performances and recordings due to its lack of visibility and accessibility. The hitherto only existing score—a handwritten manuscript—can only be consulted on location at the Paul Sacher Foundation in Basel.  

Therefore, as part of my doctoral studies I decided to copy end engrave the score, and to update the tape recording. The tape is going to be synchronized using ICST’s "PolytempoNetwork" software and “Max”, eliminating the need for a click track, cables and headphones. This not only gives performers more freedom of movement, but also vastly improves the listening experience for the audience. The presentation of the piece at “ArtSearch 2024” will be a landmark as it will be the first performance of this work in Germany since 1987.  

Saatgut Proxy  

Ever since AI (artificial intelligence) models became popular tools for artists and practitioners, the discourse has been dominated by questions surrounding the creative agency of humans employing them. Typically, the underlying concern seems to be that the use of AI-based technology diminishes the role of human artists; a key effort of practitioners being to find a way to effectively integrate AI into a collaborative creative process without removing the human agent from the equation.  

With focus on AI in music and the audio domain, the author proposes, that an example of a joint creative act of human and AI agents presents itself in the practice of Latent Jamming, a combination of techniques of real time intervention in the latent space of VAE architecture-based audio models.  

As an example, the author created Saatgut Proxy, an experimental setup in Pure Data that generates both randomized and repeatable pathways through the latent space of two neural audio model-architectures developed at IRCAM (RAVE, vschaos2). These models have been trained on the author’s musical body of work in order to set a common aesthetic baseline for both agents involved in Latent Jamming.  

The author comes to the conclusion, that AI models can be considered generative instruments. Their role in the creative process, such as the ability to surprise and ignite human creativity, is defined by the amount of control human agents are willing to give up. Being eager to play with rather than thoroughly controlling these models/ instruments might therefore bear the most fruitful outcome in terms of a joint creative act.  

At ArtSearch 2024, the author will perform live with the above mentioned framework, optionally followed by a Q&A on the details of model training as well as insights on practical research efforts in human and artificial agent collaboration in a shared creative process.  

Tertiary Protentions 

Tertiary Protentions is Nicola L. Hein’s solo project working with artificial intelligence in a solo real-time format. It develops a  

software musical agent system capable of learning human musicians’ musical gestures and idioms in real-time.  

The human and the machine musician develop an integrative system of musical materials and agency that integrates different strata of action.  

Their modes of interaction are characterized by “cybernetic listening,” the human-machine system’s listening for influx by itself,  

creating and stimulating the emergence of agency between human and machine. This systemic design enables a play between human and machine,  

utilizing what the great French philosopher of technology Bernard Stiegler would have called “Tertiary Protentions”:  

The conception of the future through technology, at the same using and questioning the very conception of technology.  

Homage à Luigi Nono  

On the occasion of Nono’s birth centenary, I pair his classic work for piano and tape with a new work of mine, which extends Nono’s techniques through live AI tools and multimedia, reflecting on Liu Cixin’s dark forest hypothesis.  

Artist Biographies 

Japanese flutist Yuri Matsuzaki is acclaimed by the international music community, having won numerous first prizes in competitions, including the International Competition for Contemporary Music Performance in Karlsruhe, Germany. Yuri is a globally active musician and has performed throughout Europe and East Asia. She was invited artist at festivals such as Acht Brücken, the Witten Days for New Chamber Music, the Darmstadt Summer Course, the festivals ManiFeste at Ircam, Abbay de Royaumont, Gaudeamus Muziekweek, Witold Lutosławski and the Kyiv Contemporary Music Days. As ensemble musician Yuri plays regularly with Ensemble Modern in Frankfurt a.m. and Contemporary Insights e.V. in Leipzig. Yuri currently teaches performance practice for contemporary music at the Hochschule für Musik Dresden and is a doctoral candidate at the Kunstuniversität Graz. She has received scholarships from several institutions, including the International Ensemble Modern Academy, the DAAD, and the Japan Agency for Cultural Affairs. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the Tokyo University of the Arts and completed her master’s degree and Master Class Exam at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Leipzig, where she studied with Prof. Irmela Boßler.  

Martin Heinze is a sound artist, composer and electronic musician working in the field of experimental electronic dance music and generative art.  

He holds a Master’s Degree in Media Arts, Art Theory and Media Sciences from the University of Arts and Design (HfG) Karlsruhe, Germany.  

Heinze writes and performs under artist names Martsman, Anthone and Bokeh (in collaboration with Katsunori Sawa) amongst others. His works have been published on numerous electronic music labels, such as Hidden Hawaii, Offshore, Hospital and his self-established The Weevil Neighbourhood, a creative outlet for music and media art.  

His current practical research focus revolves around generative frameworks for Jungle and Drum & Bass as well as generative AI in real time audio/ neural audio synthesis. His works have been awarded at IRCAM’s Generative Music Prize and Swing By Young Art Award.  

Heinze is presenting on shared human/AI and creative agency, most recently at Storytellers+Machines conference, hosted by SODA, Manchester and as guest lecturer at University of Arts and Design (HfG) Karlsruhe.  

http://www.martsman.de /// surprise@martsman.de  

Nicola L. Hein is a sound artist, guitarist, composer, and researcher in music aesthetics and cybernetics. He is a professor of digital creation and artistic director of the studio for electronic music at the University of Music Lübeck.  
His work is determined by the interaction of sound, space, light, movement, and the emergent dynamics of aesthetic systems. In his artistic work, he uses physical and electronic extensions of synthesizers and electric guitar, sound installations with motors/video projections/light, cybernetic human-machine interaction with interactive A.I. music systems, augmented reality, telematic real-time art, ambisonic sound projection, instrument-making, conceptual compositions. Intermedia works with video art, dance, literature, and other art forms. The interdisciplinary collaboration with many different artists* from music and video art, dance, theater, literature, painting, and many more play a central role in his artistic work. With the support of the Goethe-Institut and many other institutions, his works have been realized in more than 30 countries in North America, South America, Africa, Asia and Europe. His artistic work is documented on over 30 CD, tape, and vinyl publications on international labels such as Clean Feed. He has been awarded many different prizes and grants for his work. In sound art and improvised music, he has collaborated with many internationally renowned artists: Max Eastly, Evan Parker, Miya Masaoka, Axel Dörner, Ute Wassermann, and many more. Presentations of his work have taken place at MaerzMusik Festival (Berlin), Ars Electronica (Linz), Moers Festival, A L'ARME! FESTIVAL (Berlin), Super Deluxe (Tokyo), Sonica Festival (Glasgow), Experimental Intermedia (New York), and many more.  
More information at: https://nicolahein.com/ 

Pavlos Antoniadis is a pianist, musicologist and creative technologist from Korydallos, Athens, Greece, currently Associate Professor of Music Communication and Technology at the University of Ioannina, Greece, research collaborator with the team ismm and the ERC REACH at IRCAM, Paris, and PhD supervisor and visiting professor in Artistic Research at Lund University, Malmö. 

Ηe has performed in Europe, North & South America and Asia with the new music ensembles Work in Progress-Berlin, Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin, Phorminx, ERGON, Accroche Note, Contemporary Inisghts. As a soloist, he has performed with the Thessaloniki State Symphony Orchestra, he has worked with composers such as Mark Andre, Helmut Lachenmann, Brian Ferneyhough, Wolfgang Rihm, Tristan Murail, Richard Barrett, Walter Zimmermann, Wieland Hoban, and he has premiered solo piano works by James Erber, Nicolas Tzortzis, Andrew R. Noble, Luis Antunes Pena, Dominik Karski, Laurentiu Beldean, Lula Romero, Uday Krishnakumar, Irene Galindo Quero, Frank Cox, Michael Edward Edgerton among others. He has recorded for Mode (2015 German Recording Critics Award/Deutscheschallplattenkritikspreis), Wergo and Diatribe Records. 

His programming features the most complex contemporary works, extremes of physicality, live electronics, multimedia, sensors, Virtual and Augmented reality and musical theatre, often in eclectic dialogue with ancient repertoire from Cabezón to Bartók. He is also active in free improvisation, collaborating with Panos Ghikas or with the Improtech community and notably Mikhail Malt (IRCAM ERC REACH programme) for AI-assisted improv, and has collaborated with the physical theatre group Zero Point (Athens). 

Pavlos studied the piano with Chryssi Partheniade, Ian Pace, Geoffrey Douglas Madge and Aleck Karis. In ensemble performance, he was a Fellow of Ensemble Modern and Klangforum Wien. He holds a prize-winning PhD in musicology from the University of Strasbourg in co-direction with the IRCAM, an MA in piano performance from the University of California, San Diego on a Fulbright Scholarship, and an MA in music studies from the University of Athens. He has conducted post-doctoral research at EUR-ArTeC, Université Paris 8 and at the Technische Universität Berlin – Audiokommunikation as a Humboldt Stiftung Fellow. 

His research interests include embodied cognition, complexity, embodiment, multimodality, sensor-based interactive technologies, machine learning, Artificial Intelligence, Augmented and Virtual Reality and biopolitics, with a focus on technology-enhanced learning and performance for musics of the 20th and 21st centuries. He is the author of multiple publications, including two forthcoming monographs from Wolke Verlag and EUR-ArTeC and a collective volume on the music of Anestis Logothetis, and has given over seventy lecture-performances in universities and research centres around the world, while pursuing an active performing career. 

www.pavlosantoniadis.wordpress.com/about  

During the ArtSearch Conference 2024 SPIIC+ has invited a diverse group of highly acclaimed international performers /improvisors /scholars to take part in a two-day group workshop /exploration lab. /round table event. Following the motto of 'AI = Artistic Intelligence' the group will explore artistic practices and their transfer-ability to social, scientific and political contexts. 

The group will share it's process and insights with the conference attendees in a presentation /workshop on Friday afternoon at ligeti zentrum and a full evening concert on Saturday - TAOI '24 II at Resonanzraum St. Pauli. 

The acronym SPIIC+ stands for Social Performance, Interdisciplinary Improvisation & Creativity and is a part of the Artistic Research Lab. at ligeti zentrum under the leadership of Vlatko Kučan. 
SPIIC+ explores contemporary concepts and practices of artistic production from the departure point of critical improvisation studies. Through re-evaluation of traditional notions of the artistic process - for example by understanding composition, improvisation and performance as related modes of the creative process rather then categorically disparate processes - the goal of SPIIC+ is to pave the path towards a holistic and embodied conception and practice of creative social interaction and artistic production. 

JEAN-CHARLES FRANÇOIS (FR) - percussion 
GYÖRGY KURTÁG JR. (FR/HU) - electronics 
KATRIN BETHGE (DE) - light artist 
SUSANNE MARTIN (DE) - dance 
KATARZYNA BRZEZINSKA (PL) - dance 
NICOLA L. HEIN (DE) - guitar 
JOHN ECKHARDT (DE) - double bass 
TAM THI PHAM (VN) - dan bau 
HANIA MARIAM LUTHUFI (LK) - voice 
MATHEUS SOUZA (BR) - electronics 
VLATKO KUČAN (DE) - host, saxophones, clarinets 

JEAN-CHARLES FRANÇOIS (FR) - percussion 

A composer and percussionist, Jean-Charles François studied at the CNSMD in Paris. He was a freelance percussionist in Paris during the 1960’s. He was involved with the Domaine musical and Musique vivante from 1962 to 1969;  
Between 1965 and 1969, he was the co-director of the Centre de Musique, at the American Center in Paris, together with Keith Humble and Giuseppe Englert.  
François went on to teach in the Music Department of the University of California at San Diego, where he became Chairman. In 1975, he founded the experimental music group, Kiva.  
From 1990 to 2007, he was the director of the Cefedem Rhône-Alpes (a center devoted to the training of future music school teachers) in Lyon.  
In 1994, he joined the Aleph Ensemble as a percussionist. In 2007, he founded the improvisation ensemble PFL Traject with musicians from Lyon. The author of numerous articles on music theory, he published Percussion and Contemporary Music in 1991 (Klincksieck, Paris). His doctoral thesis (Paris VIII University, 1993) is on “The creative performer”. 
He is a member of the contemporary music ensemble Aleph, Paris, of PFL Traject, Lyon, and PaaLabRes collective.  

www.ensemblealeph.com  
www.paalabres.org 

GYÖRGY KURTÁG JR. (FR/HU) - electronics 

Composer, sound designer and improviser, he is since 2014, Arts/Sciences coordinator at the SCRIME computer music laboratory (University of Bordeaux - Science and Technology Department). This position enables him to link collaborative compositions and evolving scientific projects. In the past decades he has worked and performed in the most prestigious studios and concert halls around the world. (Ircam-Paris, Zkm - Karlsruhe; Guggenheim, New York; Carnegie Hall.
) 
After completing his composition studies at the Frantz Liszt Academy in Budapest (Hungary), György Kurtàg joined the I.R.C.A.M team as a RIM, and composer-researcher (pedagogy dept and Instrumental Research Group). He has collaborated with some of most influential researchers in computer music field as Tod Machover (MIT Medialab, Futur Group), David Wessel (CNMAT Berkeley), George Lewis (The Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia University) as well as famous composers like Mauricio Kagel, Pierre Boulez, Sylvano Busotti, Péter Eötvös. 
Deeply attracted to the visual arts, he has received musical commissions from the Centre Georges Pompidou, Musée du Louvre and Musée de Grenoble, as well as from visual artists, video artists and choreographers. 
His research encompasses both collaborative compositions, evolving projects as well as the analysis and capture of the gestures of the instrumentalist, as well as the creation of new instruments. He is Artistic Director of SCRIME and President of the European Center FOR Improvisation. 
« As a composer I am interested in collaborative work with composers, but also in evolving projects with performers. As a researcher, I am interested in the creation integrating both collective instruments and the pedagogy of expressive interactivity. As an improviser I experience a form of complexity that develops essential skills for the fluidity of a three-dimensional communication: Sensory intelligence (listening mobility, haptic perception, etc.) shared intelligence (human-machine communication), collective intelligence (free collective improvisation) » . 

Records : 
Face to face : Barre Phillips / Gyorgy Kurtag. (2022) ECM Records N°2735 
Kurtagonals : (2008) ECM Records N°2097 
Creation : moment’s Notice trio BMC Records CD 285 
Zwiegespräch - Kurtag 80 : BMC Records CD 129 
S(M)S : Lux Nox BMC Records CD 081 
« The Well - Tempered Universe » SC.Art Fonogram-Hungary award) 

https://youtu.be/rrKnFr8lxBc?si=sUbkqScq7Bx5wWxq 
https://youtu.be/MJ8Z5skovLw?si=Bp_mQ7sJ9hhrt5Cd 
https://youtu.be/FaUABVWc2pk?si=irSK8Qc9mGSoC6fb 
https://youtu.be/M3Tr8mSDYl8?si=3xizzBPTGQ-FCU3L 

KATRIN BETHGE (DE) - light artist 

Katrin Bethge begann nach dem Studium der Illustration an der HAW Hamburg 1999 mit der Arbeit mit Licht. Ihre Overheadprojektionen begleiten Projekte aus den Bereichen Tanz, Theater, Musik und Installation. Im Duo mit dem Bassisten John Eckhardt ist sie bei internationalen Festivals eingeladen, und gemeinsam realisieren sie Licht- und Klanginstallationen. Beim Hauptsache Frei Festival Hamburg erhielt das Tanzprojekt restructuring mit Veronique Langlott und Alexandra Griess den Jurypreis. Für die Installation „Lichtreise“ im Schleswiger Dom, bekam Katrin Bethge den Kulturpreis der Stadt Schleswig verliehen. Das Ensemble Resonanz begleitete sie beim Funkelkonzert in der Elbphilharmonie Hamburg und das Ensemble Modern in Frankfurt bei einem On Air Konzert. Im Herbst 2021 leuchtet sie zum 200. Jubiläum die Uraufführung „Schattengold“ Konzerthaus Berlin. Ihre Lichtinstallationen waren bei der Luminale in Frankfurt, den EVI Lichtungen, Hildesheim, der Hafensafari Hamburg sowie dem Tag des offenen Denkmals in Hamburg zu sehen. 
Die Projektionen von Katrin Bethge verwandeln als vergängliche Malerei die Oberflächen des Raumes, in den sie fallen. Lichtbrechende Objekte, Flüssigkeiten und alltägliche Materialien werden direkt auf der Arbeitsfläche des Projektors bewegt, wodurch kosmische wie mikroskopische Räume aus Licht entstehen. 

http://katrinbethge.com  

SUSANNE MARTIN (DE) - dance 

is a Berlin-based choreographer, performer, researcher, and teacher in the field of contemporary dance and theatre. She presents her work internationally in solo performances and collaborative stage works. Her artistic practice and research focus on improvisation as choreographic practice, critical practices and narrations of age(ing), contact improvisation, artistic research methods, and improvisation-based approaches to learning, knowledge production and knowledge dissemination. Festivals that presented her performances include: International Dance and Theatre Festival (Gothenburg), Aerowaves (London), Nottdance (Nottingham), Opera Estate (Bassano del Grappa), Tanec Praha (Prague). Her PhD dissertation Dancing Age(ing): Rethinking Age(ing) in and through Improvisation Practice and Performance was published 2017 by transcript. In her postdoctoral research at EPFL, Switzerland (2018-2021) she examined dance improvisation in its potential to rethink and advance processes of learning, teaching and researching in a technical university. 
Post navigation 

https://www.susannemartin.de 

KATARZYNA BRZEZINSKA (PL) - dance 

was studying at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Wroclaw (PL); Contemporary Dance, Improvisation & Performance in Silkeborg (DK) and Freiburg (DE). She is a freelance artist/choreographer/movement researcher in the field of choreography, dance and performance as well as sculpture and installation. She creates her own projects, participates in cooperation with artists in an international context and offers workshops and classes in the field of Movement, CI, Experiential Anatomy, Somatic Performance & Embodied Choreography as well as Instant Composition Research. In years 2017-2020, she was involved in the "DAS TANZNETZ Freiburg"; in the organisation, realisation and artistic conception of event formats, such as workshops, residencies and research laboratories in the field of dance and performance. Since 2019 she works also as an Ilan Lev Method Practitioner and ILM Movement Teacher mainly with dancers, performers and choreographers. Since 2022 she collaborates as an ILM Practitioner with Sasha Waltz & Guests Company in Berlin. Since 2023 she works within a frame of “Smart Cities Inkubator” under Victoria Hochschule in Berlin on establishing the company “BACK to BODY”, working between choreography, science of movement & preventive medicine. 

Her current artistic interests include the following themes: 
• The science of spaces within embodied and site specific practices  
• Magic of dreams; poetry and imagination in relation to tangible facts of reality, physical and anatomical structures, body flesh, objects, senses, perception, colours, spaces, shapes, etc. 
• Layers of female identity in relation to the system, culture, nature, inner and outer experience and other people 
• "perfect imperfection"; in the context of research on strength, power, will, challenge, weakness, trust, vulnerability 
• Frame of reference "many in one"; and "one in many"; as well as artistic presence 

https://www.brzezinska.space 

NICOLA L. HEIN (DE) - guitar 

is a sound artist, guitarist, composer and scholar, working in the field of music aesthetics and cybernetics. 
He is a professor of Digital Creation at the Music University of Lübeck, Germany. 
His work is driven by the interaction of sound and space, light, movement, thought and the becoming of embodied and intermedial intelligence in aesthetic systems, community and technology. 
In his artistic work he uses physical and electronic extension of the electric guitar, sound installations, cybernetic human-machine interaction with A.I. interactive music systems, Augmented Reality, telematic real-time art, ambisonic sound projection, instrument building, conceptual compositions, inter-media works (w/video art, light, dance, literature) and much more. 
In his work as a sound artist he builds installations, sculptures, instruments, researches the interaction of sound, material and space, works with field recordings, programs (intelligent) software systems, creates a multitude of intermedial works, engages in network technologies and artistically develops dances of agency between the human, nature and technology.  
He explores the possibilities of the electric guitar as a modular becoming of technology and sound. In this process the guitar is played with objects, extended techniques, stratified by the use of analog and digital effects as well software programming and is understood and developed as a creator of space and interaction. The use of Artificial Intelligence/machine learning, ambisonic spatialization and the interaction with autonomous interactive music systems play a central role in his practice. 
His research revolves around questions of philosophy of music, epistemology, aesthetics, media theory, critical improvisation studies and cybernetics. It follows questions of the creation of identity and sense in interactions between humans and technology, investigates the philosophical implications of musical and intermedial practices.  
He studied Jazzguitar, Soundart/Composition, Philosophy and German philology at the Friedrich-Wilhelms Universität Bonn and the Gutenberg-Universität Mainz. He was invited twice as a visiting scholar at Columbia University, New York City (2017-2018, 2019-2020), working with Prof. George E. Lewis. Currently he is pursuing his Ph.D. in Music at Columbia University in New York. 
His work has been shown internationally at institutions and festivals such as the Museo Arte Moderno (Medellín), Ludwig Museum (Budapest), Acht Brücken (Cologne), Moers festival, MaerzMusik (Berlin), Harvestworks (New York City), Ars Electronica (Linz), Mapping Festival (Geneva), Mirage Festival (Lyon), Experimental Intermedia (New York), Experimental Sound Studio (Chicago), Walcheturm (Zürich), Dark Circuits Festival (New York), Super Deluxe (Tokyo), Sonica (Glasgow), Klex Festival (Kuala Lumpur), Hong Kong New Music Ensemble (Hong Kong), NIME (Birmingham and Shanghai), Festival International de Cine (Mexico City).  

https://nicolahein.com 

JOHN ECKHARDT (DE) - double bass 

Whether performing today’s most challenging double bass repertoire, developing his own music, or working sound systems with a bass guitar or a set of turntables - John Eckhardt is testing the limits of being a bassist on planet earth in the 21st century, working towards a broader vision of what bass always was and can become in the future. 
Seeking to combine scope with depth, John Eckhardt is constantly involved in the creation of new music and has both collaborated with a wide spectrum of artists and created his personal brand of solo projects. He worked with many composers including Helmut Lachenmann and Pierre Boulez, top new music groups such as Ensemble Modern, Klangforum Wien and musikfabrik, improvisors from Evan Parker, Elliott Sharp, Peter Brötzmann and Peter Evans, to today’s new blood in a wide field of today’s music. 
John Eckhardt has performed on over 40 recordings, among them six internationally acclaimed solo releases. These share an interest in low frequency and spectral immersion, spatial depth, and themes of repetition and evolutional process. They are regularly released as special one-of-a-kind art editions, which also present John Eckhardt’s deep interest in the practice of photography. 
Driven by curiosity and passion for different styles, cultures and artistic means, John Eckhardt keeps drawing new connections and expands a bass cosmos of unusual dimensions. As Fatwires, he has been working on a personal brand of heavy, bass-guitar-based industrial dub in solo releases and collaborations. He has recently realized a series of sound installations, among them „48k“ which was first published by Touch Records and nominated for the German record critics award. After his most recent release „Palaeodubfolk“, performed entirely on found instruments, he is now working on a new solo set that draws heavily on themes of the double bass as a prototypical four-stringed string instrument across histories and traditions. In his Basswald DJ project John Eckhardt presents a diverse spectrum of bass music with a special ear for sound system culture, also listenable in over 30 editions of the Basswald podcast series. 

https://www.johneckhardt.de 

VLATKO KUČAN (DE) - reeds 

Vlatko Kučan (b. 1963 Sarajevo, Ex-Yugoslavia) studied popular music, jazz and music therapy at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hamburg. 
He works as a musician (instruments: saxophones and clarinets), composer, producer, music therapist and educator. 
His various works focus and explore the possibilities of artistic expression through the art of improvisation. They cross and extend traditional boundaries of contemporary music, jazz, improvised music, theatre and film music. Another focus of Kucan’s work is the combination of literature, philosophy and music. He also works as a director for radio plays and audio books. 
He performed and collaborated with leading protagonists of contemporary jazz (i.e. Carla Bley, Lester Bowie, Anthony Braxton, Marion Brown, Bill Elgart, Dieter Glawischnig, Howard Johnson, Jay Oliver, Barre Philips, Tomasz Stanko, Steve Swallow, Kenny Wollesen) and improvised music (i.e. Derek Bailey, Malcolm Goldstein, Barry Guy, Aleksander Kolkowski, Jim Menesses, Rajesh Mehta, Lauren Newton, Maggie Nichols, Mia Zabelka). 
His theatre collaborations include directors Karin Beier, Michael Bogdanov, Herbert Fritsch, Brian Michaels, Robert Wilson and musicians Tom Waits, Lester Bowie and Giora Feidman. 
His works on literature and music include productions based on texts by Friedrich Nietzsche, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Charles Baudelaire, Anne Sexton and Mascha Kaleko and collaborations with various actors (i.e. Christian Brückner, Hannelore Elsner, Corinna Harfouch, Susanne Lothar, Dietmar Mues, Barbara Nüsse, Christian Redl, Lars Rudolph, Hanna Schygulla, Otto Sander, Ulrich Tukur, Ulrich Wildgruber) and authors (i.e. Peter Handke, Siri Hustvedt, Hellmuth Karasek, Siegfried Lenz, Benjamin Lebert, Helmut Schmidt). 
Vlatko Kučan is teaching Improvisation at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater (HfMT) in Hamburg, Germany at the Jazz department BA and MA programs and the Contemporary Performance and Composition (CoPeCo) MA program. Since 2018 he is the head of the Social Performance, Interdisciplinary Improvisation and Creativity (SPIIC+) project, that is now part of the artistic research lab of the new ligeti center in Hamburg. He has been a visiting artist and lecturer and has held workshops on Improvisation at international academic institutions. 

https://www.vlatkokucan.de/ 

HANIA MARIAM LUTHUFI (LK) - voice 

is a vocalist, composer and music educator from Colombo, Sri Lanka. Her interest in using the voice began with quirath (also spelled qirat) in her childhood, choral music in school; later, she moved to exploring and receiving informal training in jazz vocals. Hania is also a graduate of Calcutta University obtaining a Master's degree in Hindustani classical music and a Bachelor's degree at Viswa Bharati University in Santiniketan and stayed on in Bengal for five more years to study under the apprenticeship of her former teacher Shantanu Bhattacharyya. Luthufi's recent work comprises of abstract, cinematic compositions exploring the vast possibilities of drone music. 
Her last album invited a gathering of musicians from disparate coastal regions to come together and musically interpret various temperaments of the sea. At present she is working on an EP of Raga music as digital and visual interpretations. This body of work is being done as her current research as a resident of Cité internationale des arts in Paris, where she is based at the moment. 
Hania is also researching dialects of Arabic and Tamil through archiving lost devotional songs from fishing communities in the coastal regions of Sri Lanka. More recently, Hania’s works were a part of ‘Sea Change’, Colomboscope 2019, curated by Natasha Ginwala. She has also contributed to ‘Held Apart Together’, a digital program for Colomboscope 2021, Chobi Mela Festival in Bangladesh in 2021 and Colomboscope "Language is Migrant" 2022. 

TAM THI PHAM (VN) - dan bau 

is a Vietnamese multimedia composer, improviser and performer living in Hamburg. She completed her Bachelor of Musicology at the Vietnam National Academy of Music, a program in New Compositional Techniques at the University of Music and Theater Hamburg with Prof. Helmut Erdmann and is currently enrolled in Master in Multimedia Composition with Prof. Dr. Georg Hajdu, Prof. Dr. Gordon Kampe and Prof. Dr. Alexander Schubert.  
Her works are a journey of exploring individuality in an attempt to connect with the surrounding social environment. She is trying to build a way of expression in which music and performance are two indivisible parts. 
Tam Thi Pham plays electronic music, objects and Dan Bau (traditional Vietnamese instrument). One of her main interests is working with choreographers and dancers both as an improviser and as a composer. One aspect of this made networked music performance a focus of her current works (2020-), with the “2×2 WindowS” project (a collaboration with Japanese dancer Minori Sumiyoshiyama) garnering a lot of attention in Asia (Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia) and her “here&there” project being awarded funding and support from Goethe Institute in Hanoi. Another big interest of Tam Thi Pham lies in microtonal music, which she sees as both an expressive element and a research tool, helping her immerse herself into the rich culture of traditional Vietnamese music and transform it into a new, contemporary language and forms.  
Besides her activities as a composer and a performer, she was also very active as an organizer of various discussions on contemporary music and art and concerts in Hanoi and Hamburg. She has also been participating at festivals in Vietnam, Germany, Japan, Indonesia and Serbia. such as: “Hanoi Sound Stuff Festival”, Hanoi, 2014; “Hanoi New Music Festival”, Hanoi, 2013 and 2018; “Beyond Sound” – a series of concerts of experimental music, Heritage space, Hanoi; 2016, 2017 and 2018; “Dance and music camp” with composer Heine Goebbels, Hanoi 2018; “New Music Festival”, Lüneburg, 2016, 2018 – 2021; “Blurred edges” festival, Hamburg, 2019, 2021; “41. International study week for contemporary music”, Hamburg, 2019 ; “next_generation 8.0 and 8.5” festival, Karlsruhe, 2019 and 2021; “Dance fest” Hanoi, 2019; “46.New Music Festival-Portrait Concert: Tam Thi Pham” at HfMT, Hamburg, 2020; Misch Masch festival, NPO Dance Box, Japan 2021; Exhibition “Zemljišta: situacije i dokumenta” (EN: “Grounds: situations and documents) at Gallery ”Jovan Popović” in Opovo, Serbia, 2021; “here&there” in reconnect – program of Goethe Institute in Hanoi, 2021; TAOI/ II, 2019 and TAOI (The Art of Improvisation) 2021..., Indonesian Dance festival (2021) 

https://tamthipham.com 

MATHEUS SOUZA (BR) - electronics 

is a composer, improviser and performer from Rio (Brazil). His musical practice is focused on the field of electroacoustic music by carrying out live electronics, acousmatic, and mixed music pieces. In his artistic process he aims to develop dynamic and powerful yet elegant works. As an electronic musician, he performs on a set made up of a Buchla Easel Command and a laptop (Max or VCV Rack), searching for a balance between analogue and digital interfaces. 
Holding a Bachelors degree in Music from Instituto Villa-Lobos - UNIRIO, he currently pursues a Masters degree in Contemporary Performance and Composition at the CNSMD de Lyon, under supervision of Michele Tadini and Jean Geoffroy. During the same Masters studies, as an Erasmus+ student at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, he was guided in Contemporary Composition by Helena Tulve and he was an active student in a masterclass taught by Chaya Czernowin. 
In the role of an artistic researcher, he focus his studies on both fields of Theory and Analysis of Electroacoustic Music and on Composition and Performance on Modular Electronic Instruments. In his Master Thesis he carries out an investigation on an interdisciplinary relationship between the theory and analysis of electroacoustic music and philosophy via three concepts: the Praxis according to Paulo Freire, the Semiotic Tripartite Theory by Jean Molino and Jean-Jacques Nattiez, and the Combination of Aural and Mimetic discourses by Simon Emmerson. The studies presented in this dissertation are implemented in his live electronic music work "Tekoha". 
In March 2024, Matheus Souza was in an Artistic in Residency in Erica Synths HQ, in Riga, Latvia. In the residency he worked on some of their modular systems such as their Erica Synths system and their DIY Buchla 200. He investigated relationships between the Buchla and Erica Synths, that resulted in a new live electronics piece and several recordings of free-improvisations. On March 28th, 2024, Matheus Souza performed "Plasma" at Erica Synths Garage, as a restitution of the residency. 
His debut album titled "Terra" was released on Bandcamp on November 2023. It is made up of a a 34-minute solo work in two parts, recorded and performed by himself in one take, each part. The work was composed by Matheus Souza for the Buchla 200/200e system from the Royal College of Music in Stockholm. 
He contributed as a composer-performer to the Buchlaïsms series, produced by the electronic music platform "Modulisme" by Philippe Petit. For that he composed a 15' acousmatic work having as sound source his Buchla 208c processed via a Max/MSP patch he programmed. In this series, more then 100 electronic musicians pay tribute to the anniversaries of the Buchla 100 and Buchla Music Easel, released in 1963 and 1973, respectively. 

https://garage.ericasynths.lv/articles/matheus-souza-bridging-classical-and-electronic/