photo: Koho Mori

LAUREN NEWTON (USA)

Lauren Newton, geboren in Oregon, USA, absolvierte ein klassisches Gesangsstudium an der University of Oregon und an der Staatlichen Hochschule für Musik in Stuttgart Germany, wo sie seit 1974 als Vocalistin lebt.
Sie begann ihr Spektrum an Gesangstechniken ohne Worte zu erweitern, wobei sie sich vor allem auf den stimmlichen Ausdruck konzentrierte, und erlangte sowohl in der Jazz- als auch in der Avantgarde-Musikszene Anerkennung. Sie trat als Solistin auf und tourte mit verschiedenen Ensembles durch die USA, Südkorea, Indien, Japan, Russland und ganz Europa. Für Timbre, ihre erste Aufnahme als Bandleaderin, erhielt sie 1983 den jährlichen Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik.
Konzerte und Aufnahmen mit: Vienna Art Orchestra (1979-90), Vocal Summit (1982-83), Vokalquartett Timbre (1990-2007), Anthony Braxton, George E. Lewis, Fritz Hauser, Joëlle Léandre, Koichi Makigami, Maria Joao, Phil Minton, Barre Phillips, Aki Takase, Myra Melford, Heiri Känzig, Vladimir Tarasov und dem österreichischen Dichter Ernst Jandl (u.a.).
Zu ihren eigenen Projekten gehören Kompositionen für Musik- und Theaterproduktionen, kleine und große Ensembles, Chöre und Hörspiele. Sie unterrichtete Jazzgesang und freie Improvisation an Universitäten in Graz (Österreich), Essen (Deutschland) und Luzern (Schweiz). Sie gibt weiterhin Konzerte sowie Meisterkurse und Workshops.
Ihre Diskografie umfasst ca. 87 Aufnahmen.
Im Jahr 2020 erhielt sie den Jazzpreis für ihr Lebenswerk des Landes Baden-Württemberg.
Ihr Buch VOCAL Adventures, Free Improvisation in Sound, Space, Spirit and Song wurde 2022 im Wolke Verlag veröffentlicht.

http://www.laurennewton.com

photo: Frederic de Faverney

EMMANUELLE PÈPIN (FR)

questions and explores the process of ephemeral creation - performance art, and instantaneous composition. She places the body at the center of her work, as an immense and infinite world. A space of listening and sensitive, sensible and senseless dialogue with the world, the environment. The gesture here is this poetic language, this silent movement revealing this space between. She conceives performances in relation to the place itself or the context as a new possibility each time to let the listening live, and thus let appear new possibilities, fields of experimentation and inspiring sources to a unique creation between the body and the space.

The place and the context as space(s) of creation, the performance as territory of expression between the public, the context and the artist. The human being is at the heart of this act of creation. She invests galleries, museums, theaters, wastelands, indoor and outdoor spaces. Recently, she was invited for a long residency at the Camille Claudel Museum, with "l'écho des silences”. The performance is here lived and proposed as an artistic, poetic and political commitment for a freedom to be and to create in the moment. To take the risk of a unique and ephemeral creation where it is a question of playing with space and time. A kind of state of urgency, of necessity to express what manifests itself between the world and oneself, in a state of availability, of porosity and of awakening. A sharpened state of consciousness that the artist offers to see and share.

Artists such as Barre Phillips, the group E.M.I.R, Julyen Hamilton, Kirstie Simson, Lee Quan Ninh, Rita Baga, Isabelle Sordage, Véronique Pépin, Michel Doneda, are some of 7pépinière's accomplices and partners.
The human encounter is at the heart of this vast adventure. Marc Alexandre Ohé Bambé and "the beautiful people", Cedric Lerible, Maxime, Laurent Bouisset are these poets of the word with whom Emmanuelle plays. She impels the 7pepinière company with Pierre Vion. A space of development and pedagogical and artistic research.

https://www.7pepiniere.com

photo: Frederic Pasquini

INÉS PÉREZ-WILKE (VE)

Dancer and teacher-researcher of the National Program of Advanced Training in Arts and Cultures of the South, and of the Aesthetic-Ludic Axis at the National Experimental University of the Arts, where she was Academic Vice-Rector in the period 2016-2018. She has worked in the areas of: Studies of the imaginary and collective subjectivity, aesthetic experience, community dance, gender, performance and stage improvisation, orality, popular culture and afrodescendence. With a heterodox formation in the field of movement arts, she started in corporal expression with Xiomara Cáceres, then participated in the contemporary dance workshop of the Escuela de Danzas Caracas. She worked in the theater group La Bacante under the direction of Diana Peñalver, from 1999 to 2004. Participated for two years in the African dance workshops of the Venezuelan teacher Carmen Ortiz. She organized and participated in two Afrobutho workshops with Master José Chalons from Martinique. She has participated in numerous workshops including Augusto Omolú and Vania Oliveira in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil. She coordinated between 2005-2015 the Colectivo Experimental Afrodanza, developing collaborations with the group La trapatiesta, the Ateneo Popular de Caracas, the Festival Sonamos Latinoamérica 2012. From 2017 to the present she starts the Semeruco Impro Research Group, focused on laboratory work in interdisciplinary improvisation mainly in dance and music, work for which she has been invited to facilitate improvisation workshops in arts research events in Brazil and Colombia. In 2020 she began collaborating as a performer with the group Teatro Automáticos. Furthermore, she is part of the collaborations in the European context — in Spain, France, Italy and Autriche, with the support of the Institute of International Education and PAUSE Program.

photo: Akitoshi Mizutani

MIZUKI WILDENHAHN (DE)

Mizuki Wildenhahn studied Flamenco dance in Madrid, then developed her own type of percussive dance, collaborating with musicians of such diverse styles as jazz, rock and free improvisation.
She has performed with musicians of very different genres, such as the New Yorker jazz musicians JEFF HAYNES (perc.) and MARVIN SEWELL(guit.), known for their collaborations e.g. with Cassandra Wilson, “Ceramic Dog” punk-jazz bassist SHAHZAD ISMAILY and the Spanish world music group Radio Tarifa.
She was invited to South Korea several times, once as a member of percussionist JECHUN PARK’s project “Drum on Drum” performing at various festivals, and toured there with her New-Flamenco-Trio including performances with the renowned Samulnori Ensemble Molgae.
Lately her focus has been mostly on Free Improvisation, she has been collaborating frequently with SATOKO FUJII (piano) and NATSUKI TAMURA (trumpet) in various projects over the years, including the recent recording of the DVD/CD Weave with the band Amu with percussionist TAKASHI ITANI, and their newest project Puzzle with TAIKO SAITO (marimba) and TOBIAS SCHIRMER (cl.).
She performed with AKI TAKASE (piano) and SILKE EBERHARD (reeds) in Berlin, at the duo’s CD release concert of their Ornette Coleman CD.
She has worked with different members of the Musiker Initiative Bremen (MIB), among others at the Breminale 2009 and 2011.
She created her own series of concerts ‘MusicMusicMusic and Dance’, performing with SEBASTIAN GRAMSS (b), SHAHZAD ISMAILY (b), BJÖRN LÜCKER (dr.) and VLATKO KUCAN (reeds) among others.
Her project ‘Double Kick’ was loosely based on flamenco music and includes percussionist FAÍN S. DUEÑAS, the musical director of the Grammy-nominated Band “Radio Tarifa”. They performed at several festivals such as “Kunstflecken”, Neumünster and “Eigenarten”, Hamburg.

https://mizukiwildenhahn.tumblr.com

photo: 

KOHO MORI-NEWTON (JP)

https://www.kohomorinewton.com

photo: 

JOHN ECKHARDT (DE)

Als Kontrabassist der zeitgenössischen Musik, in vielfältigen eigenen Projekten von Solo bis Installation, bei der Arbeit mit Sound Systems am E-Bass oder an den Turntables - John Eckhardt ist laufend in die Musik von heute involviert. Er hat eine ganze Reihe eigener Soloprojekte entwickelt und mit einem weiten Spektrum von Künstlern zusammengearbeitet: von Komponisten wie Lachenmann und Boulez, über herausragende Gruppen wie Ensemble Modern, Klangforum Wien, musikfabrik und Ensemble Resonanz, Improvisatoren wie Evan Parker, Elliott Sharp, Peter Brötzmann und Peter Evans, bis zur jüngsten Generation von Nachwuchskünstlern in einem weiten Feld aktueller Musik.

Er hat hunderte Werke uraufgeführt und an rund 40 Einspielungen mitgewirkt, darunter vier in besonderen Editionen erschienene Solo-Releases. Diesen ist ein besonderes Interesse an „Bass, Space & Time“ gemeinsam – an tief-frequenter und spektraler Immersion, räumlicher Tiefe und evolutionsartigen Prozessen. Sein Kontrabass-Solo „Xylobiont“ hat John Eckhardt in mehr als 50 Konzerten rund um den Globus präsentiert. Nach „The Wicked Path“ mit seinem Industrial Dub Projekt „Fatwires“ auf seinem eigenen Label Depth of Fiel Music erschien soeben die Aufnahme seiner Klanginstallation „48k“ auf dem britischen Traditions-Label Touch.

Angetrieben von Neugier und Leidenschaft entfaltet er einen Bass-Kosmos von ungewöhnlichen Dimensionen. Als „Basswald" präsentiert er DJ Sets und Podcasts mit einem besonderen Augenmerk auf Sound System Culture. In den letzten Jahren gestaltet er immer wieder Klanginstallationen, die sich ebenfalls mit tiefen Frequenzen und Raumresonanzen befassen. 2019 zeigte das Hamburger Westwerk seine Einzelausstellung „BASS / WALD“ mit seiner großformatigen Waldfotografie in Verbindung mit einer Klanginstallation.

www.johneckhardt.de

photo: Daniel Dittus

LOVIS DETERMANN (DE)

 lebt seit 2012 in Hamburg und ist als Gitarrist*in und Musiktherapeut*in tätig. Nach Beendigung des Bachelorstudiums im Fach Jazzgitarre, absolviert Lovis Determann das Musiktherapiestudium (MA) an der Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg.

Nicht nur musikschaffend, sondern auch forschend gilt Lovis Determanns Interesse der Improvisation. Nach einer explorativen Beschäftigung mit Möglichkeiten grafischer Notation, erschließt Lovis Determann für sich ein Forschungsfeld, in dem freie Improvisation, Intermedialität und Musiktherapie zusammenfließen. Dabei richtet Lovis Determann ein besonderes Augenmerk auf intermediale Transformationsprozesse - wie etwa zwischen Grafik, Musik und Sprache.

Auch als Gitarrist*in entdeckt Lovis Determann in der interdisziplinären Begegnung verschiedener Kunstformen einen besonderen Reiz. Wie beispielsweise in der performativen Begegnung zwischen Musik, Rauminstallation, Licht und Schatten in Zusammenarbeit mit der Hamburger Künstlerin Suse Bohse oder in experimentellen Zusammentreffen von Musik und öffentlichem Raum mit der Band „SirBradley“, in der Lovis Determann festes Mitglied ist und die im Oktober 2022 ihr Debütalbum veröffentlicht hat.

photo: Nana Xu

DONG ZHOU (CN)

Dong Zhou (no pronouns/she) was born in 1992 in Shanghai. Although from Zhou’s great grandfather all generations of her family play traditional Chinese Sizhu Music, she learnt piano from 3 and violin from 9 and played in the orchestra from 12. Zhou gained her B. A. in electroacoustic music composition in Shanghai Conservatory and M.A. in multimedia composition in Hamburg University of Music and Drama.

Zhou’s works were presented in Shanghai International Art Festival, the ‘Sound of World’ Microsoft ringtones collection, SMC , Blurred Edges, WOCMAT, EUROMicroFest, NYCEMF, KlingtGut, ICMC, Evimus, DEGEM Konzert, Split Art Convention, ZKM Next Generation, New Music Miami ISCM Festival, Echofluxx New Media Festival, Serials Festival Évora, ATM Festival 2020 Seoul, TENOR, Jacksonville Electroacoustic Music Festival, FESTIVAL ECOS URBANOS, EPICENTROOM Festival and Turn Up Festival. Zhou was commissioned by Shanghai International Art Festival in 2015, CLAB Festival Hamburg in 2018, ZKM Karlsruhe in 2019 and STAMP Festival Hamburg in 2021. In ICMC 2018 Hacker-N-Makerthon, her project with Deborah Kim got the first prize. She was also one of the four finalists of the Composition Prize of 2019 Deutscher Musikwettbewerb. Zhou worked for several theatres as sound design and composition: Peony Pavilion Yin Yang, Miss Shanghai , A Fairy Tale, Sweet Dreams, 100 Songs, Strandrecht, Filetstücke, Imagines, and Echo of a Fire Long Gone. Zhou’s installations were exhibited in Hangzhou City Library, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Museum of Perception Graz, Altonaer Museum, and Museum of Waste.

Back to Zhou’s college time, she was an editor of a popular LGBTQ+ podcast in China. LGBTQ+ right and the living situation of queer is still one of the important themes of her works. For Zhou’s engagement in artistic works changing the society, she was awarded the Artistic Intervention scholarship by University Hildesheim in 2021. Currently, Zhou is doing a doctoral study in Aesthetics and Culture of Digital Media at Leuphana University.

https://dongzhou.live

photo: Fabian Hammerl

VLATKO KUČAN (DE)

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. From 2018 he is also the head of the new Studio for Polystilistic Improvisation and Interdisciplinary Crossover (SPIIC). He has been a visiting artist and lecturer and has held workshops on Improvisation at international academic institutions.

https://www.vlatkokucan.de/