Thursday April 13, 2023
The Glad Cafe
Tickets: £10 / pay what you can, on the door
Henrik Munkeby Nørstebø is a trombonist and sound artist based in Berlin and Trondheim, focusing on live performance as well as a wide range of compositional and cross disciplinary projects. His current solo setup consists of heavily amplified trombone, analogue electronics and occasional field recordings, and undulates between claustrophobic tension and moments of ecstatic release. Breath is at the core of the project, and Nørstebø is utilizing an air compressor-like use of lungs, nuanced microphone technique and gain adjustments in order to unearth the intense physicality of the inherent low volume sound material.
“DYSTOPIAN DANCING” from 2022, his third solo release, showcases this unprocessed material along with an expanded section for “object orchestra”. Nørstebø has toured extensively since 2010, and released numerous records, spanning from solo to large groups. His collaborative projects include duos with Audrey Chen (BEAM SPLITTER), Daniel Lercher and JD Zazie, the “freejazzpop-band” Skadedyr, new music ensemble Aksiom and a myriad of collaborations with improvisers, visual artists, dancers, entities from around the world.
Antonia Kattou (1999, Nicosia, Cyprus) is a composer, musician- improviser and sound artist based in Nicosia. Her work encompasses with acoustic and electroacoustic composition, improvisation and semi-improvisation, field recordings, analogue electronics, post-folk and storytelling. She experiments with nostalgia and transdisciplinary. Works of her have been commissioned and presented in PLUG Contemporary Music Festival, at St Andrews University – Intersections 2021, at Art making in the Anthropocene, at Festival Interrupted, at CoMA 2020 Festival of New Music – listed as one of the Young Generation Composers, at Royal Holloway, University of London and performed mainly in the UK by various ensembles and soloists such as RCS Brass, Nordic Viola, Ruth Morley & Laura Bowler, RCS Composers Ensemble and New Music Collective RHUL.
In 2022 she co-created her duo called Ichomagnetic Thoughts. Antonia’s passion for ethnomusicology and composition led her to Royal Holloway, University of London where she graduated with a Bachelor of Music (Hons). She holds a master degree in composition (MMus in Composition) from Royal Conservatoire of Scotland where she studied with David Fennessy and Alistair MacDonald, supported by an RCS Trust scholarship. She is now a PhD student in Theory and Philosophy of Education at the University of Cyprus, studying with Marianna Papastefanou.
EGO DEPLETION is a system of recycled movements designed to break a hole through invisible or undetectable barriers. It goes for the mind, ear, leg, heart, hand and scalp. Its first impulse is subtracted from the overall net of intentions. For example, sound is produced for the sole purpose of abseiling clogged and crystalized hierarchies and putting it all to rest. Speakers and surfaces are thoroughly interrogated yielding a steady diet of perpetual come down. EGO DEPLETION is a Glasgow based duo made up of members Adam Campbell and Fritz Welch.
Audrey Chen is a Chinese-American musician who was born into a family of material scientists, doctors and engineers, outside of Chicago in 1976. Parting ways with the family convention, she turned to the cello at age 8 and voice at 11. After years of classical and conservatory training in both instruments, with a resulting specialization in early and new music, she parted ways again in 2003 to begin new negotiations with sound in order to discover a more individually honest aesthetic. Now, using the cello, voice and analog electronics, Chen’s work delves deeply into her own version of narrative and non-linear storytelling. A large component of her music is improvised and her approach to this is extremely personal and visceral. Her playing explores the combination and layering of a homemade analog synthesizer, preparations and traditional and extended techniques in both the voice and cello. She works to join these elements into a singular ecstatic personal language. Over the past decade, her predominant focus has been her solo work with the cello, voice and electronics, but she has more recently begun to shift back towards the exploration of the voice as a primary instrument. Among musicians, she has worked with Phil Minton, Tetuzi Akiyama, Toshimaru Nakamura, Ko Ishikawa, Tomomi Adachi, Matana Roberts, Elliott Sharp, Aki Onda, Phill Niblock, Frederic Blondy, Jerome Noetinger, C. Spencer Yeh, Nate Wooley, Mats Gustafsson, Mazen Kerbaj, Michael Zerang, Tatsuya Nakatani, Le Quan Ninh, Joe Mcphee, Susan Alcorn, Michele Doneda, Paolo Angeli, Dylan Nyoukis, Id M Theft Able, plus many more. Recent projects, aside from performing solo, include her voice only duo with London based artist, Phil Minton and a collaborative project with German conceptual artist, John Bock. Two new album releases in 2013 include, a quartet LP with Nate Wooley, C. Spencer Yeh and Todd Carter on Monotype (Warsaw), and a duo record with Phil Minton on Subrosa (Brussels).
