MONDAY, 4 September 2023, 8 p.m.

• Elvis Homan, drums and electronics
• Jos Zwannenburg, flute and electronics
• Isabelle Duthoit, voice
• John Dikeman, saxophone

ELVIS HOMAN (1991) is a drummer living and working in Rotterdam. He is the founder of the Quartzite Jazz Quartet, which won the prestigious Erasmus Jazz Prize and toured successfully for several years in festivals throughout Europe. He has just finished his Master’s degree in Live Electronics for instrumentalists at the Amsterdam Conservatory, leads a concert series at Rotterdam’s Worm, and in 2020 he founded the Rotterdam-based electrophonic improvisers’ orchestra REIO. He focuses on the Ableton Live and Max-MSP software environments, and on the connection of acoustic drums to a modular system of synthesizers.

JOS ZWANNENBURG (1958) is known for his research into extended playing techniques for the flute combining his interest in performance, theatre, composition and the use of live electronics. He is also known for initiating the development of the open hole alto flute in co-operation with Dutch flute makers Eva Kingma and Dirk Kuiper in 1985/86, often using it to display his command of these extended techniques and his interest in microtonality. He has published scores including studies for contemporary flute techniques and has given lectures, workshops and master classes at a great many international venues throughout the world. He is a research associate at Oxford Brookes University (G.B.) Currently he is a senior lecturer at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam (CvA) where he teaches a programme called ‘Advanced Rhythm, Contemporary Music and Improvisation through Non Western Techniques’. He designed a new Master’s programme: Live Electronics for instrumentalists, which started at the CvA in September 2012.

ISABELLE DUTHOIT (1970) is a French clarinettist and vocalist. She studied classical clarinet at the Lyon Conservatoire with Professor Jacques Di Donato, and later profiled herself as an exceptional improviser, with an emphasis on a particular vocal technique which she developed over a period of 20 years. As a self-taught vocal technician, she developed a particular style that follows the primordial sound, before the articulation of the words. She has worked with the famous English vocalist Phil Minton. In 2008, she was in residence at the Kujoyama Villa in Kyoto, Japan, where she collaborated with singers Nô and Bunraku. From 1995 to 2005, she curated the Fruits de Mhere festival, a festival of experimental music, dance and film, together with Jacques Di Donato.

JOHN DIKEMAN (1983) is an American saxophonist currently residing in Antwerp. Drawing inspiration from a wide range of sources, John’s playing runs the gamut of improvised music and technique. He is currently active as a member of numerous groups including Cactus Truck, a band made up of guitarist/bass guitarist Jasper Stadhouders and Onno Govaert; Universal Indians with Norwegian rhythm section Tollef Østvang and Jon Rune Strøm and often featuring Joe McPhee. “The saxophonist… puts fire to the fuse with the Old Testament fury that Charles Gayle displays on his best trio records. More than improvisation or free jazz you hear übergospel: reeling with religious conviction and tortuous dynamism, with roaring pounding in the low register, split tones and a timbre that is almost torn to pieces.” Guy Peters, Enola.

TUESDAY 5 September 2023, 8 p.m.

• Raphael Vanoli, guitar and effects
• Shasta Ellenbogen, viola
• Alberto Novello, modular synthesizer and laser

RAPHAEL VANOLI (1990) is a French – German guitarist who defies conventions. Using subtle playing techniques from lightly touching to blowing on the strings of his instrument, the Amsterdam based composer creates harmonic sounds. His approach to playing is physical; creating the sounds with his body, he shapes sound not only with skin, muscles and fingers but also with blowing and facial hair. He subverts the usual relationship between player and instrument. Always looking to challenge himself further as a musician, Vanoli took up residence in an old French monastery for a year, researching new ways of playing the electric guitar. The result is his first solo album, Bibrax, released on Clean Feed/Shhpuma.

SHASTA ELLENBOGEN (1988) grew up in Canada and has been based in Berlin since 2011. She is a violist, violinist, composer, arranger, conductor, and the founder of the Classical Sundays series, which has introduced thousands of new people to the world of classical music since 2017 with weekly sold-out concerts all around Berlin. Her work revolves around starting a contemporary tradition of classical music, both by connecting it with a society outside of concert halls, and by allowing musicians more space for openness and vulnerability in their performances. Her compositions revolve around creating a universal musical language using imagery from tarot cards and other ancient divination practices.

ALBERTO NOVELLO (1977) is an Italian nuclear physicist, composer and professor of multimedia and music informatics at the University of Padua. His two main fields of activity, science and music, are combined in the JesterN project, in which Novello uses a system of modular synthesizers and a laser. These two instruments are linked to form an analogue audiovisual whole, with the sound of the analogue synthesizers determining the shape and movement of the laser. To achieve this goal, he also modifies and re-imagines remnants of our analogue past, such as old games consoles, oscilloscopes and analogue video mixers. This approach allows him to achieve infinite resolution, vivid colours, a fluid beam flow and no frame rate limit per second. His work has been presented at Centre Pompidou Paris, Venice Biennale, New York Computer Music Festival, Dom Moscow, Soul International Music Festival, among others. (Photo: Erin McKinney)