die Note – Ensemble Extrakte

Ensemble Extrakte in Berlin has taken a fascination to the smallest element of notated sound, the “note”, which has different underlying concepts in different musical traditions. A three-month exploration process allowed them to explore new approaches to listening, transformations of oral and traditional notations, interpretations, and collaborative improvisation.

The European notion of the note is set into a relation with the Indian, Chinese, Arabic, Armenian, and blues, which each follow different ways of conceiving musical sound. Such a musical-practical and microscopic analysis of the concept of note in transcultural comparison has not been done before. As a result of the accumulated knowledge about the respective cultural practices, transtraditional transformations have formed a musical unity with new symbols: the NOTE as an extended dimension and as a deconstruction of habitual playing techniques towards an alternative musical reality. The musicians are thereby enabled to use self-designed novel modes within their own methods of composition and improvisation, and to invent their own categories of raga- or makam-like approaches and to transfer them to 20th and 21st century learned musical practices that shape their musical identities.

In the concert, the musicians of Ensemble Extrakte will present jointly developed “final fragments” in groups and as an ensemble. The pieces in the program are based on analyses and extended ways of playing gained from these analyses, as well as synergies from newly learned notational practices of the various traditions. The result is a musical approach rich in new dimensions.

Sponsored by Musikfonds e.V. FEB-III Stipendienartige Förderung für Ensembles und Bands

ENSEMBLE EXTRAKTE
Sören Birke – Mundharmonika, Dudek
Klaus Janek – Bass, Elektronik
Bakr Khleifi – Ud
Cathy Milliken – Oboe, English Horn
Gregor Schulenburg – Flöten, Duduk, Kyotaku
Ravi Srinivasan – Tabla, Whistling, Vocal
Wu Wei – Sheng, Erhu
Jeremy Woodruff – Baritone Saxophone
Zhao Lucy – Pipa
Jeremy Woodruff – Musikalische Leitung
Elke Moltrecht – Leiterin Ensemble Extrakte

Research period Feb – April 2023
concert 16. April 2023, 16:00
ACUD CLUB RAUM, Veteranenstrasse 21, 10119 Berlin