Sonic Alchemy is formed by Sofia Borges and Klaus Janek and celebrates the transitional space between acoustic material and electroacoustic manipulation conceived on paper, and/or imagined live. Both instrumentalists expand their creativity extending their playing techniques on electronic settings. The acoustic materiality and its electroacoustic procession transcends the space in which projection and imagination happens and proposes alternative temporalities. Their realm forms abstract and evocative landscapes that challenge preconceived notions of what music is. Listeners become active participants, invited to immerse themselves fully in the unfolding sonic narrative.

Sofia Borges drums fx

The percussionist Sofia Borges chose a risky but stimulating path: to explore, to experiment, to enlarge the established languages (be it the improvised ones or the composed by herself, with graphic notations extending the conventional writing) and the results are showing us that the art of sounds is not dead yet; far from it. She does it in two ways. One is the solo format – adding objects, some of them of her own invention, music boxes and toys to the jazz drumkit and the orchestral percussion instruments, and also analogic and digital electronic devices enabling her to process, in real time, her acoustic constructions, including in the mix a good number of field recordings. Another is the association with some of the most remarkable spontaneous noisemakers of our time, like Craig Taborn, Mat Maneri, Axel Dörner, Robyn Schulkowsky, Ignaz Schick, Ryeko Okuda, Sanem Kalfa, Michael Thieke, Cansu Tanrikulu, Chris Pitsiokos, Mia Dyberg, Nick Dunston, Camila Nebbia, Stefanie Egedy just to name a few, and integrating unavoidable bands such as Pink Monads and SLOTSCH.

The Berlin-based, but Portuguese-born inventive sound creator has the stage as her natural environment, establishing music as another of the performative arts. In this context it’s with no wonder that we find Sofia Borges in dance and theatre projects, collaborating with Alexis Blake or the collective Sounding Situations. There’s no end in sight for the investigative approaches of her playing with time and space, and that’s the key secret for her growing notability in the international scene. Check it yourself and you’ll know, first hand, why and how.

Klaus Janek doublebass fx

pls click about kj

Different traditions meet in one place – BirkeJanekZhao
The trio harvests its music from the intersection of Chinese art music – pipa, Western instant composition of free jazz, musique concrete instrumental, electronic music – double bass and effects, and ethnic and rock ‘n roll influences – jaw’s harp, harmonica and effects. The three musicians have been working since 2011 in larger ensembles (Ensemble Extrakte, Sabdagatitara) and decided to form their own musical organism.
form. Due to the long experience of working together, the three meet in a space of open creativity, where individual decision-making determines the journey.

Lucy Zhao – pipa
Klaus Janek – doublebass fx
Sören Birke – jaw’s harp harmonica fx

While some encounters reverberate in our consciousness and are reflected in our lifestyle habits, others remain hidden. That is, until the surface is scratched and they begin to take shape in our thinking, speaking and acting.

Sign Wave is a musical performance that digs into buried stories and encounters since the German occupation in East Africa.

Over the distance, we will connect Rwanda/Tanzania and Germany on stage in a new play. The artist and performer Eric 1key, with whom Sounding Situtaions has been collaborating for several years, approaches the visual traces of the Germans on site via video, using words he scratches up the surface, which we create live here in Berlin with double bass and voice sampling to a joint piece.

Music: Milena Kipfmüller, Klaus Janek (Sounding Situations) Video and Text: 1key
The performance were specifically created for celebrating the 40th anniversary of the German/Rwandan association, and was held at Rheinland-Pfälzische Landesvertretung in front of the Ambassadors of Germany in Rwanda, Rwanda in Germany and others.

Musicians with different backgrounds compose a piece together based on the most famous melody in the world, La Paloma! From May 3 – and until May 21 – a musician will be presented with his or her version of the melody every day from Monday to Friday … All these duets and improvisations flow into the polyphonic Dulab Alpaloma, which is currently being created as a new composition by Cathy Milliken, Dietmar Wiesner and Uli Aumüller. The finished Dulab al Paloma will be seen and heard here right after Whitsun. The Dulab of the week provides a small foretaste every Friday, with Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Carolin Widmann, Wu Wei, Magdalena Kožená and Jocelyn B. Smith and the Ensemble Extrakte.
The film premiered at may 3rd through Arte Concert and was produced by Impetto Filmproduktion, Berlin and Arte

for watching the movie at arte concert click here

for more inside informations and watching trailer and movie at impetto filmproduktion website click here

the movie by Inpetto fimproduktion premiered on march 26th through Maerzmusik Festival, Berlin

Improvisation in the form of a musical round with 12 musicians in 12 different locations

“Dulab al Taj” is many things at the same time: a film and an audio-visual composition, 12 solos and a group improvisation. The musicians of Ensemble Extrakte, who come from Australia, Bulgaria, China, India, Iran, Korea, Singapur and Syria and now live in Berlin, play with and for each other in creating a multilingual musical cosmos.

It all begins with Farhan Sabagh, a Syrian musician. In his studio he plays the musical theme he has composed for this project on the oud and immediately starts improvising upon it. The musical form in which this happens is called dulab (dulab can mean “wheel”, “round” and also “song”) and it is similar to a European rondo. This short melody sets off a filmic round that links the 12 musicians together. Because this first improvisation travels – like in the game “Chinese Whispers” – from place to place and from musician to musician, passing through different musical worlds and idioms while it mutates, develops and takes on different colours. Each occupying a place or space in which they feel at home, one after another the musicians pick up the improvisation, elaborate on it, overwrite it with an improvisation of their own, and pass it on. In the film, the different solos are enhanced with accompanying vocals, performed as additional layers over the earlier recordings. As in a rondo, the original melody is repeatedly recalled.

Here a musical encounter has been created that allows the differences between the musicians’ individual musical languages and traditions to be appreciated clearly while at the same time weaving them together.
This project was developed and realised by the composer Cathy Milliken, the composer Sandeep Baghwati, the curator Elke Moltrecht, the filmmaker Uli Aumüller and Ensemble Extrakte.

for more information about the movie, trailer ecc click here

We got the invitation to compose a piece for the Improfest 2021. In our work we try always to connect to the situations and political context we are living in and we found it presmptuous to ignore the actual situation Brazil is going through these days. Last week, mid of January, the city of Manaus went through one of its hardest times. Because of the immense amount of hospitalized Covid-19 patients all the oxygen supplies of the hospitals ran out. People were not only dying because of the illness and mismanagement of the pandemy but even because of the missing supply of oxigene tanks for the hospitals.

This audio piece is therefore dedicated to the people of Manaus. It uses original material from social media and sounds of oxygen tanks, contrabass and electronics.

Composition and performance:

Klaus Janek – contrabass and electronics

Milena Kipfmüller – social media samples and electronics

both artists are part of the collective [SNDNG STTNS]

Camera: Barbara Dulley, Milena Kipfmüller

Berlin, born out of swamp and named after him, began to develop its basic shape in the 17th century, which still shapes the city today. Our baroque clichés mostly consist of stucco-decorated facades that now want to shape the cityscape again, of symmetries in the park design or the palatable representation of splendor and abundance. The independent ensemble around the director Lukas Matthaei delves deeper into the conceptual, thought and life worlds of the early modern era and discovers their reverse side: the beginning of colonial history, which still has an impact today, the politics of dances and social codes, the dirt of the city and the agony of plague and war.

The ballroom of the sophiensaele is transformed into an installation between a film set and surround theater. The arched windows of the party tent, this hardware store variant of baroque garden culture, reveal the alchemical cabinet of curiosities with rattling planet models from the East Berlin classroom. The portal of the court theater is flanked by porcelain cats from the Dong Xuan Center in Lichtenberg. In the middle of the stage, a steel trough serves the city as a permanent construction site, either as a fountain in the park or as a Brandenburg cemetery.

The cast with its diversity of physical and biographical backgrounds shamelessly appropriates allegories, emblems, dances, texts and sounds of the Baroque and lets their own portraits shine through between transience and lust for life.

The musicians accompany the scenes live in a mixture of baroque cast and electronic manipulation. While the choreography of a baroque ball unfolds, gradually involving the entire ensemble.

By & with Adrian Navarro, Bati Nehoya, André Nittel, Volker Sobottke, Anne Welenc

Production: Jörg Lukas Matthaei | Dramaturgy: Milena Kipfmüller | Musical direction, composition: Klaus Janek | Set design, costume: Michael Gaessner | Musicians Klaus Janek, Milena Kipfmüller, Michael Metzler | Production management: Sarah Stührenberg | Assistance staging: Sofie Neu | Collaboration with equipment: Lotti Maurer | Technology & lighting design: Chris Umney | Mask: Lilo Reuther | Camera: Florian Krauss | Editor: Federico Neri | Public Relations: Nora Gores | Social Media: Alexandra Lauck | Photography: Merlin Nadj-Torma

A production by matthaei & konsorten in coproduction with SOPHIENSÆLE. Funded by the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe & the Performing Arts Fund with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture & Media

nach Ludwig van Beethoven
Sinfonie Nr. 6 op. 68 »Pastorale«

Michael Rauter Konzept, Regie und Komposition
Cornelius Puschke Dramaturgie
Anna Philippa Müller Kostüme
Emily Schumann Kostümassistenz
Ladislav Zajac Found Footage Collage
Miguel Pérez Iñesta Performance/Künstlerische Mitarbeit
Christina Voigt Filmproduktion
Johann Günther Sound Design
Michael Bossler, Christina Voigt Kamera
Peter Ulrich Webseite

Mitglieder des Orchesters
der Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele

Lisa Barry Violine II
Meike Brandenbusch Violine I
Amanda Chominsky Piccoloflöte
Karin Geyer Flöte
Nataša Maric Flöte
Andreas Vogel Oboe
Manfred Lindner Klarinette
Michael Moser Fagott
Stefan Berrang Horn
Laura Vukobratovic Trompete,
Hubert Hegele Posaune
Babette Haag Perkussion

Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop

Klaus Janek Kontrabass
Yodfat Miron Viola
Sophie Notte Cello
Paul Valikoski Violine
Biliana Voutchkova Violine

Studierende der Staatlichen Hochschule
für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Stuttgart
sowie weiterer Hochschulen

Finn Bohn Horn
Josef Dragus Cello
Eloi Enrique Oboe
Zacharias Faßhauer Kontrabass
Ferdinand Frey Posaune
Jonathan Hagos Viola
Anna-Marie Maas Fagott
Franziska Schulz Cello
Jens Singer Klarinette,
Rachel Smith Viola,
Lynn Stiegler Violine I
Lukas Weerth Violine II
Denis Zisko Trompete

Eine Produktion der Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele im Rahmen von #bebeethoven in Kooperation mit Podium Esslingen und der HMDK Stuttgart. #bebeethoven wird gefördert durch die Kulturstiftung des Bundes, das Land Baden-Württemberg, die Baden-Württemberg Stiftung gGmbH und die L-Bank.

Gefördert durch die Ruprecht-Stiftung und den Freundeskreis der Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele.

watch the interactive version online here

A film by Carlos Bustamante who realized the film exactly 50 years ago. Carlos wanted to rework the film and talked to me about the original music, which he didn’t like so much. Since a long time I had in mind to work on a music piece, I was working on in march 2005, so 12 years ago. and here is the result. The music and the film, both were just left as how they were composed 12 and 50 years ago. No editing and adjusting so far. Please watch and see.

chip gets his dipolma from Carlos Bustamante on Vimeo.