singuhr – projekte: modular music
MODULAR MUSIC by singuhr – projekte presents three works in the liminal zone where concert, installation, environment and performance meet. All three works — two world premieres and one German premiere — are conceived as modular artistic platforms, which stand as prime examples for novel hybrid forms of music and art production that transcend boundaries and genres. Encompassing three different performance sites in Berlin, MODULAR MUSIC offers individually activated spaces, each with their own special characteristics, in which the audience becomes part of the staging. With the Modular Organ System, a joint project of Berlin artists Phillip Sollmann and Konrad Sprenger, MODULAR MUSIC will set out initially in January 2022 to trace contemporary currents in the world of experimental music (world premiere, silent green — Betonhalle, 19-30 January 2022), before presenting one of the most influential composers of our time in an innovative format, with Rebecca Saunders’ new work Myriad II – A Concert Installation (world premiere, Radialsystem, 3-12 March 2022), and, finally, paying homage to the historical roots of these interdisciplinary tendencies with a new interpretation of David Tudor's Rainforest IV (St. Elisabeth Church, 18-27 March 2022). Musicians, composers and sound artists from a wide range of genres, scenes and generations will be involved in the realisation of these unique projects.


phillip sollmann & konrad sprenger
modular organ system – performative sound installation
Exhibition with daily performative interventions: 19-23 + 26-30 January, 4-10 pm
Betonhalle – silent green, Berlin
In co-operation with CTM Festival 2022

Since 2017, with their Modular Organ System the two Berlin-based musicians and composers have been developing a modular, spatially expansive sound installation based on organ pipes that places the know-how of organ construction, the product of centuries of experience, into relation with contemporary concepts, technologies and materials. Thanks to the cooperation with the visual artist Nico Ihlein, objects made of papier-mâché and ceramics were created. For MODULAR MUSIC, the Modular Organ System will now be opened up to be experienced by a broad audience situationally, for listeners/viewers to walk through, and performatively, through live performances and interventions. Diverse artists have been invited to collaborate in the scope of the installation for each exhibition day: Swedish composer and sound artist Ellen Arkbro, drummer and percussionist Will Guthrie, whose roots are in improvisation and free jazz, the composer, guitarist and label head Stephen O’Malley, together with electronic musician and organist Kali Malone, as well as composer and sound artist Arnold Dreyblatt and the newly formed brass ensemble Brass Abacus (featuring Robyn Hayward on tuba, Henrik Nørstebø on trombone and M.O. Abbott on bass trombone). Performative interventions in the installation will alternate between acts performed by Sollmann and Sprenger and actions by the invited artists. The programme will change on a daily basis. The sonorous acoustic qualities of the Concrete Hall at silent green serve both as backdrop and source of musical/sonic inspiration. Over the duration of the exhibition, the transitional periods between installation and performance will also remain open to visitors. Thus, the Modular Organ System will remain in operation over the entire running time of the presentations, as a large-scale creative laboratory, while continually alternating between installative and concert situations, repeatedly combining the two in new ways. Audience members will have the opportunity to attend the performative sound installation for a one-hour slot.

rebecca saunders
myriad II – a concert installation
Exhibition with daily concert-performance collages: 3-5 + 9-12 March 2022, 2-8 pm
Opening: Wednesday, 2 March 2022, 6-10 pm
In co-operation with radialsystem

The second work to be realised in the scope of MODULAR MUSIC, Rebecca Saunders' Myriad II – A Concert Installation, can be described as a situational concert-like extension of a sound installation. Saunders' installation Myriad, originally developed in collaboration with architect Martin Rein-Cano (TOPOTEK 1) for the architectural biennale in Shenzhen in 2015, consists of 54 short pieces which sound out in clusters, distributed across a total of 2,464 music boxes, arranged in a strictly symmetrical configuration and integrated in a ten-metre-long wall that is illuminated from within. Considered on their own, the individual melodies appear fragmentary and fragile. However, the number of potential combinations is practically innumerable (thus the "myriad" of the work's title), in constellations brought forth through the interaction of the visitors. In this manner, the audience is animated to join in actively composing a collective music. Myriad II – A Concert Installation at Berlin's Radialsystem (3-12 March 2022) now extends the installation through performative/compositional elements. Instead of a stand-alone version, MODULAR MUSIC presents shifting collages of concert formats and installative situations on a daily basis. A total of six works by Rebecca Saunders will be performed in the space at regular intervals: "fury" for solo contrabass (with Caleb Salgado), "blaauw" for solo trumpet (with Marco Blaauw), "Neither" for 2 trumpets (with Marco Blaauw and Nathan Plante), "to an utterance study" for solo piano (with Ernst Surberg), "Hauch" for solo violin (with Chatschatur Kanajan) and "to and fro" for violin and oboe (with Chatschatur Kanajan and Simon Strasser). Thus, the project combines two largely familiar presentation and reception formats for contemporary music and sound art into one innovative Gesamtkunstwerk: concert-like performances and installative presentation.

david tudor
rainforest IV – sound installation (1973)
St. Elisabeth Church
Sound installation: 18-27 March 2022, daily 2-8 pm
Live Performances: Thursday, 17 March 2022, 6, 7, 8 and 9 pm

MODULAR MUSIC will conclude by revisiting a strong musical-historical legacy as well, in a new interpretation of David Tudor's Rainforest IV (1973) in Berlin's St. Elisabeth Church (18-27 March 2022). Alongside John Cage, David Tudor was one of the central figures of the 20th century US-American music scene in the post-war period. One cannot exaggerate the significance of the late artist, who passed in 1996, when it comes to the development of experimental music, whether as an interpreter, composer, performer or pioneer of live electronics. For the production of Tudor's Rainforest IV in Berlin, a total of seven composers, experimental musicians and sound artists will work together in a one-week rehearsal and composition phase on a new interpretation of his seminal piece. With Canadian composer Matt Rogalsky, we have invited one of the most experienced Tudor specialists to direct, together with Cologne-based composer hans w. koch, the world premiere of this iteration of the composition, which features a unique line-up. The project is conceived 25 years after Tudor's death not only as a tribute to the musician and composer, but focuses instead primarily on the potential that still resides within Rainforest as a compositional platform. The participating artists have backgrounds in very diverse genres: "classically" trained composers such as Sweden's Hanna Hartman and US-American Michael Winter, sound and media artists such as Japanese artist Miki Yui, Hungarian musician Zsolt Sörés and the young Romanian artist Ioana Vreme Moser, as well as artists from the fields of electronic and experimental music like French sound artist Jessica Ekomane or Berlin's Robert Lippok, formerly of the band "to rococo rot", will all work together, thus enabling a kind of highly promising collaboration that goes beyond scene boundaries, in a thoroughly unaccustomed setting for all those involved.

Organized by singuhr e.v.
Funded by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural Foundation). Funded by the Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien (Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media), Berliner Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Europa.
In co-operation with CTM Festival 2022 and radialsystem

With the kind support of silent green, Kultur Büro Elisabeth
Media partner: digital-in-berlin


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