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marwedel/blonk/vorfeld



Dirk Marwedel (Wiesbaden, D) – Extended Saxophone
Jaap Blonk (Arnhem, NL) - Voice
Michael Vorfeld (Berlin, D) – Light Bulbs



Audio Excerpt


For a long time Jaap Blonk, Dirk Marwedel and Michael Vorfeld have been working across the boundaries of artistic disciplines and materials.
They make musical statements and land in performance art territory, they distill fine sound tissues from a light installation, they unfold the potential of stones and everyday objects or they compress language to an explosive cluster of phonemes.
Their individual instruments are so special and elaborate, that the visual on its own is captivating already. For the ear they conjure up sounds with a beauty that is ubiquitous and at the same time deeply concealed.
So it was high time for them to get together and collectively exercise fundamental musical research that stays far away from all dry theory.

A large part of our attention goes to what is usually hardly perceived, or - because it's undesirable - hidden or avoided as much as possible: for example the rhythms and the formation of motives that go with the generation of light, the complex sound layerings of air flowing through hoses and tubes, the dynamics of the frictions, oscillations and eruptions in human sound production.
Therefore we are not looking for results that are already defined on the user interfaces of these processes, but more for the music of their operating systems. The lighting of a lamp, the cleanly played tone or the intelligible utterance are more of an accompanying phenomenon, that may also happen. While it is more interesting for us how and why these arise, and what more can be discovered on this path.


Jaap Blonk (1953) - Voice

Jaap Blonk is a self-taught composer, voice performer and poet.
He went to university for mathematics and musicology but did not finish those studies.
In the late 1970s he took up saxophone and started to compose music.
A few years later he discovered his potential as a vocal performer, at first in reciting poetry and later on in improvisations and his own compositions. For almost two decades the voice was his main means for the discovery and development of new sounds.
From around the year 2000 on Blonk started work with electronics, at first using samples of his own voice, then extending the field to include pure sound synthesis as well.
He took a year off of performing in 2006. As a result, his renewed interest in mathematics made him start a research of the possibilities of algorithmic composition for the creation of music, visual animation and poetry.
As a vocalist, Jaap Blonk is unique for his powerful stage presence and almost childlike freedom in improvisation, combined with a keen grasp of structure. He performed in many European countries, as well as in the U.S. and Canada, Indonesia, Japan, South Africa and Latin America. With the use of live electronics the scope and range of his concerts has acquired a considerable extension.
Besides working as a soloist, he collaborated with many musicians and ensembles in the field of contemporary and improvised music, like Maja Ratkje, Mats Gustafsson, Nicolas Collins, Joan La Barbara, The Ex, the Netherlands Wind Ensemble and the Ebony Band. He premiered several compositions by the German composer Carola Bauckholt, including a piece for voice and orchestra. A solo voice piece was commissioned by the Donaueschinger Musiktage 2002. On several occasions he collaborated with visual computer artist Golan Levin.
Blonk's work for radio and television includes several commissioned radio plays.
He also makes larger-scale drawings of his scores, which are being exhibited.
He was the founder and leader of the long-standing bands Splinks (modern jazz, 1983-1999) and BRAAXTAAL (avant-rock, 1987-2005). He also has his own record label, Kontrans, featuring a total of 15 releases so far. Other Blonk recordings appeared on Staalplaat, Basta and VICTO.



Dirk Marwedel (1959) - Extended Saxophone

Dirk Marwedel has been active in the area improvised music and related musical concepts since 1985. As a soloist as well as in many groups he has developed tone shaping techniques and instrumental preparations that exceed the current saxophone vocabulary and the limits of common notions about music.
Marwedel is also a trained sculptor in stone, and with his work on slate boards and his playing on sculptures he investigates and unfurls the interaction of materials and sound. Over and above that, with the means of sound installation, performance art, visual installation and documentation he initiates perception spaces that confuse the everyday unconsciousness
and catapult it out of the familiar tracks and evaluations, into the present moment.
Dirk Marwedel performed in Europe and Canada with, among others, Burkhard Beins, Carl Ludwig Hübsch, Fine Kwiatkowski, Paul Hubweber, Markus Eichenberger, Erhard Hirt, Charlotte Hug, Philip Zoubek, Tiziana Bertoncini and Olivier Toulemonde.
He lives in Wiesbaden, where he is a cofounder and organiser of the 'HumaNoise Congress' improvised music days and a member of the artists group 'Stromkilometer 504'. His musical work has so far appeared on nine records.


Michael Vorfeld (1956) - Light Bulbs

Michael Vorfeld about himself: "I started playing music when I was fourteen, after hitch-hiking to the next bigger city and buying a pair of bongos. Increasing my percussion set, I had my first groups. After school I worked in a studio for photography in Cologne. At the same time I got more and more interested in improvised and experimental music. As a member of the artist group 'Heinrich Mucken', founded in 1982, I got involved in site specific art projects. I studied art in Cologne and Visual Communication in Kassel (MA). My visual interest shifted towards the use of light in three dimensional spaces. Now I am living in Berlin, working as musician and visual artist."

The list of activities includes concerts, performances and exhibitions among others:
'documenta 8' Kassel (with the artist group 'Heinrich Mucken'), 'Moltkerei Werkstatt' Cologne, 'Het Apollohuis' Eindhoven, 'Logos Foundation' Ghent, 'Künstlerhaus am Deich' Bremen, 'Palais des Beaux Arts' Brussels, 'Melkweg' Amsterdam, 'Künstlerhaus' Dortmund, 'Expo - German Pavillon' Hannover, 'Goethe Institut' Hanoi, 'Experimental Intermedia' New York, 'Podewil' Berlin, 'Center of Contemporary Art' Warshow, 'Plan B' Tokyo, Stadtmuseum Cologne, Architektur Museum Basel, Kunstgewerbemuseum Frankfurt/M, 'De Fabriek' Eindhoven/NL, Underground Car Park Kassel, 'Klang Art Festival' Osnabrück, 'The Substation' Singapore,'Art in General', New York, Planetarium Kassel."



Contact:

Dirk Marwedel,
Am Jägerhof 10,
D-65203 Wiesbaden,
Tel.: + 49 – (0)611/590498,
e-mail: dm.9@freenet.de


Jaap Blonk, e-mail: jablonk@planet.nl

Michael Vorfeld, e-mail: vorfeld@gmx.net