FriForma

An old acquaintance on the Ljubljana free jazz and improvised music scene, Martin Küchen is returning after a few years break, this time with his Swedish friend and collaborator Herman Müntzing as duo Scheibenhonig. At ŠKUC Gallery they are going to present and promote their debut album Rop På Hjälp which got released recently on Inexhaustible Editions.

The opening set of the evening will be presented by the viola-cello duo of Szilárd Mezei and Albert Márkos. Mezei’s playing is full of dynamism, sense of transition between various musical expressions – so what we can expect here is a full-blooded, exciting and highly concentrated mind-game with his long-time collegue, classically trained cellist, Albert Márkos.

13 March 2017, Monday 20.00 – ŠKUC Gallery, Ljubljana

KUD Mreža is thrilled to kick off its FriForma event series’ 2017 season with the performance of the Trio Kimmig-Studer-Zimmerlin and John Butcher on 8 February at Klub Gromka.

The string trio from the German-speaking part of Switzerland joined forces for the first time with their English guest on tenor and soprano saxophone. Violinist Harald Kimmig, cellist Alfred Zimmerlin and double bassist Daniel Studer decided that their tight improvising unit needs a new challenge with guest musicians: they invited British saxophonist John Butcher and their collaboration reached a new height. One can immediately hear the spiritual bond that developed between the trio and the Brit.

The Trio Kimmig-Studer-Zimmerlin together with John Butcher abandon the classical realm. Strings are bowed, pulled, struck and scratched, the entire instrument, from neck to tailpiece, is used as a resonating body. A master of circular breathing and overblowing techniques, John Butcher manages to elicit tones cause listeners to ask themselves which instrument was responsible for a particular sound. A must hear!

8 February 2017, Wednesday 21.00 – Klub Gromka, Ljubljana

Regarded as one of the most influential percussionist of the last 30 years, Andrea Centazzo has performed at the most important festivals and concert series both in Europe and the United States as soloist, in combination with other artists, and as conductor. Early in the eighties, and later in the last few years he has been associated with many seminal percussionists, playing duets, trios and ensembles with Andrew Cyrille, Barry Altschul, Tony Oxley, Paul Lytton, Paul Lovens, Pierre Favre and many others.

Born and raised in Italy, but naturalized American and living in Los Angeles since 1992, Centazzo after more than a decade dedicated mainly to composing, conducting and video-making went back in 2000 to his first love, the solo percussion concert. In his solo program called No Boundaries Centazzo once again blends his percussion, playing on a set of over 200 instruments, with cymbals, gongs, electronics, computer sequencing and digital sampling, bringing to the listener the emotion of a new sonic adventure in jazz, world and contemporary avant-garde music. His melodic composing along with his ostinato patterns and his mastery of percussion improvising create a music beyond any expectation.

Andrea Centazzo’s solo performance is the closing event of this year’s Metabonma concert series, curated by Jože Bogolin and Simon Klavžar.

15 December 2016, Thursday 20.00 – Vodnikova Domačija Šiška, Ljubljana

“There is an unknown music. Hidden, to be discovered. Deciphered. There is a past, a now, and a coming. And there is something else. Out of time. Here are two spines – backbones of improvisation. Here’s the vast chatter. There’s an unknown music known to our inner ears. Here are fingerboards and jaws. Amplifying the balance between falling and not falling. Here are Tristan Honsinger and Joel Grip. A sonorous dance of extreme troubadours.”

Tristan Honsinger is a cello player active in free jazz and free improvisation. He is perhaps best known for his long-running collaboration with free jazz pianist Cecil Taylor and guitarist Derek Bailey. He studied at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, but by the seventies, the Trans-American had moved to Amsterdam and formed the Instant Composers Pool with drummer Han Bennink and radical pianist Misha Mengelberg. With this avant-jazz group, his music transcended the classical conservatory background he had and he began to incorporate wild, free improvisation, jazz, and European folk music into his cannon, not to mention a kinship with Bertolt Brecht theatre, which would put an edge on performances and recordings that take on experimental strategies, some of which include what could be considered violent attacks on the instrument. The range of emotions that is covered in a piece by Tristan Honsinger is striking in that it is very accessible for so-called avant-garde music. In the eighties, he recorded for the prestigious FMP label and in the nineties, for numerous recording companies, including Winter & Winter, I.C.P., and legendary jazz archivists Hat Hut from Switzerland.

For a number of years now, energetic double bassist, filmmaker and producer Joel Grip has played an important role for the new scenes of improvised music in Europe. As founder of Umlaut Records, he opened up for creative forms of organizing collectives of musicians and promoting their music internationally. Since 2003 he has been one of the main organizers of Hagenfesten in Dala-Floda, Sweden, a stand-alone festival, and quite frankly possibly the most pleasant venue for free improvised music not only in Sweden but in the whole of Europe. Few other places offer quite the same endearing combination of sophisticated musical risk-taking, and up-beat, social get-together. Grip’s musicianship is informed by a similar knack for welding musical sophistication with social communication, often with an analog film camera at hand. With a handful of short films Joel Grip met mexican filmmaker Mauricio Hernández and shortly the film production company Umlicht was established. They are right now working on their third and forth feature film together. Umdicht is amplifying the pencil of Joel Grip’s hand, partly through the irregular issue of Lösa Blad and partly in the future release of books.

1 December 2016, Thursday 20.30 – Vodnikova Domačija Šiška, Ljubljana