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The Asterina Project

for voice and strophonion, flutes (Sabine Vogel) and contrabass clarinet (Theo Nabicht)—two video excerpts from a Berlin-based project to explore the method of live sampling in the context of musical improvisation recorded at the Vivaldisaal Berlin (Initiative Neue Musik) on 26 April 2016

(three sequences)

The concept of the project is to stay in the acoustic realm without using amplification. For reasons of clarification it should be mentioned that the two woodwind players as well as the extended vocal performer are not amplified at all. The only reason why microphones are applied, is to record and gain sound material to be further developed.

Through music improvisation and experimentation, the project's goal was to field-test the strophonion in the context  of live sampling others than myself. During the process of playing, the musicians were recorded and the gained sound material was further manipulated and transformed by applying  different sampling techniques and sound morphing practices. For the reason of setting up a focussed atmosphere, I invited musicians with whom I collaborated previous times before in different projects based in Berlin or Potsdam.

(one sequence)

Asterina is a starfish with five short arms. By analogy, due to the five sound sources of the project, i.e. the voice, flute, contrabass clarinet and strophonion whose stereo sound image is disseminated by two loudspeakers, the musicians and loudspeakers are set up, from the bird's eye perspective, imitating the shape of an Asterina.