DeutschIncense of Music 65
A multisensory concert – Friday, 4 July 2025, 8 pm
Michael Thieke: clarinet
Elena Kakaliagou: French horn
Michael Vorfeld: percussion
Emilio Gordoa: vibraphone
Incense: Priprioca, White Sage
PANDA Platforma in der Kulturbrauerei, Knaackstr. 97, 10435 Berlin
Experience a unique convergence of sound and scent featuring Michael Thieke (clarinet), Elena Kakaliagou (French horn), Michael Vorfeld (percussion), and Emilio Gordoa (vibraphone). As these master improvisers weave intricate and exploratory soundscapes, the air will be gently suffused with the earthy, grounding aroma of burning Cyperus articulatus (Piri-Piri). This ancient plant, known for its traditional use in clearing and connecting, will provide an olfactory dimension to the concert.
This ensemble immerses itself in the intimate world of sound and adventure music, seeking to break through its own patterns in order to flood the listener with the fascination of the unpredictable. The quartet — Kakaliagou-Thieke-Vorfeld-Gordoa — was founded in Berlin in 2015 and consists of four active musicians from the European experimental and improvised music scene.
Artists
Michael Thieke — clarinet
Michael Thieke is a Berlin-based clarinetist, composer, and performer equally at home across a broad range of musical environments, such as experimental song forms, collectively composing projects, improvising collectives, and music on the fringes of jazz. He explores the minutiae of sound, timbre and noise, with a particular interest in microtonality and related sound phenomena. He has a preference for long-term collaborations and collective work, including The International Nothing, Voutchkova/Thieke Duo, The Pitch, Der lange Schatten, Splitter Orchester, and The Clarinet Trio.
Elena Kakaliagou — French horn
Elena Kakaliagou is a Greek-Austrian French horn player based in Berlin. Her work is deeply rooted in contemporary classical music, experimental sound, and free improvisation. Kakaliagou is renowned for her exploration of extended techniques on the horn, pushing the instrument's conventional boundaries to create a vast palette of sounds, from delicate whispers and multiphonics to raw, textural noises. She is a core member of several prominent ensembles, including the brass trio Zinc & Copper and the renowned new music ensemble zeitkratzer.
Michael Vorfeld — percussion
Michael Vorfeld is a musician and media artist who plays percussion and self-designed string instruments and realizes electroacoustic sound pieces. He works in the field of experimental, improvised music and sound art, realizing installations and performances with light and sound, and working with photography and film. Based in Berlin, his activities include numerous concerts, performances and exhibitions across Europe, America, Asia and Australia.
Emilio Gordoa — vibraphone
Emilio Gordoa is a Mexican sound artist, percussionist, and composer whose work focuses on sound and performance as primary means of expression. Based in Berlin since 2012, his projects include solo and ensemble performances, sound installations, and compositions for film, theater and dance. He has collaborated with artists including Jérôme Noetinger, Yuko Kaseki, Burkhard Beins, and John Butcher. He founded the WildSonic platform for experimental music and is artistic director of the FILEC Festival in Mexico.
Incense
Cyperus articulatus, also known as Piri-Piri, Priprioca, or jointed flatsedge, is a plant species from the sedge family. It is widespread across tropical and subtropical regions worldwide, typically growing in moist areas, along riverbanks, or in swamps. Its slender, round, distinctly jointed stems — from which its name "articulatus" derives — are its most characteristic feature.
The plant, particularly its rhizomes, has a long tradition in the folk medicine of various cultures, especially in South America and Africa, where fever-reducing, digestive-aiding, and calming properties are attributed to it. In shamanic contexts, particularly in the Amazon region, Piri-Piri is used to deepen the connection to nature, plant spirits, or the spiritual world, and to promote grounding. In some traditions it is also used for love spells or to strengthen relationships, often in combination with other plants.
For incense purposes, the dried rhizomes are what matter most, often traded as "Piri-Piri roots." When burned, they release an earthy, woody, slightly spicy, and sometimes faintly sweet fragrance, often perceived as calming and centering. Traditionally, Piri-Piri is used for energetic cleansing rituals to free spaces or people of negative energy, said to build a protective aura and support concentration during meditation and ritual.
White sage is an evergreen perennial shrub native to the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico, particularly the coastal sage scrub habitats of Southern California and Baja California. It typically grows 1.3 to 1.5 metres tall, with whitish-green, evergreen leaves densely covered in fine hairs that hold aromatic oils — an adaptation to the aridity of its habitat.
For numerous Indigenous peoples of California, including the Chumash, Cahuilla, and Tongva, white sage has been a sacred plant for generations, used in purification ceremonies and spiritual practice. In recent decades, growing commercial demand has led to overharvesting of wild populations, prompting many Indigenous communities and conservationists to ask that only cultivated — not wild-harvested — plants be used, and that the plant be treated with respect.
The dried leaves are traditionally bundled into smudge sticks and burned, releasing a strongly aromatic, herbaceous, camphor-like scent with a faint sweetness. Its smoke is believed to have cleansing properties, clearing negative energy from a space and promoting mental clarity and relaxation.