DeutschThe Incense of Music No. 4
A multisensory concert – Tuesday, 6 October 2015, 8 pm
Hayden Chisholm: saxophone, shruti box
Evi Filippou: vibraphone, percussion
Incense: Agathis Australis (New Zealand), Mediterranean Cypress (Greece)
Circle 1 Berlin – Platform for Art and Culture, Mittenwalderstrasse 47, 10961 Berlin Kreuzberg — circle1berlin.com
In the fourth concert of The Incense of Music we present composer and saxophone player Hayden Chisholm from New Zealand together with percussionist Evi Filippou from Greece. Their music, interpreted with an alto saxophone, a sruti box and vibraphone, interacts in the gallery's space with two exclusive fragrances burnt in different sets: Dammar, a resin from the Agathis Australis trees from the north of New Zealand, and needles and wood of a cypress tree growing in the area of the legendary Temple of Delphi. Four protagonists from two different countries, different cultures, different natures, in a multisensory meeting with the exhibited artworks by Aharon Ozery, Roland Stratmann and Christine de la Garenne.
Artists
Hayden Chisholm — saxophone, shruti box
Hayden Chisholm (born 1975) is a New Zealand saxophonist and composer. After studying in Cologne with a DAAD scholarship he continued his music studies in Japan and India. In 1995 he developed a radical new microtonal system he termed "split scales" for saxophone, which he revealed on his debut solo CD "Circe". Since then his compositions have been recorded by BBC and WDR radios and he has toured and recorded extensively with the likes of Root70, WDR Big Band, Musikfabrik Ensemble, and David Sylvian. He has created music for several Rebecca Horn installations as well as composing scores for her films. He has taught at universities throughout the world and gives yearly master classes in Greece. He curates the annual Plushmusic festival in Cologne and Bremen. In 2013 he released the 13-box set "13 Views of the Heart's Cargo" and received the German SWR Jazz Prize.
Evi Filippou — vibraphone, percussion
Evi Filippou is a percussionist from Volos, Greece. After graduating in percussion and theory with "Excellence and 1st Prize" in the class of the Volos Municipal Conservatory she began Bachelor degree studies at the Hanns Eisler Conservatory in Berlin. During her studies in Greece she joined the Volos Youth Symphony Orchestra and later the Volos Symphony Orchestra and took piano, choir and conducting lessons. In 2009, as a scholar of the "Megaron – the Athens Concert Hall", she made her first solo performances in Athens's main concert hall. She has performed with orchestras and ensembles in Greece, Cyprus and Germany including the Camerata, Bolshoi Ballet Orchestra, Cyprus Symphony Orchestra, and the Orchestra of Konzerthaus Berlin. She is a founding member of the "Opera Lab Berlin" ensemble, an independent ensemble specializing in music theatre performance. In 2014, together with saxophonist Hayden Chisholm, she formed a percussion-saxophone duo playing contemporary and original compositions. She lives, studies and works in Berlin.
Incense
The kauri tree, known by its Māori name Agathis australis, grows in the north of New Zealand's North Island and ranks among the oldest tree species in the world — some specimens are over a thousand years old, with massive smooth trunks and small, narrow, leathery leaves. When the bark is wounded, a clear to pale-yellow resin seeps out and hardens in the air; fossilised resin from the same trees is also found buried in the ground, having turned amber-like over thousands of years.
Burned as incense, kauri resin (also known as dammar) releases a bright, fresh, faintly lemony scent that feels light and unclouded — a clear contrast to heavier, more resinous incenses. In the region where it originates, the tree was long regarded as sacred, and its resin was valued both for ritual cleansing and for its distinctive fragrance.
The Mediterranean cypress is a slender, evergreen conifer native to the eastern Mediterranean, long associated with sacred and significant sites across the region — including the grounds of the ancient Oracle of Delphi. Some trees live for over a thousand years, and their durable, fragrant wood has traditionally been reserved for especially valuable buildings.
For this concert we burn needles and wood from a cypress tree growing at that very historic site in Delphi. The scent is dry, resinous-woody, and faintly balsamic, with a quiet, grounding depth — an aroma long connected to stillness, reflection, and the passage between worlds.