DeutschIncense of Music 22
DHALGREN
An olfactory concert – Friday, 15 December 2017, 7 pm
Chris Dahlgren: guitar, bass, viola da gamba, voice
Evi Filippou: vibraphone
Claudio Puntin: clarinet, bass clarinet
Incense: Petitgrain, Neroli
Salon Dreiklang, Paul-Robeson-Strasse 47, 10439 Berlin
Here we go again: Incense of Music returns, this time at Natascha Osterkorn's Salon Dreiklang in Prenzlauer Berg. Exceptional American double bassist Chris Dahlgren presents his new record as singer, guitarist, and viola da gamba player. He is accompanied — and inspired to spontaneous improvisation — by Greek percussionist Evi Filippou on vibraphone and Swiss clarinetist Claudio Puntin. Musically speaking, an evening of superlatives.
And this time, we're burning incense differently. Across our previous 21 concerts, we always used a bowl and hot coal, sometimes lighting bundles, to burn nearly 40 different plants from around the world — root to blossom — producing a smoke rich in essential oils with demonstrably positive effects on people. This is a practice tested over thousands of years and an indispensable part of every culture.
This time is different because the room itself is special — relatively small, intimate, and cozy. Given the circumstances, we're forgoing open flame and instead using the advantages of modern technology. An ultrasonic aroma diffuser from Japan will take on the task, vaporizing essential oils into the room. Although we're no longer handling the "true," individual plant material with embers, smoke, and ash, this has decisive advantages: many plants — some of them celebrated highlights of perfumery — yield only modest results when their solid components are burned: lots of smoke for perhaps the faintest hint of a note. Their distilled oil is an entirely different matter.
We'll begin with petitgrain, followed in the second half by the same plant's scent in another form: neroli. An evening, then, dedicated to the orange — or rather, to the orange tree, which has far more to offer than its juicy fruit. Two scents from the same tree, utterly different, utterly related.
For guests who are particularly sensitive to smoke, this event is not recommended.
Artists
Chris Dahlgren — guitar, bass, viola da gamba, voice
Chris Dahlgren was born in New York, NY, on 13 November 1961. He began with music on the cello at the age of six, and later switched to the bass. His earliest experiments with improvisation on the cello brought upon him the wrath of his elementary school music teacher, who shouted, "Get out of here, Dahlgren — you will never be a musician!" He received his BM in Jazz Studies from the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music (1986) and an MA in Composition/Experimental Music from Wesleyan University (2003). Chris studied composition with La Monte Young, Anthony Braxton, Alvin Lucier, and Christian Wolff, and studied bass with Barry Green, François Rabbath, and Dave Holland, among others. During the mid-1980s, as the in-house bassist of the Blue Wisp Jazz Club in Cincinnati, Ohio, Chris had the opportunity to learn about jazz music directly from some of the greatest American masters, such as Herb Ellis, Red Rodney, John von Ohlen, Art Lande, Charles Tolliver, and Joe Lovano. During this time he also established himself as a composer and unique voice on the bass, co-founding the band Ekimi and the music label Krysdahlark. In 1993, Chris moved back to his native New York, and for eleven years was actively performing and recording with his own bands (Slow Commotion, Best Intentions) as well as others' on the Downtown scene. From 2001 to 2009 he was a regular member of ensembles led by the seminal avant-garde composer and woodwinds player Anthony Braxton. Since 2004, he has been living in Berlin, Germany, performing, composing, and collaborating with significant European musicians, composers, and artists. In 2006 Chris began to play the viola da gamba, and has since introduced this instrument into the field of improvised music. In 2008, he formed his band LEXICON, whose debut recording was released on the Jazzwerkstatt label in March 2010. Since 2003, Chris has taught and coached ensembles in Berlin at the Musikhochschule Hanns Eisler and the Jazz Institut Berlin. He has received numerous grants and awards in music composition from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ohio Arts Council, and the Headlands Arts Center (USA), as well as commissions from private individuals and organizations.
Evi Filippou — vibraphone
Evi Filippou (GR, b. 1993) started taking percussion lessons at the age of seven. In 2009 she gave her first recitals in Athens with a scholarship from the Friends of Music. Two years later, she graduated with a first prize and moved to Berlin to begin her Bachelor's studies at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler. She has performed with, among others, the Bolshoi Ballet Orchestra, the Cyprus Symphony Orchestra, and the Orchestra of Konzerthaus Berlin. Evi is a founding member of Opera Lab Berlin, an independent ensemble specializing in music theater, with which she premiered a piece by Salvatore Sciarrino at the Staatsoper Berlin. In 2015 she played a solo concert in the series "Welcome Young Artists!" in Athens. Together with saxophonist Hayden Chisholm, she founded a duo playing both contemporary and original compositions; they perform around the world and released their duo album "Blowslap." Evi also plays in many pop, jazz, and theater projects.
Claudio Puntin — clarinet, bass clarinet
As a young man, Claudio Puntin played folk music on harmonica with his brother and father at farm festivals in Italy's Friuli region. At age nine he began playing clarinet. From 1981 to 1985, he trained as a goldsmith at the Lucerne School of Jewelry Design, receiving the Prix Golay Buchel for jewelry and design in 1985. From 1987 to 1993 he studied clarinet, bass clarinet, jazz, and contemporary music in Cologne and Rotterdam, regularly attending masterclasses with Sergiu Celibidache, whom he cites as one of his most important teachers. He founded various ensembles, including the Schorn Puntin Duo (with Steffen Schorn), with which he toured worldwide from 1990 to 2013, as well as groups such as Quipu, the Claudio Puntin Trio (with Anders Jormin and Miroslav Tadić), "Essence of North" with Icelandic violinist Gerdur Gunnarsdóttir, the World Clarinet Quartet, and the "Balkan Clarinet Summit." As a composer and producer, he created music for radio plays, films, theatre, and exhibitions, including "Measuring the World" (Daniel Kehlmann) and "My Name Is Red" (Orhan Pamuk), and appeared as a soloist on film scores including "Beyond Silence." His concert suite "AROMA," for clarinet, bass clarinet, electronics, and orchestra, was premiered in 2016 by Finnish conductor Osmo Vänskä with the Minnesota Orchestra, with Puntin himself as soloist. In 2011 he founded the electro-acoustic trio Ambiq with Samuel Rohrer and Max Loderbauer, which has collaborated with artists including Ricardo Villalobos. Puntin taught at the Cologne University of Music from 1998 to 2008 and jazz clarinet at the JIB at UdK Berlin from 2009 to 2013, gives international masterclasses, and has received numerous awards, including the first WDR Jazz Prize in 2004. Since 2013 he has served as composer in residence and artistic director of the Tonspuren Festival in Irsee.
Incense
Petitgrain is a colorless to yellowish essential oil obtained by steam distillation from the leaves, twigs, and unripe green fruit of the bitter orange (Citrus aurantium). Its name — French for "small grain" — refers to its original extraction method from the plant's small, unripe green fruits. Its principal growing regions today are Paraguay and France.
Although distilled from the same botanical species as neroli and bitter orange oil, petitgrain carries an entirely distinct aroma: while neroli comes from the flowers and bitter orange oil is typically cold-pressed from the fruit's peel, petitgrain derives solely from the leaves and twigs. Its greenish, woody orange scent is widely used in perfumery and is a classic component of eau de cologne.
Used as a heart note, petitgrain lends compositions a fresh, faintly bitter green quality. It is associated with clarity and balance, and is valued in aromatherapy for calming nervous tension.
Neroli is an essential oil obtained through steam distillation of bitter orange blossoms — a tonne of flowers yields only around one kilogram of oil. The bitter orange trees grown for neroli production today are found mainly in the Maghreb states of Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria, as well as in Spain and the Caribbean.
According to legend, the name neroli traces back to the Italian princess Anna Maria Orsini de la Trémoille, Princess of Nerola, who in the 17th century loved this scent above all others, dabbing it onto her gloves and into her bathwater.
Neroli unfolds a delicate floral, fresh, sweet, and radiant scent profile, used as a heart note in perfumery. In aromatherapy it is valued for its simultaneously relaxing and uplifting effect — not to be confused with orange peel oil, which is a different product entirely.