DeutschIncense of Music 44
A multisensory concert – Tuesday, 10 December 2019, 8 pm
Biliana Voutchkova: violin
Michael Zerang: percussion
Studio Rainer Spehl, Brunnenstrasse 152, 2. Hinterhof, 10115 Berlin
After their first performance in Chicago in 2016, the duo has played at a number of occasions and recorded their first album, which will be released in 2020. Using reduced vocabulary in a highly unusual and original manner, the duo creates an intimate world of symbiotic sound.
Photo by Photomusix / C. Marx
Artists
Biliana Voutchkova — violin
Bulgarian violinist Biliana Voutchkova lives and works in Berlin as a soloist and with renowned ensembles such as Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop, the Splitter Orchestra, zeitkratzer, Ensemble Modern, and the Voutchkova/Thieke duo. She is a dynamic and thoroughly engaged performer, composer, and improviser with a truly personal musical language. Her work spans the widest possible range of music, sound, and movement, and her interests lead into various multidisciplinary collaborations. Recent projects include solo tours in Colombia, Chile, the USA, Australia, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, curation of her own DARA String Festival, and long-durational performances at the Sammlung Hoffmann Berlin. Biliana is a recent recipient of the Composition Stipend from the Berlin Senate and grants from INM Berlin, Musikfonds, and the Trust for Mutual Understanding, New York. Music magazine FreiStil described her as "courageous, uncompromising, ultimately successful."
Photo by Photomusix / C. Marx
Michael Zerang — percussion
Michael Zerang was born in Chicago, Illinois, and is a first-generation American of Assyrian descent. He has been a professional musician, composer, and producer since 1976, focusing extensively on improvised music, free jazz, contemporary composition, puppet theater, experimental theater, and international musical forms. As a percussionist, composer, and collaborator, Zerang has over one hundred titles in his discography and has toured to 35 countries since 1981. Beginning in 2004, Zerang began working with musicians in the Middle East, traveling to perform, teach, and study in Yemen, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Turkey, and Morocco, among others. From 2007, he performed over 100 concerts in Poland, mostly in collaboration with Polish musicians. Michael founded the Link's Hall Performance Series in Chicago in 1985, serving as artistic director until 1989 and producing over 300 concerts. He has received three Joseph Jefferson Awards for Original Music Composition in Theater, in collaboration with Redmoon Theater. Michael has taught as a guest artist at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Northwestern University, and continues to hold workshops in improvisational music and percussion technique.
Vincent van Gogh – "Poplars near Nuenen"
Incense
Oakmoss (Evernia prunastri) is, strictly speaking, not a plant at all but a lichen — a symbiosis of fungus and algae — growing as grey-green, branching tufts on the bark of oaks and other deciduous trees across the temperate forests of Europe.
Oakmoss ranks among the oldest and most significant materials in perfumery, already appearing in ancient Egyptian fragrance recipes. Since François Coty created his landmark scent "Chypre" in 1917, oakmoss has been the namesake heart of the entire chypre family of perfumes. Traditionally, it was harvested chiefly from the oak forests of the former Yugoslavia and France.
Burned as incense, oakmoss releases a deep, earthy, mossy-woody scent with a damp, almost leathery note — reminiscent of a forest floor after rain. It has a strongly grounding effect, associated with connection to ancient forests and deep rootedness.
The elder (Sambucus nigra) is a small, deciduous tree or shrub native across much of Europe. In early summer it bears creamy-white, flat-topped flower clusters, followed in autumn by dark purple-to-black berries.
Few plants are as deeply woven into European folklore, particularly Germanic and Nordic tradition, as the elder. It was considered a protective tree, believed to be inhabited by the "Elder Mother" — traditionally, one asked the tree's permission before pruning it, for fear of provoking her anger. Its flowers and berries have been used in folk medicine for centuries against colds, and remain valued today for supporting the immune system.
Burned as incense, elder releases a sweet, delicate, floral scent when the flowers are used, or a deeper, fruitier note from the berries or wood. In old Germanic belief, it was associated with protection, connection to ancestral spirits, and the threshold between worlds.