Voutchkova / Thieke
Biliana Voutchkova | violin, voice
Michael Thieke | clarinet
The music of the Voutchkova/Thieke duo focuses on micro tonality, imagery and intensely dynamic, often slowly developing and moving soundscapes. Biliana and Michael have worked together within (and in between) both compositional and improvisational methods since 2011. They recently celebrated their 10th anniversary with the event MATERIALITY & SOUND.
For the past years they played more than 80 concerts together – in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Italy, Austria, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, Czech Republic, Serbia, Bulgaria, Sweden, Japan and the USA (Meakusma Festival/Eupen, Experimental Intermedia/New York, Blurred Edges/Hamburg, Biegungen im ausland/Berlin and Ftarri Festival/Tokyo, among others).
The duo is also engaged in multi disciplinary projects and collaborations with various guest artists. Among those are musicians Roy Carroll, Luca Venitucci, Svetlana Maraš, Hans Tammen, visual and sound artists Gretchen Blegen, Hans Peter Kuhn, and choreographers / dancers / performers such as Julyen Hamilton, Maya Carroll, Litó Walkey, Akemi Nagao, Ingo Reulecke, Ahmed Soura and Louise Wagner.
Support has been granted to them by the Goethe Institut, Musikfonds / Germany and the Trust for Mutual Understanding / New York / USA.
In 2016 the duo started developing their concept Blurred Music which is dedicated to the translation of the visual concept of blurriness into sonic forms and strategies. The project brought the duo on an elongated concert tour in the USA which culminated with the release of a triple album with recordings from the live concerts, selected as Record of the year 2018 in the reader’s poll of Free Jazz Blog. In 2018 Voutchkova/Thieke received a grant from Musikfonds in Germany to develop this concept into two new directions – a quartet extension with bass recorder player Miako Klein and double bass player Andrew Lafkas, and a new long length installation format with durations of up to 5 hours.
releases:
Voutchkova/Thieke | Blurred Music | Elsewhere (USA) | 2018 | triple CD
Voutchkova/Thieke/Carroll | As Found | Sound Anatomy (D) | 2017 | CD
Voutchkova/Thieke | Already There | Flexion Records (CH) |2013 | limited CD edition
blurred music:
Blur is a form of inexactness, indeterminacy, uncertainty in the depiction or reproduction of an object or state of affairs; it need not constitute an error, rather it can be desired or perhaps impossible to avoid. Blur creates blanks that serve as stimuli for supplementation by subjective concretisations that stretch far beyond what the object actually (re)presents. The duo works with the theme of blur in the field of music, on the level of formal composition as well as in the details of the musical material. The music’s structure creates a blur; improvised parts alternate with fields of pre-structured material in which digital recordings of the duo are duplicated by live performance.Virtually identical fragments of the live performance synchronise simultaneously with the playback, unavoidably giving rise to blur in the temporal dimension, in the rhythmic, timbral, and motivic variations, in the microtonal interpretation of individual pitches. The live portion of the duplicated material is still improvised, but within a framework purposefully restricted by the pre-recorded material, the intervals between which are indeterminate. To perception, what is being composed in real time blurs into what has been structured in advance; the difference can be registered only after an interval, if at all.
“Is it even always an advantage to replace a picture that is not sharp by one that is? Isn’t one that isn’t sharp often just what we need?”
Ludwig Wittgenstein
press:
„The granulation of sound into exquisite detail was once the field of the electronic music composer. But, a new type of instrumental virtuosity has been mastered by artists such as Voutchkova and Thieke. Emerging from experimental and improvisational practices, it’s a virtuosity that puts a lens on the particles of sound within sounds. And through deconstruction of (traditionally conceived) instrumental tone, these granulated particles of sound became the material of a whole new world of music being created on the same old instruments. After all, instruments are just tools. Musical shifts occur from how we listen to sounds, what we perceive in them, as well as how our listening affects our relationship with the world. Much of music’s movement toward micro-elements manifested through compositional processes, into forms of chiseled and austere beauty. But an increased expressivity has entered experimental music through the immediacy, intimacy and interactivity of improvisation. As a result of their close collaboration, Voutchkova and Thieke have developed a strong interest in exploring the granulated particles that increase the sensitivity of perception for themselves and their audiences. They deliver the findings of these explorations with intensity and feeling.“
Nameless Sound/USA
video:
Video by Carlos Bustamante
27.9.2018, live at Hošek Contemporary Improvised & Experimental #40
„BLURRED MUSIC“ CD Launch
pictures:
photos by: Boryana Pandova
materiality & sound:
Materiality & Sound
a concert installation at Studio Rainer Spehl
October 2 & October 3, 2021
This concert installation and exhibition aims at triggering all five senses – sight, touch, smell, taste and hearing – letting you discover the intricate relationship between wood and music; permanent versus ephemeral, observable versus imperceptible, tangible versus ethereal and physical versus abstract.
Considering synaesthesia as a sensory and transformational phenomenon it can be noticed that in certain conditions our senses are paradoxically intertwined with one another. Thus, it feels as if we taste color, see music, smell touch or listen to space.
How do the objects, sounds and environments around us influence our perception of reality? What defines the transformation of a tree into a table… or a scent? How does sound change in accordance with the vibrations of wood? At what point is noise perceived as rhythm and melody? As music?
Herewith, we are inviting you to celebrate the creative and artistic process behind 10 years of activity of the Voutchkova/Thieke Duo as well as the Rainer Spehl Studio (Art, Design & Crafts) in cooperation with the video artist Carlos Bustamante in a two-day long event that involves live performances, videos and installations.
Biliana Voutchkova | violin
Michael Thieke | clarinet
Rainer Spehl Studio | wood
Carlos Bustamante | video
blurred music - concert installation:
Blurred Music – Concert Installation
Museum der Stille, Berlin, April 26-28 2019, 14:00 – 19:00
The timing and duration of the listening experience is chosen by the audience. The duo will present a new installative format of Blurred Music in one of the intimate rooms of the Museum of Silence, which corresponds to the site specifics of the space and the works of Nikolai Makarov. Over a length of 5 hours, the music played live unfolds in an intimate space allowing up to 5 listeners at a time to experience a very personal and close encounter with the created soundscape.
The duo works with the theme of blur in the field of music, on the level of formal composition as well as in the details of the musical material. The music’s structure creates a blur; improvised parts alternate with fields of pre-structured material in which tape-recordings of the duo are duplicated by live performance. Identical material thus sounds in live performance at the same time it sounds from playback, unavoidably giving rise to blur in the temporal dimension, in the rhythmic, timbral, and motivic variations, in the microtonal interpretation of individual pitches. The live portion of the duplicated material is still improvised, but in a framework restricted by the pre-recorded material being played back.
The installation format of Blurred Music is kindly supported by the Musikfonds.
collaborations:
againagain
againagain
Sounddance Festival Dock 11, Berlin, 25-26 june 2019
Iterative processes of alignment and accompaniment activate a listening that retells incremental stories.
For this collaboration Biliana Voutchkova, Michael Thieke, Gretchen Blegen and Litó Walkey translate the visual concept of blurriness into sonic, somatic and spacial forms. The edges between past, present, reoccurring and spontaneous grow vague, and the performance exposes tactile textures of density.
Commissioned by Sounddance Festival Berlin, this work developed from two ongoing projects: The Blurred Music Project by violinist Biliana Voutchkova and clarinetist Michael Thieke composes pieces where their own recordings intermittently appear and are almost identically duplicated by the live performance; and The Circulating Book Project by interdisciplinary artists Asaf Aharonson, Gretchen Blegen and Litó Walkey that circulates exchanges of correspondence, speech, writing, collage and composition over an extended period of time to co-create the book entries.
Photos by Dieter Hartwig
compovisation
Compovisation
Sound and light installation – performance
Uferstudios | Berlin
25.-29.06.2014
Concept and idea: Biliana Voutchkova/Louise Wagner (OSM Collective)
in collaboration with Hans Peter Kuhn
Sound and light installation: Hans Peter Kuhn
Choreography/artistic direction: Louise Wagner
Composition/music: Biliana Voutchkova (violin), Michael Thieke (clarinet)
Composition/dance: Ingo Reulecke, Akemi Nagao, Ahmed Soura
Compovisation was conceived by the OSM Open Sound and Movement Collective in collaboration with Hans Peter Kuhn. Founded and directed
by violinist/composer/performer Biliana Voutchkova and choreographer/dancer Louise Wagner OSM investigates the modes of corporal and musical
listening and the variations of physical connections between musicians and dancers incorporating open forms such as improvisation and real time
composition. The idea for the project came as a natural development of the previous work of the collective that had curated and regularly performed
for their monthly series at the RADIALSYSTEM V in 2012, and the Hochschulübergreifende Zentrum Tanz Berlin (HZT) in 2013.
For Compovisation, OSM is joining forces with five artists from different artistic fields. The project takes shape as a light and sound installation-performance
in which the different vocabularies of the artists fuse together: Hans Peter Kuhn’s world of sound and light meets up with instrumental sound language of
violinist Biliana Voutchkova and clarinetist Michael Thieke: these acoustic impulses are absorbed and choreographically developed further by the
choreographer Louise Wagner and the dancers Ingo Reulecke, Akemi Nagao and Ahmed Soura: modifications of the space are created by the light
and sound through the interactions of the performers with the installation.
