Zbigniew Karkowski + Kasper T. Toeplitz

Ekainaren 4a osteguna / Jueves 4 de Junio
20 h / Bullitt (Dos de Mayo 3. Bilbao)
www.musicaexmachina.com

Zbigniew Karkowski was born in 1958 in Krakow, Poland. He studied composition at the State College of Music in Gothenburg, Sweden, aesthetics of modern music at the University of Gothenburg’s Department of Musicology, and computer music at the Chalmers University of Technology. After completing his studies in Sweden, he studied sonology for a year at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Den Haag, Netherlands. During his education, he also attended many summer composition master courses arranged by Centre Acanthes in Avignon and Aix-en-Provence, France, studying with Iannis Xenakis, Olivier Messiaen, Pierre Boulez, and Georges Aperghis, among others. He works actively as a composer of both acoustic and electroacoustic music. He has written pieces for large orchestra (commissioned and performed by the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra), plus an opera and several chamber music pieces that were performed by professional ensembles in Sweden, Poland, and Germany. He is a founding member of the electroacoustic music performance trio “Sensorband.” Zbigniew has lived and worked in Tokyo, Japan for the past eight years, and is active in the underground noise scene there. Karkowski is currently on a residency at UC Santa Barbara in California.

Kasper T. Toeplitz is a french composer and musician of polish origin, born in 1960. He lives in Paris. He has worked with academic research organizations, such as GMEM, GRM, IRCAM, and Radio-France, as well as with experimental musicians, such as Éliane Radigue, Zbigniew Karkowski, Dror Feiler, Tetsuo Furudate, Phill Niblock and Art Zoyd . Citing Scelsi and Xenakis as influences, his early work was mostly written for traditional instruments. He received several prizes and distinctions for these works: 1st prize in composition for orchestra at the festival of Besançon, 1st prize in the “Opéra Autrement/Acanthes” competition, Villa Médicis Hors-les-Murs in New York, prize Léonard de Vinci in San Francisco, Villa Kujoyama in Kyoto, and DAAD in Berlin. He has also written for his electric guitar orchestra, Sleaze Art. He then integrated computers into his work, via the programming language MAX. His experimentation with computers continued, in 2003, with the creation of an instrument he calls the BassComputer, an electric bass with 5 fretted strings and 4 unfretted strings, as in the harp guitar. The instrument is intended to be interfaced with a computer. In 2004, he commissioned a piece from Eliane Radigue called “Elemental IIâ€?, which he interpreted for the BassComputer. This was an opportunity for him to set up his own label, ROSA (Recordings Of Sleaze Art). He later commissioned Phil Niblock’s “Yam almost mayâ€? (Touch Records TO59), and Dror Feiler’s “Ousiaâ€?. He also recorded “Captureâ€?, one of his own compositions, on ROSA (Rosa#2, 2005), as well as “ZKTâ€?, by Le Dépeupleur, a laptop duet, formed with Zbigniew Karkowski, and which has been together since 1999 (Rosa#3, 2006).
He has also written for dance (Myriam Gourfink, Loic Touzé, Olivia Granville, Emmanuelle Huynh, Hervé Robbe, Artefact, Christian Trouillas, Jean-Marc Matos), as well as theatre; he has always shown a great interest in literature (“J’irai vers le nord, j’irai dans la nuit polaireâ€?, his first opera, was based on Sylvia Plath’s texts, as was “Great Expectationsâ€? on Kathy Acker’s texts; “Ruineâ€?, however, was composed on a François Bon text), and more recently he has developed “combinedâ€? pieces, mixing light and/or video images (“K_aptureâ€?, for computer solo, on Dominik Barbier’s videos). In 2007 he created, with Eryck Abecassis and Wilfried Wendling, KERNEL, a computer ensemble devoted to interpretation, live stricto sensu (without any samples or sequences), of electronic music compositions.

Ez dakit hau izanen den “Berbaoc” (José Belmonte, Izibene Oñederra, Mercedes Sánchez-Agustino, Gustavo Díaz, Irati Fernández, Xabier Erkizia, 2007) filme kolektiboari buruz blog honetan solastuko garen azken aldia, baina lehenengoa behintzat ez da. Ia konturatu gabe, ibilbide pentsaezina egin baitu urtebetean animazioko film labur honek . Artelekun egindako tailer baterako ariketa proposamen bat abiapuntutzat izanik, poliki poliki eta inolako anbiziorik gabe bide luze, oparo, aberats eta sorpresaz beteriko bat osatzen ari da “Berbaoc”. Ariketa soiletik filme izatera pasatu zenetik munduko hainbat zinema jaialdia prestijiotsuetan parte hartu du 2008 eta 2009an: Sitges, Animadrid, Digitalshortfilmfestival, Zinebi, Animac, ISFF Detmold, BASFF Korea, Animateka Eslovenia, Troma Dance, Aubagne, Annecy, Future Film festival , Leeds, Ankara, Animamundi Brasil eta abar luze bat tartean. Eta hauetako batzuetan sariak ere jaso ditu Mexicoko Golosina Visual, Alcala de Henares-eko ALCINE, Medina del Campoko zinema astea eta berriki VISUAL’09 jaialdietan gertatu den bezala. Gustuak gustu, filme ttiki honek apustu inuzenteek izan ohi duten ustekabeko atsegina eman digu, orain haren ondarretatik lan gehiago sortuko diren esperantzan.

No sabemos si esta será la última vez que hablaremos en este blog del film colectivo “Berbaoc” (José Belmonte, Izibene Oñederra, Mercedes Sánchez-Agustino, Gustavo Díaz, Irati Fernández, Xabier Erkizia, 2007), pero desde luego no es la primera. Sin apenas darnos cuenta, este corto de animación ha recorrido un camino inimaginable al principio. Una idea que partiendo como ejercicio propuesto para un taller en Arteleku, poco a poco y sin ambición alguna, “Berbaoc” ha realizado una intensa y rica trayectoria, en algunos casos llenos de sorpresas. Desde que se convirtió en film ha participado en varios festivales remarcables durante 2008 y 2009: Sitges, Animadrid, Digitalshortfilmfestival, Zinebi, Animac, ISFF Detmold, BASFF Korea, Animateka Eslovenia, Troma Dance, Aubagne, Annecy, Future Film festival , Leeds, Ankara y Animamundi Brasil entre otros. Y en algunos de estos incluso ha sido premiado, como en los casos de el Golosina Visual de México, ALCINE de Alcala de Henares, la Semana del Cine de Medina del Campo y recientemente el festival VISUAL’09. Guste o no guste, dada su naturaleza informal, este pequeño film nos ha dado ese inesperado placer que otorgan las apuestas inocentes, siempre con la esperanza puesta en los nuevos trabajos que surgirán de sus huellas.