Project VO / Sacha Kahir

Doors: 19h00
Start: 19h30
limited space, come on time!

Project VO + Sanja Star
https:// www.tumblr.com/project-vo
https:// youtu.be/yRMfwjxNtHc (link to previous collaboration)
https:// projectvo.bandcamp.com/
http:// www.riekookuda.com/biography.html
https:// avirtmusic.weebly.com
https:// sanjastar.myportfolio.com/

Sacha Kahir
https:// elektroakustischegarage.bandcamp.com/album/wallstreet-poems
https:// elektroakustischegarage.bandcamp.com/album/demagnetisierte-generation-iii-2
https:// www.mixcloud.com/Resonance/bad-punk-21-may-2021-we-are-the-dead/

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Project VO

Project VO is an improvising duo between Antti Virtaranta and Rieko Okuda working since 2010. Their approach is handcrafted like their limited releases “glass hopper” (2012) and “プランクトン” (2015), which reflect the way they navigate the free improvisation landscape. The characteristics of the music is repetitive and broken rhythms. The combination of piano and bass has expanded to include viola and small electronics, which further push the duo to explore more colours and textures for their performances. They actively perform throughout Europe and in Japan including collaborations with different performers. More recently Project VO was invited to do a week-long residency in Budapest collaborating with a large number of Hungarian performers.

SANJA STAR (Croatia, 1982) is an experimental media artist & multidisciplinary designer based in Berlin since 2015, working at the intersection of media and visual performance art, improvisation and computer graphics. She has a background in fine arts and graphic design and through her practice offers reflections on the perception of reality – particularly in relation to the boundaries between physical and esoteric, human and alien, self and otherness and notions of time. Her work is a contemporary and playful mix of media art and 3D animation. Through limited but vibrant colour palettes and mesmerizing abstract shapes, she explores and harnesses our perception of depth and movement. Her passion for art, music, quantum physics and her curiosity led her on the path of a constantly evolving visual language.

Rieko Okuda is a pianist and a composer from Japan. She began to play Classical music at the age of 3. She also studied Music Therapy at Doshisha Women College. Music Therapy led her into Contemporary music and Improvised music. After she graduated from the college, she moved to USA to study Jazz music. She fell right into the Jazz scene in USA, performing with some of the great American Jazz musicians (Bob Mintzer, Jon Faddis, John Fedchock etc) at several jazz festivals such as North Texas Jazz Festival, Nortredam Jazz Festival to name a few. A couple of years later, she got interested in Free Jazz and Improvised music while she was in Philadelphia. She performed with the great improvisers includes Marshall Allen (from San Ra Orchestra), Elliott Levine (recorded with Cecil Taylor), and Calvin Weston (recorded with Ornette Coleman). Her interests in Improvised music led her to move to Berlin. She performs with various musicians in Berlin ex. Tobias Delius, Axel Dörner, Els Vendaweyer, Linda Frederickson, etc. Also, she collaborates with contemporary dancers such as Yuko Kaseki, Akemi Nagao, and Annapaola Leso (from Sasha Waltz.) She performs at several experimental festivals: A L’arme Festival, JOE Festival Essen, Brda Contemporary Music Festival, XChange Festival, Experymental Festival, Flux Festival, and Soundance Festival to name a few.
In 2017 and 2018, she got the residency in Elektronik Music Studio (EMS) in Stockholm, Sweden. This residency experiences inspired her to Electro-Acoustic field, and she started to invite the electronics to her piano solo pieces. Her first Electro-Acoustic solo album “Paranorm” was released from Japanese record label, Athor Harmonics, on Feburary 2018. “Paranorm” was performed at Koncertkirken Blagards Plads (DK), Ausland, FLUX Festival (DE), and Vardklockans Församling (SE).
In 2020, she has gotten the residency in Visby International Centere for Composers (VICC) to extend her experience, and find more possibilities to create various sounds and composition techniques.

Antti Virtaranta is a Finnish bassist. Born in Stockholm, Sweden, he has moved from place to place throughout his life. As a teenager he started playing bass in math rock bands. He went to Philadelphia, University of the Arts, to study jazz. There he was introduced to free jazz and improvised music which led to his relocation to Berlin in 2011. Since then he has been performing throughout Europe and Japan in different groups.
His musical influences lie in mathcore, electronic music, jazz, and contemporary classical music. He takes various elements from each and weaves them together to create his sound. He has performed with many artists including Tristan Honsinger, Elliot Levin, Axel Dorner, Silke Eberhardt, Ignasz Schick and many more. He also collaborates with visual artists and dancers.

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Sacha Kahir

Sacha Kahir combines improvisation, poetry, performance art and ritual, with noise and field recordings. With new work combining poetry and manipulated field recordings from Berlin’s U-Bahn stations. It will build on previous collaborations and work with poesi fysik, Ultra Red, Resonance FM and Sean Bonney (1969-2019). Stories and soundtracks from below ground as history breaks down into dust sounds and symbols.

Part of CTM Vorspiel 2023