photo: Roberto Masotti

MASSIMO FALASCONE (IT)

Musician, improviser and composer of electro-acoustic music, active on the scene of Italian and European improvised music since the early '80s, he built a personal and expressive tonal palette that now includes the electronic treatment of sound.
He plays various saxophones and live electronics. He improvises and performs. He has written several music and soundscapes for theater, documentaries and video installations, soundtracks for institutional videos, he actively collaborates with artists, dancers, filmmakers, poets. He teaches, conducts workshops and master classes on jazz and electro-acoustic improvisation.
He has played and recorded with groups and musicians such as Gruppo Contemporaneo, Takla Makan, M.M.&T., CrowdofOne, Wintermute, Artchipel Orchestra, TAI No-Orchestra, Barre Phillips, Filippo Monico, Edoardo Ricci, Guido Mazzon, Gaetano Liguori, Roberto Del Piano, Mario Arcari, Martin Mayes, Wolfgang Fuchs, Peter Kowald, Fabrizio Spera, Alberto Braida, Alessandro Bosetti, Daniele Cavallanti, Peeter Uuskyla, Biggi Vinkeloe, Giancarlo Nino Locatelli, Walter Prati, Elliott Sharp, Cristiano Calcagnile, Giancarlo Schiaffini, Steve Piccolo, Paolo Botti, Silvia Bolognesi, Alberto Tacchini, Bob Marsh, Stefano Giust, Evan Parker, Claude Parle, Dan Warburton, John Hughes, Vlatko Kucan, Heiner Metzger, Nicolas Wiese, Keith Tippett, Julie Tippetts, Karl Berger, Alessandra Novaga, Chris Cutler, Andrea Centazzo, Marcello Magliocchi, Matthias Boss, Marco Colonna, Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg, Adrian Northover, Tomeka Reid and many others.
Over the years he has been artistic director of events, exhibitions, cultural associations. Collaborations with theatres (CRT, Enrico Coffetti, Giorgio Barberio Corsetti, Teatro Arsenale, Appi, etc.), with dancers and choreographers (Susanna Beltrami, Attilio Cossu, Antonio Caporilli, Cristina Negro, Emanuela Tagliavia, etc.), with visual artists and videomakers (Eugène Darredeau, Marco Teatro, Gianfilippo Pedote, Leonardo Gervasi, Roberto Masotti, AU+, Mammafotogramma, etc.)
He is one of the founding members of "Takla Improvising Group", dedicated to the practice and diffusion of improvised music. Since 2004 he has been the musical director of all theatrical productions by APPI - Italian Association of Small Stages. From 2009 to 2011 he leads the workshop "The Sign Of Sound" on writing, improvisation and electronics at the Teatro Arsenale in Milano. In 2013 he is a founding member of TAI No-Orchestra/Terra Australis Incognita, the new "brand" of improvisation that involves some leading musicians in the Milan area and long distance guests.

http://www.massimofalascone.com/index.html

photo: Roberto Panucci

SILVIA BOLOGNESI (IT)

Silvia Bolognesi is a double bass player, composer and arranger. Graduated in double bass at the R.Franci Institute of Siena with M°Andrea Granai, perfecting with M°Alberto Bocini, she approached jazz studying at the Siena Jazz Accademy with Paolino dalla Porta, Furio di Castri and Ferruccio Spinetti. The most significant encounters in her musical training are those with William Parker, Muhal Richard Abrams, Lawrence "Butch" Morris, Roscoe Mitchell and Antony Braxton. Winner of the "Top Jazz 2010", by “Musica Jazz” as best new talent and in the same year winner of the "In Sound" trophy for double bass category. In 2010 she founded her own label "Fonterossa Records".
She leads several bands: Young Shouts, Open Combo, Almond Tree, Xilo Ensemble, Ju-Ju Sounds and Fonterossa Open Orchestra. Since 2009 she is part of the international string trio Hear In Now with Tomeka Reid on cello and Mazz Swift on violin and vocals; with this trio they completed Roscoe Mitchell’s sextet in his Homage to John Coltrane in 2017. She’s part of the "Art Ensemble of Chicago 50th Anniversary" special project. She teaches double bass and combo class at the Siena Jazz Academy and at “Associazione Mosaico” in Colle Val d'Elsa (Siena). Since 2016 she is part of the "European exchange-Erasmus +" program for the Conservatory of Maastricht (Holland), Tbilisi (Georgia), Riga (Latvia), Birmingham (UK). She runs workshops on Improvisation and "Conduction" since 2008.

https://www.silviabolognesimusic.com

photo: 

FILIPPO MONICO (IT)

was born in Milan in 1955 and has been active since the early 1970s, when he collaborated with various authors and participated in concerts and recordings with Enrico Rava, Paul Rutherford, Lester Bowie, Don Cherry, Steve Lacy and Evan Parker.
Then he is in Roberto Bellatalla's Muzic Circo with Daniele Cavallanti and Edoardo Ricci.
He worked in Holland and England with Tristan Honsinger, Sean Bergin, Antonello Salis and Sandro Satta. He participated in a series of concerts in Russia with the singer Sainko Namtchylak.
He founded the group 'Takla Makan' together with Giancarlo Locatelli and Massimo Falascone (guests are: Fabrizio Spera, Tito Mangialajo Rantzer, Barre Phillips, Wolfgang Fuchs).
He collaborates in dance theater performances with choreographers Susanna Beltrami and Adriana Borriello and in theater with directors Elio De Capitani, Antonello Cassinotti, Renzo Martinelli, Giorgio Barberio Corsetti and with Teatro Filodrammatici in Milan.
In recent years he has devoted himself to radical and jazz improvisation, often in dialogue with dance, painting, poetry, theater, and video: e.g. with the "Paolo Botti Quintet", with Steve Piccolo's "Hilarity Workshop", with Biggie Vinkeloe's "Unit" group, with Dimitri Grechi Espinoza's "Alternative Trio", with Mario Arcari and above all in performances with the dancers Masaki Iwana, Roberto Castello, Julyen Hamilton, Giorgio Rossi and Alessandro Certini and then with the musicians Peter Kowald, Elliot Sharp, Wilbert De Joode, Giovanni Falzone, Edoardo Marraffa and the painters Sandro Fabbri and Ebbe Pettersson.
He leads the 'Takla Jazz' and the multi-ethnic group 'N.E.S.O.' (4 percussionists from Europe, Asia, Africa and America).
President of the Takla Improvising Group Association, founded in 1998, which works to spread the art of improvisation and organizes seminars, reflections, concerts, reviews and festivals for adults, youth and children.

photo: Benedetta Casagrande

LEONARDO FALASCONE (IT)

is a multidisciplinary artist and teacher based in Milan.
Graduated with honors in Architectural Design at Politecnico di Milano, he combines a personal artistic research with the activity of independent illustrator and graphic designer. Interested in the practices of dissemination of visual culture in the educational and curatorial field, Falascone is also part of Ardesia Projects a nonprofit cultural association dedicated to the research and divulgation of contemporary photography through exhibitions, publishing projects, artist residencies and workshops.
His research combines practices and reasoning on drawing, printing techniques, graphic design and video-making, activities that from a methodological perspective can be read as integrated experiments on the theme of ‘montage’; this is here understood as a creative exercise in the construction and deconstruction of the image, as an exploration of meaning fluctuations and the relationships of interdependence between imaginary and material reality, in a dynamic context of openness to paradox, illusion and instability. This hybrid approach guides Falascone as much in the conceptual and practical development of his work as in the orientation of his critical training, an oblique investigation between different areas of interest and inspiration that moves from art history to material culture, from the natural sciences to music, in search of more or less accidental resonances that can stimulate reflections on the contemporary.

photo: 

GIOVANNI FALASCONE (IT)

Pianist, electronic musician, improviser and composer born in Milan, Italy in '99. Having completed both classical studies in piano with the UK’s Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music and contemporary composition B.A. in Milan with Giovanni Verrando and Pasquale Corrado, he mainly turns his research toward a dialogue between free improvised electro-acoustic music and the so-called written contemporary music. He practises and promotes such musical disciplines within ensembles, collectives and associations from different areas of Italy such as Conserere collective, BlueRing Improvisers, Spazio Pontano 35 and the Ü quartet organizing periodic artistic residencies, workshops and concerts.

https://uquartet.bandcamp.com/album/

photo: Dr Daniel Portelli

DANICA HOBDEN (AUS)

is an Australian guitarist, improvisor and teacher currently based in Hamburg, Germany. She enjoys crossing musical boundaries between folk, jazz, rock and classical genres as well as interdisciplinary explorations into theatre and film. 
Danica is currently working on various projects including gigging and composing for modern jazz ensemble Warmbluetig, who will release their debut album later this year; performing with Hamburger Guitarist Pouya Abdi as duo Guitar Club; working on projects with composer Elizabeth Jigalin as New Music duo dnka+zil, as well as playing guitar, banjo and mandolin in pit orchestras, most recently at the State Theatre and Hayes Theatre Co. She is also a session musician for pop and rock acts, being hired as the backing band for Australian artists such as Courtney Act and cabaret performer Catherine Alcorn, performing at venues such as the Sydney Opera House and ELEVATE Sydney Festival.
She is a graduate of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, holding a Bachelor of Music Studies in Classical Guitar and a Bachelor of Music Performance in Jazz Guitar. She is currently studying in the Dr. Langner Jazzmaster programme at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater, Hamburg with a focus on composition, studying with her musical heroes Andrea Keller, Reinier Baas and Sven Kerschek.

https://www.danicahobden.com

photo: Ryan Wijayratne

HANIA MARIAM LUTHUFI (LK)

is a vocalist, composer and music educator from Colombo, Sri Lanka. Her interest in using the voice began with quirath (also spelled qirat) in her childhood, choral music in school; later, she moved to exploring and receiving informal training in jazz vocals. Hania is also a graduate of Calcutta University obtaining a Master's degree in Hindustani classical music and a Bachelor's degree at Viswa Bharati University in Santiniketan and stayed on in Bengal for five more years to study under the apprenticeship of her former teacher Shantanu Bhattacharyya. Luthufi's recent work comprises of abstract, cinematic compositions exploring the vast possibilities of drone music.
Her last album invited a gathering of musicians from disparate coastal regions to come together and musically interpret various temperaments of the sea. At present she is working on an EP of Raga music as digital and visual interpretations. This body of work is being done as her current research as a resident of Cité internationale des arts in Paris, where she is based at the moment.
Hania is also researching dialects of Arabic and Tamil through archiving lost devotional songs from fishing communities in the coastal regions of Sri Lanka. More recently, Hania’s works were a part of ‘Sea Change’, Colomboscope 2019, curated by Natasha Ginwala. She has also contributed to ‘Held Apart Together’, a digital program for Colomboscope 2021, Chobi Mela Festival in Bangladesh in 2021 and Colomboscope "Language is Migrant" 2022.

photo: 

TAM THI PHAM (VN)

is a Vietnamese multimedia composer, improviser and performer living in Hamburg. She completed her Bachelor of Musicology at the Vietnam National Academy of Music, a program in New Compositional Techniques at the University of Music and Theater Hamburg with Prof. Helmut Erdmann and is currently enrolled in Master in Multimedia Composition with Prof. Dr. Georg Hajdu, Prof. Dr. Gordon Kampe and Prof. Dr. Alexander Schubert.
Her works are a journey of exploring individuality in an attempt to connect with the surrounding social environment. She is trying to build a way of expression in which music and performance are two indivisible parts.
Tam Thi Pham plays electronic music, objects and Dan Bau (traditional Vietnamese instrument). One of her main interests is working with choreographers and dancers both as an improviser and as a composer. One aspect of this made networked music performance a focus of her current works (2020-), with the “2×2 WindowS” project (a collaboration with Japanese dancer Minori Sumiyoshiyama) garnering a lot of attention in Asia (Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia) and her “here&there” project being awarded funding and support from Goethe Institute in Hanoi. Another big interest of Tam Thi Pham lies in microtonal music, which she sees as both an expressive element and a research tool, helping her immerse herself into the rich culture of traditional Vietnamese music and transform it into a new, contemporary language and forms.
Besides her activities as a composer and a performer, she was also very active as an organizer of various discussions on contemporary music and art and concerts in Hanoi and Hamburg. She has also been participating at festivals in Vietnam, Germany, Japan, Indonesia and Serbia. such as: “Hanoi Sound Stuff Festival”, Hanoi, 2014; “Hanoi New Music Festival”, Hanoi, 2013 and 2018; “Beyond Sound” – a series of concerts of experimental music, Heritage space, Hanoi; 2016, 2017 and 2018; “Dance and music camp” with composer Heine Goebbels, Hanoi 2018; “New Music Festival”, Lüneburg, 2016, 2018 – 2021; “Blurred edges” festival, Hamburg, 2019, 2021; “41. International study week for contemporary music”, Hamburg, 2019 ; “next_generation 8.0 and 8.5” festival, Karlsruhe, 2019 and 2021; “Dance fest” Hanoi, 2019; “46.New Music Festival-Portrait Concert: Tam Thi Pham” at HfMT, Hamburg, 2020; Misch Masch festival, NPO Dance Box, Japan 2021; Exhibition “Zemljišta: situacije i dokumenta” (EN: “Grounds: situations and documents) at Gallery ”Jovan Popović” in Opovo, Serbia, 2021; “here&there” in reconnect – program of Goethe Institute in Hanoi, 2021; TAOI/ II, 2019 and TAOI (The Art of Improvisation) 2021..., Indonesian Dance festival (2021)

https://tamthipham.com

photo: 

VIKTOR TOIKKANEN (FI)

has been acquainted with the Helsinki electronic music scene for the past decade both as a musician and an event organizer. Toikkanen’s own productions include conceptual electronics such as compositions formed from vibrations of plant matter. Recently Toikkanen has been extending his music production into the field of live-coding and computer-assisted composition. His approach to forming sound is close to crafting ceramics. For Viktor, sound is like clay which you shape into more complex forms. There is no beginning or end. Music is always playing. It is just about the space and time where you step in and out.

photo: 

PIETRO FRIGATO (IT)

is a Musician and sound artist whose research is focused on the creation of ephemeral sound cosmogonies throughout improvisation, on open forms and non-linear narrative, on connections via the means of sound.
His solo performance can be described as a dynamically wide emotionally ranged, archetypical, primal, wordless storytelling torn in conflict between total abstraction and deep symbolism.
Pietro has been running since 2018 as artistic director, the Cataclisma Improvisation Festival, a space for new music, improvisation and social projects. Alongside his solo project he performs with Ensemble Collettivo Crisis, Shortest job first trio, S.P.I.I.C. ensemble, and other projects.

https://pietrofrigato.com

photo: Fabian Hammerl

VLATKO KUČAN (DE)

Vlatko Kučan (b. 1963 Sarajevo, Ex-Yugoslavia) studied popular music, jazz and music therapy at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hamburg.
He works as a musician (instruments: saxophones and clarinets), composer, producer, music therapist and educator.
His various works focus and explore the possibilities of artistic expression through the art of improvisation. They cross and extend traditional boundaries of contemporary music, jazz, improvised music, theatre and film music. Another focus of Kucan’s work is the combination of literature, philosophy and music. He also works as a director for radio plays and audio books.
He performed and collaborated with leading protagonists of contemporary jazz (i.e. Carla Bley, Lester Bowie, Anthony Braxton, Marion Brown, Bill Elgart, Dieter Glawischnig, Howard Johnson, Jay Oliver, Barre Philips, Tomasz Stanko, Steve Swallow, Kenny Wollesen) and improvised music (i.e. Derek Bailey, Malcolm Goldstein, Barry Guy, Aleksander Kolkowski, Jim Menesses, Rajesh Mehta, Lauren Newton, Maggie Nichols, Mia Zabelka).
His theatre collaborations include directors Karin Beier, Michael Bogdanov, Herbert Fritsch, Brian Michaels, Robert Wilson and musicians Tom Waits, Lester Bowie and Giora Feidman.
His works on literature and music include productions based on texts by Friedrich Nietzsche, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Charles Baudelaire, Anne Sexton and Mascha Kaleko and collaborations with various actors (i.e. Christian Brückner, Hannelore Elsner, Corinna Harfouch, Susanne Lothar, Dietmar Mues, Barbara Nüsse, Christian Redl, Lars Rudolph, Hanna Schygulla, Otto Sander, Ulrich Tukur, Ulrich Wildgruber) and authors (i.e. Peter Handke, Siri Hustvedt, Hellmuth Karasek, Siegfried Lenz, Benjamin Lebert, Helmut Schmidt).
Vlatko Kučan is teaching Improvisation at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater (HfMT) in Hamburg, Germany at the Jazz department BA and MA programs and the Contemporary Performance and Composition (CoPeCo) MA program. Since 2018 he is the head of the Social Performance, Interdisciplinary Improvisation and Creativity (SPIIC+) project, that is now part of the artistic research lab of the new ligeti center in Hamburg. He has been a visiting artist and lecturer and has held workshops on Improvisation at international academic institutions.

https://www.vlatkokucan.de/