Anthony Braxton’s Sonic Genome

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For the opening of Jazzfest Berlin 2019, Anthony Braxton will be joined by 60 musicians from Australia, Germany and the US – and for six hours, they will transform Gropius Bau into a cosmos of musical experience.

Composer, reedist, and educator Anthony Braxton is a towering figure of creative music, a man who has combined his voracious curiosity for all disciplines in sound with a deep investment in community. A founding member of Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, he has spent his career realizing wildly ambitious projects, which rely on the cooperation and input of his vast coterie of colleagues and disciples, but few endeavours are more ambitious than his “Sonic Genome”, a rigorously immersive durational performance. In its third-ever iteration here in Berlin, the transatlantic cooperation will feature 14 US-American musicians from Braxton’s closest circle, 39 musicians from Berlin’s diverse scene (including members of the Echtzeitmusik scene, Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra, Trickster Orchestra and KIM Collective) and six members of the Australian Art Orchestra that will be prepared in a three-day workshop. A dozen small groups, directed by members of Braxton’s circle, freely navigate a passel of his compositions (up to 450) and improvisational language known as “Ghost Trance Music”, shifting between works and reacting to or ignoring the output of nearby groupings, over a six-hour period. Members of subgroups fracture and reform like recombinant organisms, congregate as small cells or as a big ensemble, moving around the huge space of the Gropius Bau, perpetually forming new communities, while listeners make their own choices, traversing the space to hear new or blended configurations.

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Anthony Braxton, James Fei & Chris Jonas conduction
Kyoko Kitamura vocals
Anne Rhodes vocals
Georgina Darvidis vocals
Cymin Samawatie vocals
Defne Sahin vocals
Cansu Tanrikulu vocals
Dora Osterloh vocals

Jean Cook violin
Lizzy Welsh violin
Fabiana Striffler violin
Erica Dicker violin, baritone violin
Gregoire Simon violin
Jessica Pavone viola
Anil Eraslan cello
Isabelle Klemt cello
Judith Hamann cello
Chris Dahlgren double bass, viola da gamba
Jacques Emery double bass
Antonio Borghini double bass
Ralf Schwarz double bass

Sabine Vogel flutes
Vincent Bababoutilabo flutes
Susanne Fröhlich bass recorder flute
Tilmann Dehnhard flutes
Aviva Endean flute, clarinet
Mona Matbou-Riahi clarinet
Anat Cohavi clarinet
Michael Thieke clarinet
Milian Vogel bass clarinet
Davide Lorenzon clarinet, sax
Viktor Wolf clarinet, sax
Ingrid Laubrock saxes
Andrew Raffo Dewar saxes
Paul Berberich sax
Daniel Glatzel sax
André Vida baritone, sax
Sara Schoenbeck bassoon
Katie Young bassoon

Peter Knight trumpet
Brad Henkel trumpet
Johannes Böhmer trumpet
Magnus Schriefl trumpet
Till Künkler trombone
Matthias Müller trombone
James Macaulay trombone
Hilary Jeffery trombone
Robin Hayward tuba
Dan Peck tuba

Naoko Kikuchi koto
Bassem Alkhouri kanun
Mahan Mirahab oud, guitar
Kalle Zeier e-guitar
Julia Wacker harp
Adam Matlock accordion
Alexander Hawkins piano, melodica
Niko Meinhold piano
Maria Schneider vibraphone, percussions

Partners:
Tri-Centric Foundation , Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra, Australian Art Orchestra, KIM Collective, Trickster Orchestra, Gropius Bau