Listen to a special Resonance FM broadcast on Austrian sound artist and composer Stefan Fraunberger, who will be performing as part of CTM Festival‘s SHAPE showcase on February 1.
Stefan Fraunberger is a composer and sound-performer with a distinct interest in transformation. Engaging in an electro-acoustic dialogue with unconventional instruments such as dulcimers or decaying baroque church organs, his music reshapes the liminal conditions of culture & perception, while evoking images of sonic ambiguity.
Interested in the re-contextualization of archetypal musical architectures and the shaping of fluid sonic sculptures, Fraunberger aims to translocate the polarities of difference. His compositions and performances work their way through permutating realms capturing otherwordly fragments and bewilderment. The possibilities of relations and presence are the basic ingredients for his non-linear approach.
The show is comprised of various field recordings, made by Fraunberger during the last few years, as well as excerpts (or full versions) of various compositions.
Read Fraunberger’s guide to the show below:
“The show starts with barzakh – hereafter/in between, for electromagnetic santur, electr. and interval crisis. It’s a part of the live recording from last years donaufestival.
The live recording then slides into a field recording I’ve done at Suq al Ahad – the Sunday market in Beirut in 2014. Hundreds of birds in cages mixing with vendors, megaphones and a few generators…
This fades into a recording I’ve done a few weeks before in Tehran, Iran. It’s a studio recording – no editing; a duo with two santurs: the great female santur player – Tehran’s very own Atoosa Afshari and myself improvising on one of my favourite dulcimer patterns. Ornamental Noise #3.
Then we jump 8 years back to the Suq al Ahad – Eastern Aleppo’s steelworkers market; by now erased by common powers of the “civilised world” – what we hear is the hammering of steelworkers plus two gentle muezzins joining in for Azan (evening prayer). I named it once there was a song and a hammer in aleppo/requiem.
Continiuing to a recording I’ve done in October 2016 in Varanasi, India on an Indian style santoor (dulcimer) which is quite different than the Persian one I normally use. No cuts and no edits; recorded it in my flat in Varanasi. Serves as part of the soundtrack I did for the south African movie production The Woodwind. The track is called The Great Game.
Moving on to a recording I did with a quite ruined Romanian dulcimer in the bushes somewhere in the outskirts of Vienna called bushsideminiature #3.
That goes into a Zoroastrian recitation of the Avesta i recorded in the outback of the Zagros range in Iran in 2014. Don’t tell the mullas… They shouldn’t know!
Moving through some waterscapes to a recording I did in India in 2010 – an old blind man sitting by the road and singing a song. Thousands of birds were joining him.
And finally moving to the full 20 minutes of the B side of my recent vinyl release Quellgeister #2: Wurmloch. Recorded in the Romanian village of Valea Viilor. It s the second part of my sonic archaeological series for abandoned and semi-ruined organs in deserted Saxon church fortresses in central Transylvania.”
On February 1, Stefan Fraunberger will perform a revised version of the piece barzakh – hereafter/in between at Berghain (Berlin) as part of the CTM Festival 2017.
Listen to a special Resonance FM broadcast on Austrian sound artist and composer Stefan Fraunberger, who will be performing as part of CTM Festival‘s SHAPE showcase on February 1.
Stefan Fraunberger is a composer and sound-performer with a distinct interest in transformation. Engaging in an electro-acoustic dialogue with unconventional instruments such as dulcimers or decaying baroque church organs, his music reshapes the liminal conditions of culture & perception, while evoking images of sonic ambiguity.
Interested in the re-contextualization of archetypal musical architectures and the shaping of fluid sonic sculptures, Fraunberger aims to translocate the polarities of difference. His compositions and performances work their way through permutating realms capturing otherwordly fragments and bewilderment. The possibilities of relations and presence are the basic ingredients for his non-linear approach.
The show is comprised of various field recordings, made by Fraunberger during the last few years, as well as excerpts (or full versions) of various compositions.
Read Fraunberger’s guide to the show below:
“The show starts with barzakh – hereafter/in between, for electromagnetic santur, electr. and interval crisis. It’s a part of the live recording from last years donaufestival.
The live recording then slides into a field recording I’ve done at Suq al Ahad – the Sunday market in Beirut in 2014. Hundreds of birds in cages mixing with vendors, megaphones and a few generators…
This fades into a recording I’ve done a few weeks before in Tehran, Iran. It’s a studio recording – no editing; a duo with two santurs: the great female santur player – Tehran’s very own Atoosa Afshari and myself improvising on one of my favourite dulcimer patterns. Ornamental Noise #3.
Then we jump 8 years back to the Suq al Ahad – Eastern Aleppo’s steelworkers market; by now erased by common powers of the “civilised world” – what we hear is the hammering of steelworkers plus two gentle muezzins joining in for Azan (evening prayer). I named it once there was a song and a hammer in aleppo/requiem.
Continiuing to a recording I’ve done in October 2016 in Varanasi, India on an Indian style santoor (dulcimer) which is quite different than the Persian one I normally use. No cuts and no edits; recorded it in my flat in Varanasi. Serves as part of the soundtrack I did for the south African movie production The Woodwind. The track is called The Great Game.
Moving on to a recording I did with a quite ruined Romanian dulcimer in the bushes somewhere in the outskirts of Vienna called bushsideminiature #3.
That goes into a Zoroastrian recitation of the Avesta i recorded in the outback of the Zagros range in Iran in 2014. Don’t tell the mullas… They shouldn’t know!
Moving through some waterscapes to a recording I did in India in 2010 – an old blind man sitting by the road and singing a song. Thousands of birds were joining him.
And finally moving to the full 20 minutes of the B side of my recent vinyl release Quellgeister #2: Wurmloch. Recorded in the Romanian village of Valea Viilor. It s the second part of my sonic archaeological series for abandoned and semi-ruined organs in deserted Saxon church fortresses in central Transylvania.”
On February 1, Stefan Fraunberger will perform a revised version of the piece barzakh – hereafter/in between at Berghain (Berlin) as part of the CTM Festival 2017.
