Nicolas Collins, !trumpet – Birgit Ulher, trumpet!
Two trumpets, two very diferent approaches: one electronic, the other acoustic. While Collins works with a computer program and cobbled hardware, Ulher uses metal sheets, radios, milk frothers and other everyday objects. The diametrically opposed sound production leads to oddly similar sonic results.
Concerts in Berlin, at blurred edges festival in Hamburg, Ensemblia Festival in Mönchengladbach, Alternativa Festival in Prague, Lampo in Chicago, Planetario de Bogota, Universidad de los Andes in Bogota and Museo Arte Moderno in Medellín.
!Trumpet – Nicolas Collins
New York born and raised, Nicolas Collins spent years in Europe, where he was Artistic Director of STEIM (Amsterdam), and a DAAD composer-in-residence in Berlin. He is a Professor in the Department of Sound at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a Research Fellow at the Orpheus Institute (Ghent). An early adopter of microcomputers for live performance, Collins also makes use of homemade electronic circuitry and conventional acoustic instruments. His book, Handmade Electronic Music – The Art of Hardware Hacking (Routledge), now in its third edition, has infuenced emerging electronic music worldwide.
“After forty years I finally fgured out how to program a computer to sound like glitching circuits, and cobbled hardware and software into a brass package: a trumpet with a built-in speaker, sensors reading valve positions, a breath control and an infrared mute. In a nod to David Tudor’s legendary composition Bandoneon! I’ve dubbed my instrument !trumpet. But where Tudor tags on the ‘!’ to indicate ‘factorial’, I lead with it as the symbol for logical negation: this is defnitely not a trumpet.”
www.nicolascollins.com.
Trumpet! – Birgit Ulher
Born in Nuremberg, she lives since the early 80s as freelance musician in Hamburg. She studied the visual arts, which still have an important infuence on her music. Ulher works mainly on extending the sounding possiblities of the trumpet and has developed her own extended techniques and preparations for producing these sounds. Recent works include videos and sound installations. She performs solo and with her working ensembles, collaborations with dancers, visual artists, composers and one-time collaborations with musicians from around the world. She has performed at festivals and teached workshops in Europe, USA, South America, Russia, the Middle East and Australia. Numerous CD releases.
www.birgit-ulher.de
Trumpet + Trumpet! – Collins/Ulher at blurred edges festival 2022