SWR2 ars acustica, ZKM Karlsruhe (Centre for arts and media) and HfG Karlsruhe (University of Arts and Design) are celebrating ART'S BIRTHDAY 2009 live from ZKM.

Live audio- and video stream: www.swr2.de

Stefano Giannotti concept, composition, sampling, electric guitar, banjo, etc.
Agata Zubel voice
Frank Thomé percussion
Rie Watanabe percussion
NN live-electronics

Presented by Andreas Hagelüken
Executive Producer: Frank Halbig - frank.halbig@swr.de

www.swr2.de
www.zkm.de
www.hfg-karlsruhe.de

SHELTERS AND TRAPS (by Stefano Giannotti)

I always wonder what does “being safe” mean. I’m thinking of the beautiful sequence in Ingmar Bergman’s masterpiece Det Sjunde Inseglet (1956) where one of the protagonists has climbed up a tree and is happy because he has been able to escape pestilences, soldiers, any kind of evil, and just in that moment he realizes that the Death is cutting the tree... or very often I’m thinking of those people who assume drugs and feel safe just dwelling in the heart of the danger. Even, I notice very often how mankind gets used to dangers and to threatening situations (people living in continuous state of war, in never-ending fears of illness, etc.).
This makes me wonder how “being safe” is a relative concept very much connected with the knowledge and the understanding of rules, environment, cultural situation and especially choices.

SHELTERS AND TRAPS is a sort of sound-action for female voice, banjo, 2 percussion players and live electronics, a see-saw oscillating between danger and safety, noisy monsters and quiet stillness; things which might appear horrible as soon as they become well known loose their negative power, as well as reassuring events might hide traps.

Biographies:

Stefano Giannotti

Composer, author, director, guitarist and performer. He studied  composition with Pietro Rigacci and he was the assistant of Alvin Curran in "Crystal Psalms" and "Tufo Muto". Between 1983 and 1990 he performed in several European countries with the chamber music group "Trio Chitarristico Lucchese". In 1997 he started a collaboration with the Italian choreographer Roberto Castello. Between 1998 and 1999, he lived in Berlin as guest of DAAD (German Academic Exchange Program). In the year 2000 he has been guest of the Künstlerhaus Schloss Wiepersdorf with a Stipend of the Ministerium of Brandenburg. In the year 2002 he has been invited in Worpswede with a stipend of the Ministerium of the Niedersachsen and he has won the Karl-Sczuka-Preis (SWR, Baden-Baden) with his work IL TEMPO CAMBIA. In the year 2007 he was awarded for the second time by the Karl-Sczuka-Preis for his radio-piece GEOLOGICA
His repertoire ranges from performance, radio-art, dance theatre to chamber music, orchestral scores and songs. Landscape, memory, life cycles, voices of people, languages; these are some of the main themes developed in Giannotti's work.

www.stefanogiannotti.com

Agata Zubel

She was born in Wroclaw. Graduated from The Karol Lipinski University of Music in Wroclaw with the Primus Inter Pares distinction, where she had studied composition in the class of Jan Wichrowski and vocal in the class of Danuta Paziuk-Zipser. Now she is a doctor of this University. She extended her studies in the Netherlands during numerous courses. She has been a holder of the scholarships granted by Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung in Munches, the Minister of Culture, the Management of Wroclaw City as well as the International Foundation of Education. She has been a member of the Polish Composers’ Union.

Her works were performed at numerous festivals in Poland and abroad. In 2005 her II Symphony commissioned by Deutsche Welle was premiered during Beethoven Festival in Bonn. As a singer she has participated in many prestigious musical events in Poland and abroad: in Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, Ireland, Russia, Ukraine, Lituania, the Netherlands, Greece, Denmark, Korean and United States. Modern music takes a special place in her repertoire. She has premiered and recorded many works of contemporary composers. In summer 2004 she took part in the experimental project of improvisation during the International Courses of Composition in Darmstadt.

www.zubel.pl

Frank Thomé
Percussionist Frank Thomé was born in 1974. After an apprenticeship as instrument maker he studied percussion with Markus Hauke in Mainz and graduated a solist exam at the Hochschule für Musik in Karlsruhe with Isao Nakamura.

Currently he is working on a chamber opera after a short story by Franz Kafka which will be premiered in April 2009 in Zürich within post graduating in composition with Isabel Mundry in Zürich. He received several stipends and awards.

His field of activity covers various solo- and chamber music concerts, his own compositional work and the building of instruments and sound objects. Beside this he is working intensely with live-electronics and Cajon. Composers like Matthias Ockert, Peter Gahn und Hannes-Galette Seidl wrote solo pieces for him.

Rie Watanabe
Percussionist Rie Watanabe was born in 1979 in Hokkaido, Japan. From 1999-2003, she studied percussion at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music with Makoro Aruga,Michiko Takahashi und Takafumi Fujimoto. Since 2005 she has studied at the Hochschule für Musik in Karlsruhe with Isao Nakamura, Hans-Joerg Bayer und Jürgen Heinrich.
In 2004 Rie Watanabe won the Saji Keizo Prize of the Suntry Music Foundation. In 2006 she received a Stupendienpreis from the International Summercourse for New Music in Darmstadt. In the very same year, she received a fellowship by the Japanese Government Overseas Study Program for Artists.
Since 2003 Rie Watanabe has been a member of Ensemble Bois in Tokyo. She works often with composers in Germany and Japan.

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