April 10, Thursday

Workshop
Rodrigo Constanzo
SP-Tools: Machine Learning for low latency real-time performance
10 AM – 1 PM

An unsung hero of electronic music and innovator in the field of machine learning, Rodrigo Constanzo is a versatile percussionist, composer and instrument maker. He improvises and conveys the beauty, electricity and infinite wonder of the chaos of life. He composes and attempts to create new sounds, interactions and patterns of behaviour that fascinate and challenge him. He performs his own music and the compositions of other musicians on different instruments, often together with close friends.

Constanzo will lead a workshop on the basics of machine learning in the context of performance and audio processing, and about his SP-Tools, a set of tools optimised for low latency and real-time work. The participants will also get acquainted with Fluid Corpus Manipulation (FluCoMa) tools, and, in doing so, discuss the broader concepts of machine learning in music and how to apply them in their own artistic processes.

Creator and workshop leader: Rodrigo Constanzo – performer, composer and improviser

All information about workshop registration can be found at mbz.hr.

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Concert
Rodrigo Constanzo
MBZ Late Night: Jam Session
10 – 11:30 PM

In the evening, at MBZ Late Night, Constanzo will perform a half-hour improv set, later teaming up with other musicians for a joint jam session. Constanzo’s improvised set will be divided into several shorter pieces in which he will use an array of software tools, DIY instruments and controllers which he uses in his work or makes himself.

Rodrigo Constanzo – percussion and electronics

Program collaboration – KONTEJNER

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April 11, Friday

Concert
scapegoat: Sax and Percussion
5 – 6:15 PM

Italian composer Pierluigi Billone (IT) “...belongs to one of those rare magicians, who can suspend linear time. One assumes with his music as if to enter a ritual space" (Heinz Rögl). In 2 Alberi, he references Emily Dickinson’s poem Four Trees — upon a solitary Acre, in which the poet describes the special relationship between four trees standing in a desolate landscape. The composition is part of a cycle of works in which individual instruments enter into new relationships with each other. They do not merge to produce a single sound, nor do they enter into dialogue in the traditional sense. Their only uniting feature is their environment. They are similar, but rather than communicating directly, they do so through a shared context: the same wind, the same sun, the same surroundings. Billone also introduces a third type of relationship, one oscillating between connection and total separation.

The music of Lithuanian composer Justina Repečkaitė (LT) is described by critics as “drawn with the sharpest pencil” (Šarūnas Nakas). In Ciclo Continuo, in search of a new, hybrid timbre, the instruments conjoin in a novel way. The snare drum becomes a resonant body of various objects, while the vibrations of its wires enrich and saturate the metal instruments. The duo plays the cycle that is on loop, an endless repetition devoid of narration, a basso continuo of an unsung aria.

Mauricio Pauly (CR), a composer, improviser, and producer from Costa Rica, creates hybrid music blending electronics, traditional instruments, and various amplifiers. In The Threshing Floor, two performers stand opposite each other. Their almost choreographed movements, instruments and amplifiers intimately intertwine around and in between them. The rough, undulating centre throws offshoots into a ring of sustained tones which the speakers project against the outer walls. These tones gradually recede into slow swarms of controlled feedback, extending the boundaries of all bodies involved in the performance.

Experimental duo scapegoat consists of Australian saxophonist Joshua Hyde (AU) and Canadian percussionist Noam Bierstone (CA). Their programs are designed to broaden and challenge past musical experiences and audience expectations through original works featuring electronics, performer-controlled sonic and visual amplification, video and lighting design, and improvisation.

scapegoat:
Joshua Hyde – saxophone
Noam Bierstone – percussion

Pierluigi Billone: 2 Alberi, for alto saxophone and percussion
Justina Repečkaitė: Ciclo Continuo, for soprano saxophone and percussion
Mauricio Pauly: The Threshing Floor, for tenor saxophone, percussion and electronics

Supported by the Canada Council for the Arts

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April 13, Sunday

Manja Ristić: Awakenings
Concert at dawn
5:30 – 7 AM

For those still floating between waking and dreaming, on the last morning of the Biennale, Manja Ristić will set up a space for relaxation & release – a concert at dawn.

Manja’s work can be experienced as a form of “sound diary”, a place where she records landscapes and inner processes by means of abstract sound narratives. She is based on the island of Korčula in the Adriatic, where she explores the different sounds “under and above the sea”.

In the layered architecture of her field recordings, natural environments figure as starting points for subtle improvisations. Sound, in this context, becomes “a medium for connecting with the world, a research platform, a mirror of micro-evolution” reflecting the traces that space leaves in her soundscapes.

Ristić captures the ephemeral moments in space and time, creating “an archive of disappearances and an archive of emergences... a phantasmagorical gallery”, a place that encourages an introspective listening through intertwined narratives of nature, space and internal conditions.

Manja Ristić (RS/HR) is a violinist, sound artist and researcher. Her sound explores the space beyond contemporary music. She is focused on an interdisciplinary approach to the art of sound, field recording, instrumental electroacoustics and experimental radio arts. Last year, her solo and collaborative projects made their way to Bandcamp and ACL’s list of best experimental and field recordings albums.

Manja Ristić – violin, electronics, sound objects and field recordings

Program collaboration – KONTEJNER and MaMa Multimedia Institute

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Tickets for the events can be purchased via this link for 5 euros.

Tickets can also be purchased at the entrance on the day of the event for 8 euros.