ABE Nsemble. Metropolitan Hotel. 10 Sep 2025
Two award-winning German sound artists visiting Australia, Johannes S. Sistermanns and Joachim Zoepf of the (unusually spelled) ABE N semble, gave a most enthralling performance of experimental sound art at the Metropolitan Hotel’s monthly Experimental Music Night on 10 September.
Introducing the performance, Sistermanns indicated that they are undertaking research on the question, ‘how does (the) new emerge?’, a question that he says bedevils sound artists and instrument makers.
Sistermanns’ wide-ranging oeuvre explores all manner of sound, its generation, its functioning and effects in space and its apprehension by and significance to the listener. As well as using musical instruments and other objects, his experimental approach often involves activating the walls and other fixtures in the performance space.
Saxophonist and bass clarinettist, composer and teacher Joachim Zoepf also specialises in improvised electro-acoustic performance. While Sistermanns performed on a 39-string monochord, Zoepf used electronics and a laptop to process the sound produced by the closely microphoned monochord.
A monochord is a stringed instrument with a long, hollow timber body and guitar-like sound holes on either side that was developed in Greece and used by Pythagoras around 500 BCE to calculate musical intervals. It is thus a seminal device in the history of musical notation, composition and instrumental development, and its use today invites broader consideration of the possibilities of sound production and reception.
The performance opened with Sistermanns singing in overtones while slowly stepping into the Metropolitan Hotel’s small, intimate and enthusiastically crowded music room. He often uses overtone signing to identify the standing sound wave that is characteristic of a space.
He then began performing on the monochord — strumming it with his hands or small sticks, bowing it with a violin bow, stroking the strings with paper or a stone, placing an ‘exciter’ (a small device that vibrates) on the strings to generate a drone, tapping the monochord’s body, pressing a contact microphone against it while playing it to amplify its resonances, and singing into it through its sound holes. These diverse and exploratory playing techniques combined to generate a unique and incredible range of sounds.
At the desk, Joachim Zoepf adroitly mixed the sound from the monochord with prerecorded material including birdsong, a short speech and many other musical sounds to create a densely layered and at times quite overwhelming orchestration of sonic material. The audience could try to guess the prerecorded sound sources and their symbolic potential, consider the effects of the sound in the room and their experience as listeners, or simply bring their awareness to the sounds as they emerge and dissipate, and observe the action on stage.
This use of the monochord greatly extends Pythagoras’s experimental study. But the effect is not only aural — the physicality of Sistermanns’s singing and exploration of the monochord created a highly theatrical effect, and he dramatically plunged the violin bow into the monochord’s sound holes, like an arrow through a body, to conclude the performance. The sound could not be separated from its performative characteristics.
In the notes to their album How does the (new) emerge, the ABE Nsemble asks at what point the ‘new’ emerges — when instruments are played, or when the resulting sound fills the air in the performance space, or when the sound vibrations in the air impact the surfaces of the space. They question the linear time sequence involved in performance. They state,
“The ‘nsemble’ plays nothing to the audience. ‘The nsemble’ dissolves the usual audience relationship to become a situational-intuitive creative process. Our focus: the moment of the emergence of a spatial digital performance using sensor and audio technologies as well as electro/acoustic instruments. We assume this is a way to provoke the new.”
This profoundly stimulating performance explored the phenomenology of sound — in the absence of any kind of compositional structure, the listener becomes consciously aware of the subjective experience of listening and of the dynamic relationship between sound in space, its physicality and its unfolding in time.
The third member of the ABE Nsemble, Adelaide composer and sound artist Gabriella Smart, was unfortunately unavailable for this event.
Chris Reid
When: 10 Sep 2025
Where: Metropolitan Hotel
More info: sistermanns.eu
The ABE Nsemble’s CD is available at Bandcamp: https://joachimzoepf.bandcamp.com/album/how-does-the-new-emerge
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Adelaide Town Hall. 13 Sep 2025
Shadows is possibly the best concert in the Adelaide Symphony Series for a number of years. It’s a risky term to use, but ‘world class’ comes to mind when trying to describe how one feels about this recent concert. The programming was inspired, the soloist in the concerto was amongst the best you could ever hear, and the conductor’s reading of everything on the program together with his finely balanced control of the orchestra was gobsmacking inspired. This was a concert that put a broad smile on your face (and kept it there for many hours), stirred your soul, and invigorated your appetite to revisit the same music later in the comfort of your own home hoping the experience approached what you enjoyed in the concert hall.
The concert featured Australian composer Peggy Glanville-Hicks’ delightful Three Gymnopédies, Benjamin Britten’s exciting Concerto for Violin No.1, Op.15, and Dmitri Shostakovich’s epic and stirring Symphony No.10 in E Minor, Op.93. These three compositions sharply contrast with each other and evoke markedly different responses from the listener.
Peggy Glanville-Hicks’ Three Gymnopédies are impressionistic miniatures, that are clearly inspired by Erik Satie but have an Australian sensibility. Their delicate textures and tender songfulness create a sense of tranquillity and meditation. Each movement evokes a sense of the fleeting, and is understated yet evocative with subtle shifts in colour and phrasing.
Benjamin Britten’s Violin Concerto No. 1 contrasts sharply with the restraint of the Gymnopédies. Written on the eve of World War II, it teems with tension and emotional depth. The opening movement’s poignant lyricism transitions to an aggressive scherzo, and the concluding passacaglia builds in relentless intensity. The dialogue between soloist and orchestra is scintillating, and violinist Clara-Jumi Kang relished in contrasting the composition’s lyric beauty and sharp, modern ‘edges’. Her technique is very impressive, with much intricate double stopping and simultaneous bowing and plucking of strings.
Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10, composed after Stalin’s death, is monumental and profoundly dramatic. Its vast first movement is brooding and expansive, and the second is a biting, whirlwind scherzo. Much has been written about the extent to which Shostakovich intended the symphony, and especially the second movement, to be a political comment about the welcome death of Stalin. The extent to which this is true is irrelevant, and the music stands by itself. It is passionate, emotional and brooding. The third movement introduces Shostakovich’s personal DSCH motif (i.e. the notes D-E flat-C-B), while the finale moves from gloom and darkness to a triumphant and defiant close. The raw power of the orchestra throughout is almost overwhelming, and conductor Mark Wigglesworth gives an exemplary reading and never fails to allow all featured instruments to shine through above the ensemble.
Indeed, it was a true delight to have so many of the ASO’s musicians foregrounded throughout the unfolding of this monumental work (that lasts for almost an hour) and of the Three Gymnopédies and the Concerto for Violin. Together, the three works trace a journey from intimate reflection to political and emotional upheaval.
At the end of the concert, not a murmur could be held in the auditorium as the final notes of the symphony faded away. And then the audience erupted with heartfelt enthusiasm for what was a superbly rendered concert. Wigglesworth was brought back to the podium multiple times. The audience could not get enough of him, or the ASO.
Kym Clayton
When: 13 Sep
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: Closed
Curated by Jesse Budel. Nexus Arts. 1 Sep 2025
The combination of live performance with pre-recorded sound makes for a fascinating program in the first of two concerts, entitled COMA @ Nexus, curated by composer and sound artist Jesse Budel on the theme of acoustic ecology.
Budel has been working in the field of acoustic ecology for several years and undertook his PhD research in this area. It involves the recording of sounds from the environment and the manipulation of these recordings to produce sound art works, which are sometimes accompanied by live performance. In 2024 he won the Independent Arts Foundation’s Award for Innovation for his work.
The concert featured two works, firstly by the duo comprising vocalists and sound artists Georgia Oatley and Margie Jean Lewis, and then by Budel himself. Lewis composed and performed music for the current Art Gallery of South Australia exhibition Dangerously Modern.
Georgia Oatley and Margie Jean Lewis,
Nexus Arts, photo Chris Reid
Their composition entitled Soak comprised a blend of field recordings, mostly taken by Oatley from the Aldinga Beach Conservation Park during her Soundstream Emerging Composer’s Residency, over which they sang, and Lewis played violin. Their live elements responded to and were electronically mediated and mixed in with the field recordings to produce a complex orchestration of sound, such as the wind and waves washing on the shore, together with short samples of their vocal elements that were repeated and layered.
The sound was relayed through a public address system comprising an octophonic array — eight loudspeakers positioned around the perimeter of the auditorium so that audience members hear sounds emanating from all around them.
Being surrounded by these gentle, whispering sounds places the listener in a meditative but attentive state, as you focus on individual sounds and identify their origins. Such sound art recalls the work of the late American composer Pauline Oliveros, who encouraged the practice of deep listening.
Importantly, the use of field recordings draws attention to the environment, and Oatley, who was one of COMA’s emerging artists of 2021 and has an extensive catalogue of work, indicated in her talk that this work was a response to the drought affecting the Adelaide Hills. She also noted the impact of the algal bloom that has infested the waters off South Australia’s coast.
Prior to their performance, Oatley led the audience in a brief vocal work to put them into a suitably receptive state and to show how singing together creates a sense of community.
Jesse Budel, Nexus Arts, photo Chris Reid
For his performance, entitled Sanctuary x Mill, Budel performed at the piano in response to pre-recorded material relayed through the multi-channel, octophonic speaker array, so that there were nine sources of sound altogether — the eight speakers and the piano — each producing discrete sounds.
Budel indicated in his talk that the recordings were sampled from the playing of ‘ruined’ pianos located at the Murray Bridge Piano Sanctuary, which he founded some years ago, and a similar collection of such pianos at the Piano Mill in southeast Queensland which was established by the Clocked Out Duo, musicians and composers Vanessa Tomlinson and Erik Griswold. Both Budel and Griswold contributed to the recording in a musical exchange as part of an international project, the Weathered Piano Exchange.
The Murray Bridge Piano Sanctuary comprises several discarded upright pianos sitting outdoors in parkland and allowed to decay. Depressing the piano’s keys, plucking the corroded strings and tapping the body of such a piano produces sounds reminiscent of a well-maintained piano, but grossly distorted and out of tune. The sound of yellow-tailed black cockatoos, kookaburras and other birds can be heard in the background, bringing ambient environmental sounds into the mix.
In his performance, which comprises four movements, Budel improvised a response to the recorded material on Nexus’s grand piano, performing on the keys, tapping the piano’s case, and using small sticks to strike the piano’s strings directly.
The resulting orchestration of this diverse range of sounds was utterly absorbing, immersing the audience in a sonic world that situates the piano and its life cycle in the living environment. The sound is wondrous, but the message is also clear: the decaying piano may be seen as an allegory for human civilisation, with music as the transient, fragile expression of civilisation, and it obliquely recalls the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi — finding beauty in imperfection and impermanence.
This concert was a delight but also deeply thought-provoking. The use of electronic technology greatly expands the field of musical composition and permits the composer not only to draw on a much wider range of sonic material and effects but also to draw in the symbolism of the sound sources. The use of live, mediated performance together with pre-recorded samples creates a novel musical form that generates a unique aesthetic and enables the composer-performer to highlight important issues. Both works in this concert gently but firmly reminded listeners of the precarious environmental situation confronting us.
These concerts were conducted under the auspices of COMA (Creative Original Music Adelaide), a volunteer-led organisation involving many musicians that fosters the development and presentation of new music in Adelaide. Most of COMA’s events are held at the Wheatsheaf Hotel, but for this series, Nexus Arts has made available its auditorium, which better suits the performance of the compositions in the program.
Chris Reid
When: 1 Sep 2025
Where: Nexus Arts
More info: coma.net.au
The second concert in Budel’s acoustic ecology series will take place at Nexus on 15 September
Jesse Budel, photo Chris Reid
Nexus Arts. 23 Aug 2025
Iranian musician Maryam Rahmani arrived in Adelaide several years ago and soon began performing in a variety of settings, sometimes solo and sometimes in collaboration, while working in the family café. Through her engaging performances on the santur, a small hammered dulcimer whose origins can be found in ancient Mesopotamia, the kamancheh, a bowed string instrument found across central Asia, and as a vocalist, she has gradually established herself in the Adelaide music scene, attracting a devoted following.
Rahmani has now recorded an album, entitled Kamand, in collaboration with David Moran (cello), Sebastian Collen (piano and electronics), Gustavo Quintino (double bass), and Rosalie Cocchiaro (Flamenco rhythm), and the album was launched at Nexus Arts on 23 August, where she performed with Moran and Collen.
“Kamand” is Persian for lasso, and her album represents her personal journey of adaptation to her new culture while retaining the precious cultural elements of her native country. The music is a dialogue between cultures — largely improvised and experimental, it combines classical Persian music, the poetry of 13th and 14th century mystics, Saadi Shirazi and Hafez, and eclectic and experimental western idioms.
The resulting music is unique and captivating, as Rahmani, who has a music degree from Tehran University, incorporates modern, experimental styles into her work, while her collaborators respond to her traditional music and imbue the performance with their own musical sensibility.
Rather than relying on a jointly or individually composed manuscript, the musicians respond to each other intuitively to create a compelling web of delicate, hypnotic sounds. Spontaneous improvisation requires extensive musical knowledge and experience to succeed, and it succeeds wonderfully, both on the album and in performance.
This musical linking may be seen as an allegory for the process of inter-cultural communication and acculturation which creates an idiosyncratic and original hybrid form without diminishing each performer’s identity and origins.
The much-anticipated album launch at Nexus was greeted with great acclaim — Rahmani, Moran and Collen gave an enchanting performance, creating complex and at times mesmerising music.
Sebastian Collen, David Moran and Maryam Rahmani, photo: Chris Reid
Collen performed on a prepared piano, occasionally using electronic devices placed on the piano’s strings to generate a quiet drone or inserting objects between strings, in the manner of John Cage, to change subtly the western tuning of the piano to correspond to the complex microtonal Persian tuning system of the santur.
Rahmani and Collen opened the performance with Rahmani playing the santur and Collen at the piano, and Rahmani sang passionately in a velvety voice the ancient poems of Persia. For the second work with Collen, Rahmani performed on the kamancheh.
Rahmani was then joined by Moran for two pieces for cello, santur and voice, with Moran drawing on all his repertoire of extended bowing techniques to create a magical blend of sound with the santur. For the final work, the three musicians performed together, to the delight of the enthusiastic audience.
In her book On Not Speaking Chinese – Living Between Asia and the West (Routledge, 2001), cultural theorist Ien Ang addresses the problem of the relationship between diasporic communities and their host communities, and she proposes a third or in-between space, a space of togetherness rather than difference, where the two communities mingle creatively as equals.
Rahmani and her collaborators have perhaps created an in-between musical space where there is mutual respect for, and the expression of, divergent cultures within an innovative musical form. Rahmani stated at the concert that she now feels at home in Adelaide, and her acculturation has spawned a unique and compelling oeuvre. And in bringing Persian traditions to Australia, Rahmani has done much to demystify those traditions and promote understanding and appreciation.
The Kamand album is available at Bandcamp: maryamrahmani.bandcamp.com
For the track entitled Encanto, Rahmani has produced a YouTube video that combines imagery of Iran with that of her daily life in Adelaide to create a delightful and life-affirming montage. The video may be seen at youtube.com
Chris Reid
When: 23 Aug 2025
Where: Nexus Arts, Lion Arts Centre
Bookings: closed
Kamand album cover
by Kaspar Schmidt Mumm
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Adelaide Town Hall. 15 Aug 2025
The term ‘rhapsody’ has its meaning rooted more in emotional response than it does as a formal label for a particular musical structure. But it’s an apt term, especially for particular compositions. Tonight’s program didn’t include any pieces that go by the title of ‘rhapsody’, but one in particular evoked an emotional response that is easily described as ‘rhapsodic’, and that was Ma Vlast: Vltava better known as The Moldau, composed by Smetana. The entire program was very much enjoyed by the Town Hall audience, although many of them left humming various iconic themes from The Moldau.
The program’s centre piece was Prokofiev’s Concerto for Violin No.2 in G Minor, Op.63, and the soloist was Kate Suthers, who is the ASO’s very own concertmaster. Suthers is a fine musician who can elicit the most sublime sounds from her 100-year-old Italian-made instrument. She is lyrical, dignified, and occasionally showy in contrast to her self-effacing demeanour. Tonight, she was onstage surrounded by her friends from the orchestra and superbly supported by Portuguese guest conductor Nuno Coelho. Between them, Suthers and Coelho brought meaning to the composition’s shifting contrasts, and they purposefully built and released tension while allowing the lyricism and passion (especially in the andante assai second movement) to come through. Coelho’s expressive left hand shaped and moulded wonderful articulation from the orchestra, particularly from the flutes, woodwinds and horns. At the concerto’s end, the audience brought Suthers back for three bows, and she and Coelho warmly embraced. Her unexpected encore with Sharon Grigoryan and David Sharp (celli) was just so sweet, as was Suther’s final acknowledgement to the audience shyly offered from the wings as if to say ‘what’s all the fuss about!! (Kate, you should be fussed over!)
The concert began with Dvorak’s Othello Overture, Op.93 B.174, which is not often performed. Dvorak uses musical motifs to represent the key characters in the Shakespearean play and armed with that information we can sense how the various character arcs play out, as suggested in Dylan Henderson’s comprehensive program notes. Coelho controlled the pace and passion of the piece but loosened his reigns on the orchestra at the overture’s intense climax. It was exciting! One might ascribe the label of ‘programmatic music’ to the composition, but knowing (or not) the story of Othello has little bearing on how it is enjoyed.
The second half of the program began with the ever popular The Moldau. Whereas Dvorak’s Othello Overture might not immediately (or at all!) evoke a programme and bring Shakespeare’s narrative to mind, Smetana’s The Moldau most certainly conjures mental images of a majestic river weaving its way through a dramatic landscape. One simply thinks water! Again, the flutes were at the top of their game, and Coelho took the whole piece at fair pace with acute dynamics to expose its drama.
The concert rounded out with another composition that is not frequently performed. Janacek’s Taras Bulba is a three-movement composition that looks at dramatic and tragic aspects of the life of the fictional 17th century Cossack warrior Taras Bulba (who is likely to be a composite of several historical personalities). Like its subject matter, the music is intense and is scored for a large orchestra, including a wide percussion section, harp and organ. Without knowing the music’s ‘programme’, it is unquestionably rhapsodic, and one clearly senses its drama. There are musical expressions of savagery, nationalistic pride, love and betrayal, despair, and deep sorrow. It has it all. Coelho carefully balanced the forces of the ASO to ensure musical expressions of violence did not dominate, especially in the horn and brass sections. Above all, nobility shone through.
Rhapsody was an unusual concert in the way it was programmed. Some favourites, and some less frequently played gems, with the might of the ASO on full display and with an exciting guest conductor at the helm.
Kym Clayton
When: 15 Aug
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: Closed