AUDREY CHEN (voice/cello) and FLANDREW FLEISENBERG (percussion)

with special Guest Henrik Monk (Trombone), from Norway and Margaret Rorison (Projections), from Baltimore

Fleisenberg is a player of objects. Drums only fall peripherally into his spectrum, while he is mostly fascinated in coaxing out the inherent material characters of “mundane things”. These wide manipulations of external implements draw an aural architecture around Chen’s internally driven sonic language. Her own deeply personal yet unconventional uses of the voice and cello, in combination with Fleisenberg’s material conjuring, creates a wordless discourse inside of a constantly breathing tactile space.

 
for video footage of this duo:
AUDREY CHEN is a Chinese-American musician who was born into a family of material scientists, doctors and engineers, outside of Chicago in 1976. Parting ways with the family convention, she turned to the cello at age 8 and voice at 11. After years of classical and conservatory training in both instruments, with a resulting specialization in early and new music, she parted ways again in 2003 to begin new negotiations with sound in order to discover a more individually honest aesthetic. Now, using the cello, voice and occasional analog electronics, Chen’s work delves deeply into her own version of narrative and non-linear storytelling. A large component of her music is improvised and her approach to this is extremely personal and visceral. Her playing explores the combination and layering of the homemade analog synthesizer, preparations and traditional and extended techniques in both the voice and cello. She works to join these elements into a singular ecstatic personal language. Over the past decade, her predominant focus has been her solo work with the cello, voice and electronics, but she has more recently begun to shift back towards the exploration of the voice as a primary instrument.
Recent projects, aside from performing solo, include her voice only duo with London based artist, Phil Minton, a duo with NYC abstract turntablist, Maria Chavez and a collaborative project with German conceptual artist, John Bock. Her most recent album releases (2013) include, a quartet LP with Nate Wooley, C. Spencer Yeh and Todd Carter on Monotype (Warsaw), and a duo record with Phil Minton on Subrosa (Brussels).
Chen has performed across Europe, Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, Australia, New Zealand, China, Japan, Taiwan, Brazil, Canada and the USA.
David Harrington of the Kronos Quartet has described her work as “fascinating and gripping” and “possessing something extremely vital and vivid….”

 

FLANDREW FLEISENBERG plays percussion on an ever changing assortment of ephemera and modified drum parts coaxing texture and tone both familiar and bizarre. Attentive to room resonance, ambience and collaborator, Fleisenberg playfully utilizes gravity, friction, acoustics and presence to explore space, time, and relationships. A graduate of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston) with a focus in conceptual art, he is musically self-taught and has developed a cadre of idiosyncratic techniques that are all his own. Flandrew has been involved in the free improvisation community since 2001 performing solo, in ad-hoc improv groupings, and in set projects in venues small and large across the United States, Canada, and Mexico. A resident of Philadelphia, Flandrew is active as the co-curator of the HOT Series, and the Director of the Impermanent Society.

 
Favored implements:
Cannon ball, 10′ ball chain, catering platter, doors, loose cymbals, sticky sticks, soup pans, coasters, pipe fittings, glass window, steel spring, floors, walls, air, sand, paper, rope, ping pong balls, a couple glasses of wine, some luck, and good fortune. 
 
Recent collaborations:
Trio Bajadelphia with Ivan Trujillo (Trumpet) and Edwin Montes (Guitar) from Baja MX, Duo with Instrument Inventor Jim Strong (PHL ), Duo with Vocal and Cello Improviser Audrey Chen (Berlin).
“Marcel Duchamp: funny phony. Flandrew Fleisenberg: Einstein of drums.”
– Gordon Marshall, poet laureate of the Boston improv scene


 

Henrik Munkeby Nørstebø (born 1986 in Trondheim, Norway) is a trombonist working mostly within contemporary fields of music. Educated in improvised music and jazz from the music academies in Gothenburg (BA) and Oslo (MA), he is now based in the Norwegian capital.

An ambiguous relationship with the trombone has led him to explore both the boisterous and brassy side of the instrument, as well as it’s counterpoint in microscopic and ‘electronic’ sound possibilities. Utilizing a wide spectrum of playing techniques, from pure long tones to noise and the almost inaudible, he often works balancing the intuitive with the precisely constructed.

Nørstebø’s time is divided between his regular projects; trios As deafness increases, Lana trio, Whirl (with Tobias Delius) and Nørstebø/Strid/de Heney, duo BEAM SPLITTER (with Audrey Chen), new music ensemble “Aksiom” and the freejazzpop-band “Skadedyr”. He is also a member of several project based groups, and have appeared in a myriad of ad hoc settings. Having toured actively since 2010, he has played at clubs and festivals in more than half of the European countries, as well as in Russia, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Brazil and Argentina.

Apart from his big range of collaborations, Henrik has been working regularly with solo music since 2007. His debut record was released in 2011, and his second solo record “Melting into foreground” was released on SOFA in november 2015. In addition to numerous other releases, his discography contains duo records with Swedish pianist Rasmus Borg and Austrian sound artist Daniel Lercher.

MARGARET RORISON is a curator and filmmaker from Baltimore, Maryland. She works with language, sound and imagery to create installations, films and live 16mm projections. Rorison’s work has screened at Anthology Film Archives, Ann Arbor Film Festival, CROSSROADS, Edinburgh International Film Festival, Images Festival, The Maryland Film Festival, Mono No Aware VI & VII, Sonic Circuits Festival, Microscope Gallery, The Moscow Museum of Modern Art and The High Zero Festival. 
She

is the recipient of a 2016 Rubys Artist Project Grants in media and performing arts, a recipient of The Maryland State Arts Council 2016 Individual Artist Awards and 2015 Sondheim Semi-finalist. She

is also the co-founder and director of Sight Unseen, a nomadic

experimental film series running since 2012.

 
 

Event location:

The Red Room at Normals Books and Records 425 E. 31st Street Baltimore, MD 21218

The Red Room is a volunteer-run space in Baltimore dedicated to mind-expanding experimental culture, headquartered at Normals Books and Records.