On August 31, 2023, I’m going to present my 7-piece composition “7 Habits of Highly Miserable People” in its entirety at the Audiovisionen concert series curated by Hannes Teichmann at Kulturraum Zwinglikirche. Audiovisionen is one of Berlin’s prominent electronic/electro-acoustic concert series that has featured performances by Robyn Schulkowsky, Thomas Fehlmann, Mieko Suzuki, Baby Vulture, Peter Kirn and many more excellent performers and composers.

This series of pieces are inspired by a self-development article of the same name written by Tamara Star, which in turn ties in with the business guide bible “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”, written by Stephen Covey. The piece creates an abstract storyline based on the 7 habits, but leaves a lot of room for one’s imagination and let’s the audience fill in the gaps, according to how they related to these habits of highly miserable people:

1. Their default belief is that life is hard.
2. They believe most people can’t be trusted.
3. They concentrate on what’s wrong in this world versus what’s right.
4. They compare themselves to others and harbor jealousy.
5. They strive to control life.
6. They consider their future with worry and fear.
7. They fill conversations with gossip and complaints.

Composition materials range from found sounds to synthesized speech to recordings of synthesized or computed sounds. The pieces consist of two parts: a tape part and live performed sounds and modulations.

The research and initial compositional phase of this work was supported by Musikfonds Neustart funds in 2022 and the first two pieces were performed at be kind festival in Berlin in October 2022, which can be heard here. Another performance of four of the pieces were at the New and Newest Music Festival in Istanbul in May 2023.

So, come and let’s be miserable together on the last day of August at the Zwinglikirche, possibly the most appropriate venue for a piece that is about the number 7 and some aspects of the human condition. The venue has a bar and will be much cooler than outside!

Tickets can be purchased here or at the door on the day of the concert. The evening starts at 20:00.