New media artist Liudmila Siewerski and I met at Cafe Babette in October 2022 at my performance there. We stayed in contact, talked, rehearsed and will now perform at the same venue on November 16 at Forgotten Islands, an evening of audiovisual performances curated and organized by Liudmila. The evening will feature several other exciting acts:
Anne Wodtcke Liudmila Siewerski & Sander Saarmets Liudmila Siewerski & Korhan Erel Stefano “Menion” Ferrari & Aconite Aseret & Or Sarfati
Discover “Forgotten Islands”, an immersive audiovisual performance at Sudhaus, Café Babette on November 16. Unveiling entirely unique experiences, this event rekindles curiosity and artistic exploration, offering a platform for Berlin’s new media artists and international composers. Prepare to navigate uncharted territories of sensory engagement, anticipating the unexpected, and encountering a kaleidoscope of innovative sonico-visual narratives that challenge conventional boundaries. Don’t miss this memorable evening of cutting-edge multimedia technologies and artistic prowess.
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.
Korhan Erel at be kind festival (Photo by Tuçe Erel)
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.
I have been playing with the amazing voice artist/composer Ute Wassermann on and off since our meeting on the exact day I moved to Berlin in 2014. We performed in quartets, in larger ensembles, played several duos in Berlin and Istanbul and then the pandemic happened.. We are now reviving our duo and will perform an improvised concert at Keith Bar in Berlin on Monday, July 24, 2023. Music starts around 20:00. The concert is organized and curated by musician, composer Joseph Kudirka.
I’m going to be a panelist at “#1 Get connected! Networking in Berlin’s creative and cultural scene” event organized by Kreativ Kultur Berlin on 6.7. at 17:00 (CET). If you know people who’ve just arrived in Berlin and could use some help, please share this event with them. The event is free, but requires registration (and commitment). There will be a Q&A session after the panel as well as a speed-dating slot where participants will be able to meet each other and the panelists.
On 7.7, I will play with violist Marie Takahashi at a house concert in Berlin. Marie and I played several duo concerts in 2017 and then joined the improvising ensemble Klub Demboh together. This will be our first duo moment after 6 years. Please send an email to hannesbuder@gmail.com for the address. Doors open at 19:00, performance at 20:00
On 24.7, I will play with the amazing voice artist Ute Wassermann at Keith Bar in the concert series organized by Joseph Kudirka. This will be our first duo concert after our Istanbul concert in February 2019. The night starts at 20:00.
The electronic music ensemble Böseblick will be hosted by Nico Daleman on his show “The Rest is Music” on Cashmere Radio on June 19. The show starts at 5pm and will feature an interview with us and a live set. Tune in to Cashmere Radio on their website.
The electronic duo Only With You (Eliad Wagner and Korhan Erel) will play in the Frequenzgänge series at Linker Laden in Hamburg. 20:00. Together with Gunnar Lettow, the curator of the series and member of Lettow/Erel Duo, there will be three duos.
Gunnar Lettow is my oldest friend and collaborator in Germany. Gunnar and I played our first-ever concert in Istanbul in April 2011. Since then, we’ve played many concerts in Germany and released our album “Bad Falling Bostel” in 2014.
Eliad and I met around 2012 in Berlin and over the course of the years built up a solid friendship and starting in 2020, a duo called “Only With You”.
On May 10, I’m going to present 4 pieces from my 7-piece work-in-progress composition “7 Habits of Highly Miserable People” at New and Newest Music Festival organized by Arter (Istanbul) and curated by Matthias Osterwold. 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. Click on the festival banner below for more info on my performance.
Eliad Wagner and I have an electronic music duo called Only With You, where we use digital FM synthesis, physical touch controllers, feedback/cybernetic circuitry, analogue modular synthesis, sequencers, delay lines, ring modulators and mixers to explore diverse cultural niches from the oddities of early sci-fi music, contemporary music, and free improvisation to dub and dancefloor styles.. We’ve been rehearsing for a while now and will play our first concert on April 27 at the wonderful science-fiction/fantasy/horror bookshop Otherland (Bergmannstraße 25, 10961) in Kreuzberg. It would be wonderful to have you witness the first outing of Only With You!
Only With You Eliad Wagner, synthesizer Korhan Erel, synthesizers
Doors at 20, concert starts at 20:30. Donations welcome. The bookshop will sell drinks.
My trio The Liz with Liz Allbee and Liz Kosack has accomplished her mission of bringing performativity and DIY multidisciplinary work to Berlin’s experimental scene and will go out with a band at Ausland’s Biegungen im Ausland concert series on March 25. The Liz was founded in December 2014 and has created three productions, Book of Birds (2016), Dipper (2019) and No Comet (2021), and toured with these and also as an improvising band in Germany, Turkey, Brazil, Norway and Switzerland.
On the same night, another, newer trio of mine, Ephemeral Fragments will also perform. Ephemeral Fragments was initiated by Florian Walter in 2019 and has spent the pandemic period rehearsing, recording and even playing concerts. This period is documented in their debut album mit gefühl (with feeling) that was released on Umland Records in 2022.
In late 2022, I started compiling recordings of some solo concerts in an album titled “Live” on Bandcamp. As of this writing, it contains five recordings from concerts in Iran, Austria and Germany and spans a period from 2012 to 2023.
Korhan Erel 