On Wednesday, July 09 you can experience Duo LufftStrom live at the Lutherkirche Apolda at 19:30 CET / 07:30 PM.
Michael von Hintzenstern will be playing the magnificent romantic Sauer-organ from 1894 and I will be introducing my latest instrument, the «Symphonic» Eurorack modular configuration, played with the Moog Claravox Theremin.
«Symphonic» revision 1.0
Serge Tcherepnin, legendary modular synth developer and the inventor of the seven-voice «Medusa» that is central to my rig wrote…
«Many ships named Medusa sailed the seas and many sank […] Thanks for making mine ride the waves deserving of your comment 🙂»
Also present: SOMA Pipe, SOMA Flux, Landscape Stereo Field and Cracklebox. We hope to see you all for a singular, unforgettable sonic deep dive 🙏
The concert with Peer Schlechta suggested a segmentation into eight pieces which will be released successively beginning on June 06. The premieres each start at 22:00 / 10 PM CET.
In November 2024 I traveled from Hamburg to Chicago, then to Champaign, IL to accompany my Continuum Fingerboard to its maker’s lab.
Biking through the campus of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign–on a racing bike of Lippold Haken’s–I came across expansive lawns, historical buildings,…
…and chanced upon the School of Music.
Some research taught me that this building was the home of the renown Experimental Music Studios and I immediately contacted Maxwell Logan Miller, the head of the EMS.
Thankfully Max got back to me on very short notice and arranged to meet up and give me a tour of the facilities, founded in 1958 by composer Lejaren Hiller, Jr.
The EMS lounge
Onward into geek central 🤓 Here is a vintage Roland Studio System 100M.
Next up a large Buchla system.
Early MIDI…
And an EML-200 mystery box I had never even heard about.
Most of the acoustically treated rooms are equipped with a high end stereo or surround monitoring system (one stereo, several 5.1 and one 8.1) and one had a speakerdome for immersive content, Ambisonics and 3D-audio projects.
Occupying the sweet spot 🤓
I even got the chance to meet the EMS’s director Eli Fieldsteel for an informal chat. Looking forward to a return and the possibility of doing a lecture in this amazing space 🙏
Yesterday was a blast! The idea of placing a speaker for the SOMA PIPE into the “Rückpositiv” / organ registers placed distant from the main body of the instrument, usually behind the back of the organist, worked out beautifully.
I did place a speaker close to the ground and next to piano for a soft but more direct listening aid and added the low frequency component of the PIPE’s signal to the main PA. Loved the low end! Check it out on May 25, 2025 here:
The 10 min souncheck
For the concert proper I captured a total of four camera angles so there will be lots of fun closeups in future releases. Stay tuned and feel free to subscribe to my YouTube-channel 🤗
I will be performing with Peer Schlechta again today (05/23, 2025)…
Laying the stage
…and just completed the trilogy of selections from last year’s concert.
14. Kasseler Orgelfrühling
This time I bring along the SOMA FLUX for it’s concert debut. I am excited play it in front of an audience 🥳
I will also be playing the SOMA PIPE, which I brought along last year but ended up not using. As a new idea–for me–the PIPE will sound through a speaker placed within the “Rückpositiv”, the group of registers mounted apart from the main body of the organ and overlooking the nave of the church.
Only the low frequency component, of which there is a lot with the PIPE will come from the main PA (2 x RCF TT-808-AS + TT-515-A) at the altar. Let’s see how this works out in a live setting.
I am very happy to have been asked to join TonArt Hamburg e.V. as a permanent member of Hamburg’s oldest (founded 1989) free improvisers collective.
My connection with the ensemble goes back to April 2008 when I recorded “Im Schlauch”, a great performance at KuBaSta, a subterrean complex of interconnected tunnels. The great showcase for immersive audio was presented at Tonmeistertagung 2008 in Leipzig.
May 2011 I realised an Ambisonics recording of Phil Corner and TonArt at Hamburger Kunsthalle and some years later I performed with TonArt as a Thereminist on the MS Stubnitz and at Künstlerhaus FAKTOR…
box full of waves #3
Looking forward to being a regular with this wonderful group of musicians 🙂
I can’t believe I did not post about this yet, but on October 12, 2024 I scored the film “Der müde Tod” together with organist Jakob Schönborn-Dietz. It was an amazing deep dive and I am sure we’ll do this again in 2025.
Here are some photos from St. Johannes Baptist in Jena…
The unavoidable “Schlepp”Large screen experienceOur nest at the organ
I had brought two Genelec 8010 monitors for stereo monitoring. We also had a subwoofer behind us plus four speakers down below for my electronics (under the gallery) and the spatial augmentation of the organ (left and right of the altar).
Some of the instruments of choice for the gig
Jakob and I watched the movie primarily on the monitor above the keyboards of the organ.
All set for projection plus synchronized live recording in the Reaper DAW
Even though the year has only just begun, I’m already looking forward to the end 😉 On Sunday, December 7th, I’ll be playing a solo program as part of the “Out of the Ordinary” series in Constance. But there are also some live performances before that. More soon…
Auch wenn das Jahr gerade erst begonnen hat freue ich mich schon jetzt auf das Ende 😉 Am Sonntag, den 07. Dezember spiele ich im Rahmen der Reihe „Out of the Ordinary“ in Konstanz ein Solo-Programm. Aber auch vorher gibt es noch einiges an Live-Auftritten. Mehr in Kürze…
I am very happy about this concert review by Peter Zimmer, published in the Thüringer Allgemeine on 10/17, 2024. Here is the translation from German…
Photo (c) Peter Zimmer
Listeners were treated to a completely new musical experience at this concert in the Kyffhäuserkreis district. American-born musician experiments with electronic instruments. How this interacts with the powerful sound of the organ.
Unfamiliar sounds with unfamiliar “instruments” could be heard in the lower church in Bad Frankenhausen. For the first time, music lovers in the Kyffhäuserkreis were confronted with the announcement “Theremin and organ”. The concert was organized by Andrew Levine and Michael von Hintzenstern.
Andrew Levine, born in New York City in 1968, received his first violin lessons at the age of six. After living in Berlin for several years, he now lives in Hamburg.
New Yorker likes to improvise with electronic sounds to the organ
Andrew has been playing the theremin since 2010, mostly in the context of free improvising configurations. Since 2021, he has been exploring the interplay of organ with theremin, modular synthesizer and continuum as part of a scholarship.
Michael von Hintzenstern (born 1956) studied organ and choir conducting, founded the “Ensemble for Intuitive Music Weimar” in 1980 and has been organist at the “Liszt Organ” in Denstedt near Weimar since 1986. In 1988, he initiated the first New Music Days in Weimar, which have been held annually ever since.
Listeners were able to look over the shoulders of musicians in the gallery
On the evening of the concert, just over 120 “curious listeners” attended this theremin event. Cantor Schildmann had already offered beforehand that people could go to the upper gallery to watch the two artists – especially the theremin player – directly at their “work”; this was widely used.
The “experimental” program consisted of 5 parts. It began with the oldest instrument under the title “Weaving cantilenas”. A cantilena is a guided, lyrical melody with mostly slow, sustained passages, whereby the course of the melody is often dictated by the teremin. Visitors were able to observe this very well. In the other parts, the audience experienced the further development of the electronically generated sounds.
The musical spectrum ranged from whispering to stormy winds
“Air” was the second part – a variation of ‘wind’ in the interplay between organ and electronics: with imagination, the various levels of wind and air could be imagined, from a gentle whisper to a violent storm.
Next, the organ took center stage – in “Organo pleno”, organ tones sounded from piano pianissimo to the abrupt conclusion at full volume to another electronic instrument In the penultimate part, “Pipe and Organ” combined a musical puzzle figure.
Finally, both artists once again demonstrated the virtuoso interplay of mechanical analog organ and electronically generated sounds. A long round of applause testified to the joy of a successful “experiment” in Bad Frankenhausen.
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