26 Jun 2017 – 2 Jul 2017
Mousonturm & Naxoshalle
Frankfurt/Main, Germany
Andi Otto has been playing his extended cello bow system (called “Fello“) already for over seven years and has invented an individual playing technique for his instrument which makes use of the space around the cello. Interestingly, the more virtuose parts of his playing really start as soon as the bow leaves the strings and continues to play with the live-recorded cello sound with gestures in the air.
During an artistic residency in Bangalore (on invitation of the Goethe-Institut) Andi and Pallavi adapted the sensor system to Pallavi’s right hand. The typical, rather involuntary gestures which accompany Pallavi’s singing in traditional Indian music can be read and translated into musical data by the sensors. This makes it possible for her to play with her “Second Voice” (this is the working title for Pallavi’s electronic instrument) which becomes audible as soon as her hand moves away from the body, changing the pitch, rhythm and timbre of the last notes sung. The superimposition of these two gestural electronic systems holds a surprisingly huge artistic potential which Andi and Pallavi have begun to explore during their development period.
The two musicians come from different backgrounds. Andi is a DJ and producer of electronic music in Hamburg who has written his PhD thesis about the history of electronic musical instruments which involve bodily gestures. Pallavi is a classical Hindustani vocalist, actress and filmmaker. They met on a theatre stage in Berlin where they performed the German adaptation of the award-winning Indian play “C Sharp C Blunt”. Parts of Andi Otto’s album “VIA” (Pingipung 2017) they have recorded together in India in 2016. A mutual curiosity towards overlapping musical cultures brought them to the studio – Andi Otto’s solo album “VIA” was only a beginning of more mutual recordings and releases to be expected in the near future.
MD Pallavi
pallavimd.comMD Pallavi is a singer of classical Indian music (hindustani and folk), and a composer, actor and filmmaker from Bangalore. Her work includes “C sharp C blunt”, a multi-award winning theatrical solo-performance in collaboration with Sophia Stepf, “Playgrounds”, a multi-award winning short film in collaboration with Shamik Sen Gupta, “Boy with a Suitcase”, a theatrical collaboration with Shnawwl (Mannheim) and Rangashankara (Bangalore), “Relax your Mind”, a collaboration with German string quartet QuartettPLUS1, and “HumDrum”, an ongoing musical project with percussionist/drummer Arun Kumar. She has a degree in Psychology, English and Journalism and a second one in Hindustani classical music. She is keen on multi-disciplinary collaborations and is currently working on a music project with electronic musician and composer Andi Otto from Germany.
Andi Otto
Hamburg
andiotto.comAndi Otto is a composer and performer of electronic music based in Hamburg. On stage, he plays a unique sensor-extended cello bow which he has developed at STEIM in Amsterdam since 2007. This instrumental system which he calls Fello allows for expressive play with the digitally processed sounds of the amplified cello. Andi Otto composes for theatre and dance performances in which he also appears as a performer. He tours worldwide, most recently to India and Japan, where he was a resident artist at Villa Kamogawa in Kyoto. He holds a Master degree in Applied Cultural Sciences and teaches media theories at Hochschule der Künste in Bern (CH) as well as musical interface concepts at Humboldt University Berlin. For his PhD project he has researched about the history of electronic musical instruments at STEIM (Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music) since 1969. Andi Otto is also one of the founders of the Pingipung label, a member of the Flinnworks Performance Collective from Berlin and as a DJ he hosts a regular night at Hamburg’s Golden Pudel Club. He has released four solo albums under the artist name Springintgut since 2003, and recently has started using his actual name for his music.