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„Unschuld, die kleine Veronika“ at filmfestival cinema ritrovato

This wonderful and very highly decorated festival has a history of inviting the best piano players and orchesters wordlwide to play with the shown silent films. So it was a special honor being the first guitarist and singer, using also preparations on my guitar to accompany this last silent film that was shot in austria in 1930. I was invited by Karl Wratschko to break the ice for experimental music and silent film on the wonderful Piazetta Pasolini.  The film was shown for the first time on the newly restored 35 mm version. The protector was a machine built in the 1920´s working with old carbon lamps. So it was a smoking and hissing „machine performance“ with wonderful warm light in the projection. Open air with about 500 people watching and listening.

picture from the evening of the projection:

This project was also made possible by the clutural forum Milano and the BKA. Many thanks !

the piazetta during the projection

the wonderful projector from the 1920´2

I am very happy to announce my invitation to the great festival “Cinema Ritrovato” in Bologna ! This is a festival with a great reputation and history. Most of the live music is done by piano players. So this will be a fine experiment to take this into an experimental direction as well. I will play live to the silent movie “Unschuld die kleine Veronika”(1930) by Robert Land. This will take place in a beautiful outdoor plaza – Piazzetta Pasolini. There is seats for 400 people, its open air, and I am loving it already. So if you are close by any means, please stop by !

it looks like this:

Also I wanna mention that we had a very fine and touching premiere of out new piece “Die andere Hälfte des Himmels at Kunsthaus Nexus in Saalfeld. The audience was very attentive,  the crew of the nexus very supportive to our work.   We will now start a little touring with it. fixed are the 9th and the 10th of June in salzburg – please check out the live section. For the fall there a re a few different locations in planning, around Salzburg, but also at the Völkerkundemuseum Wien, in Graz at Theater am Bahnhof and a few others.

We got a great preview in the Salzburger Nachrichten and now the ORF national Television wants to make a broadcast around the piece, and Barbaras Grandfather´s story.

Here is a glimpse of the premiere:

After working with this very funny and inspiring team on INVIDIA der böse Blick for 8 weeks, our premiere went very well. The audience was very responive, and we had lots of fun performing our new work. The media has covered it also in a numerous ways – please check out those articles(in german)

One of the reasons to do a piece without words was to tour with it internationally. So please stay tune for more dates to come.

I am I am very happy to announce the launch of my project „Silent Films with live music“ on my homepage. I have been enjoying playing to silent movies for over ten years now. I always play 100% live, with my live loops, prepared guitars, voice and different simple effects I use. Only at the performance of „Woman in the moon“ – because of its duration 2 hours an 50 minutes – I used some playback tracks that I could fade in and out if wanted.  These events took play in the Czech Republic in a summer school of film festival in Uherske Radice, Viennale Filmfestival in Vienna, the Theatermuseum, Metro Kino and other fine places. I mostly do these films as a soloist but also teamed up with Martin Brandlmayr on drums for „Die Puppe“ by Ernst Lubitsch.
Again and again I am stunned how beautiful and with how much care some of those great silent films are done. Especially the handcolourated versions look amazing if projected with the right machines. The colours glow in a totally magic and unseen way.

Also new in the Work section under „Theater“ is „Out there is a Field“ w. Barbara Kraus, and the „Opera of Entropy“. This project might be seen again in a different kind of performance at the Donaufestival or Wien Modern. Please stay tuned for more.

I wanted to share with you a beautiful new but really old instrument I had the luck to meet with and engange in a permanent relationship for now. A 120 year old viennese Kontraguitar. It is a very rare one with 12 chromatic basses. That´s very unusual and I have to see if it is possible to make it work in real life – since 12 basses are really a lot to get organized with. Mr. Witzmann restored the few fine cracks it had beautifully, and his wife restrung the whole thing ! I am waiting for a custom made bag, so I can take it with me to rehearsals and concerts. Jorge Sanchez-Chiong who I worked with on the “Opera of Entropy” already showed his interest to make a new piece of music together, and I am exited to start. So stay tuned :-) !

Frau im Mond / Florian Horath Ensemble Gut Oggau/Opera of Entropy/Wortstadtnächte
The life music to the silent movie(2h 50 min.!) „Woman in the moon“ in Uhersce Radice was really a highlight for me. If you are around next year I recommend you visit this great festival in July 2017! Very nice people, great cinemas and films.
Gut Oggau with florian horwath was also very special. They make this great demeter organic wine, that is sold only in selected places around the world. The reinvited the enselbe for the next years “10 years of Gut Oggau” celebration – so please stay tuned for that. The fall keeps me busy as well with more exiting projects. The „opera of entropy“ had it´s premiere on Tuesday August 30th. Please check ou the live section for more infos about that. Also the „Wiener Wortstätten“ a very special writers room, asked me to join them for their festival at the end of september. It´s called „Wortstattnächte“. Those will be five „one time events“. One is called „Dramas for sleeping“ where you meet at midnight, and every visitor gehts a bed and a personal reader, who wispers some of the greatest dramaturgic writings in your ear until you fall asleep, all acompanied by acoustik KMET Music:-)  You can find more infos to these events in the live or project section of my website.

In the beginning of this year, especially after I was asked to create music for “Unterwerfung” only a week before the premiere,  I formed the wish that projects would spread out a little more. Two month later, there is dates and projects lined up until may 2017. About the others I wrote in the last post, and after that I will cooperate again with the wonderful OFF theater. Create something new for Grischka Voss´s newest peices that will evolve around the topic of “enviousness”. And after that there will be a new cooperation a Duo, one Performer, one muisician only, with the topic “Heimat/Home” that is so viral right now. So I am very exited by this new situation, and I will write again about this and see If I really like it better to plan ahead so far.

I am very exited to announce two new collaborations.

Barbara Kraus, with whom I worked with in “shared spaces” invited me to develop a musical score to her new piece “Das Denken zum Tanzen bringen”. This will be an advancement of her work “philosophy onstage”. We will perform this at Tanzquartier Wien on june 2nd, 3rd and 4th !

Furthermore Jorge Sánchez-Chiong asked me to develope a part in “ENTROPY” which he launched together with Thomas Jelinek. This is a fantastic pool of scientists, videoartists, musicans, mathematicians who are developing an opera around this exiting and infinite topic. This will be part of “Musiktheatertage Wien 2016”, the premier around August 27th 2016. More Infos to come soon.

There is four performances of KZ.IMAGINAIRE left – I want to post a few reviews.
The majority of our audience seemed to really like the piece. I enjoyed working with the Bernhard Ensemble a lot !

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