The Squid's Ear Magazine


Hug, Charlotte & Fred Lonberg-Holm: Fine Extension (Emanem)

Violist and vocalist Charlotte Hug met Fred Lonberg-Holm in Zurich, 2009 to make these concert recordings, a duo taking stringed instruments into unique and irrepressible territory.
 

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product information:

Personnel:



Charlotte Hug-viola and voice

Fred Lonberg-Holm-cello


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UPC: 5030243501229

Label: Emanem
Catalog ID: 5012
Squidco Product Code: 13821

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2010
Country: Great Britain
Packaging: Cardstock foldover
Digital concert recording by Christian Wolfarth at WIM Zurich on March 30th, 2009.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

Excerpts from sleeve notes:

"It takes two.

Two gears, two springs, two mechanisms. Two strings, two hands, two people.

The activity of calibrating requires two parts, a variable and a standard. Through the relativity of comparison (here's a gear, here's another; how do they fit together?), components can be adjusted to function properly, to run smoothly and mesh in perfect tandem. That's the way a machine can be fine-tuned.

The Charlotte Hug / Fred Lonberg-Holm duo is a machine of sorts. Not, of course, in the sterile, robotic, functional sense, but in the sense that together they enjoy a rare kind of calibration, a fine-tuning that one hears infrequently in improvised music, only from the very best collaborators. That they are string players means they come equipped - and burdened - with a lot of baggage, the kinds of classical associations from which it can be difficult to break free. The fussiness of intonation and phraseological inflexibility that one associates with everyday string players is nowhere to be found in Hug's incisive, spectral viola, or in Lonberg-Holm's rich, earthen cello.

When they play together, they become a unified machine, not because they do the same thing or play in unison, but precisely because they each have a part and they play it. And they play it together, as if the music was coming from a common place or meeting in a common place, part of a crystal clear operation the logic of which is fine-tuned in the moment of its unfolding, by means of listening and responding and initiating. And more listening. They have the reliability of a Swiss watch, its innards all working towards the single goal of keeping time, but in this case it's not mechanistic in the same way, the parts are all constantly changing, morphing, the one little gear is growing bigger or shrinking or getting more teeth or differently shaped cogs, so the other gear has to adjust immediately to keep up the proper torque.

Some Oulipo writers have insisted that any system, any procedure designed as a constraint for writing, needs to 'creak' a little. That is to say, it has to swing, to give a bit; the gears have to change shape, if only to keep things interesting. There's a lot of creaking going on here. Listen as Hug goes low, laying down a growling drone, meanwhile Lonberg-Holm squeaks and pops up top. Intensity and excitement, fission energy compacted into a chamber twosome.

Exactitude without fuss, and with a bit of creak - that's fine-tuning. A good reminder: It takes two."-John Corbett


Artist Biographies

"Charlotte Hug: musician (viola & voice), composer, teacher, media artist, visual artist,

Hug´s innovative musical-visual solo performances in distinctive locations and her interdisciplinary work have created an international furore. She has played in locations such as the tunnels of the Rhône glacier, the House of Detention, an underground former prison in London, a half-demolished bunker in Humboldthain Berlin, the hot healing springs in the spa town of Baden and the dockyard in Coph on the Irish Atlantic coast.

This musician of the extreme is constantly pushing the boundaries of her instrument and has reinvented the viola - and this with an instrument built by the Viennese violin maker J.G Thir in 1763 . She has developed a number of techniques, including the "soft bow technique", which enables her to play up to eight voices. Hug´s speciality is also a blend of viola and vocals, which has given rise to her distinctive tonal language.

In the visual arena, as well as in a musical context, Hug´s sound-drawings "Son-Icons" have found international recognition. These she has used to develop her own compositional method. Hence her spatial and video-scores ranging from solo pieces to orchestra works, such as the orchestral work "Nachtplasmen" for Son-Icons and video-score, which was premiered with the Lucerne Festival Academy in 2011. She has had solo exhibitions at venues such as Swissnex San Francisco, the Sirius Arts Centre Cobh, Cork in Ireland and the Museum of Art Lucerne.

Hug is also fully active as a concert performer, soloist, composer and conductor of her own works at major festivals inEurope, North America, Latin America and Canada, such as Tage für Neue Musik Zurich, Donaueschinger Musiktage, Berliner Festspiele MaerzMusik, San Francisco International Arts Festival. Her extensive discography, including three solo CDs, as well as improvised music from international collaborations is distributed worldwide by important labels.

There are collaborations with international greats, such as the photographer and film maker Alberto Venzago, the theatre and opera director Jossie Wieler, concerts with artists such as Joan Jeanrenaud from the Kronos Quartet, Maggie Nicols, Barry Guy, Phil Minton, Larry Ochs, Evan Parker, Elliott Sharp, etc.

Hug gives master classes in improvisation and "instant composing". She also gives lectures and performance lectures in the field of "Transdisciplinarity in the Arts". She is a visiting professor at several universities and art academies including McGill University Montreal, CNMAT of the University of California Berkeley and The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Since 2008 she has held the post of lecturer at the Zurich University of the Arts in interdisciplinary studies.

Hug lives in Zurich and on the road. Having completed her studies in fine arts and music, she received various awards and composition commissions, from organisations such as Pro Helvetia, Lucerne Festival, etc. She has been "artist in residence" in London, Paris, Cork 2005 Capital of Culture, and in Berlin. In 2006 she was awarded the city of Zurich prize for composition. In 2011 she was "artiste étoile" at the Lucerne Festival."

-Charlotte Hug Website (http://www.charlottehug.ch/e-charlottehug.html)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Fred Lonberg-Holm (born 1962) is an American cellist based in Chicago. He relocated from New York City to Chicago in 1995. Lonberg-Holm is most identified with playing free improvisation and free jazz. He is also a composer of concert works. As a session musician and arranger, he is credited on many rock, pop, and country records. Lonberg-Holm currently leads the Valentine Trio, with Jason Roebke (bass) and Frank Rosaly (drums). This jazz trio performs original compositions as well as tunes by both jazz composers (e.g. Sun Ra) and pop songwriters (e.g. Jeff Tweedy, Syd Barrett). The group released its first album Terminal Valentine, in 2007, which was reviewed by AllAboutJazz critic Nils Jacobson.

He coordinates and directs performances of his Lightbox Orchestra, an improvising ensemble with a flexible, ever-changing membership. Lonberg-Holm does not play an instrument in this group, but rather conducts its non-idiomatic improvisations via the "lightbox" and by holding up handwritten signs. The lightbox contains a light bulb for each musician which Lonberg-Holm switches on or off to suggest when they should play. Collective groups of which Lonberg-Holm is a member include Terminal 4 who released an album, in 2003, called When I'm Falling that received four and a half stars, and AMG Album Pick by Allmusic, and it was reviewed by Allmusic's Joslyn Layne, The Boxhead Ensemble, Pillow, the Lonberg-Holm/Kessler/Zerang trio (with Kent Kessler and Michael Zerang), and the Dörner/Lonberg-Holm duo (with Axel Dörner).

Among groups led by other people, he is a member of the Vandermark 5, the Joe McPhee Trio, the Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet, Keefe Jackson's Fast Citizens, and Ken Vandermark's Territory Band. When he lived in New York, Lonberg-Holm frequently collaborated with the rock group God Is My Co-Pilot pianist and composer Anthony Coleman as well as multi-instrumentalist Paul Duncan of Warm Ghost. In Chicago, he has worked with Jim O'Rourke, Bobby Conn (on "Llovessonngs" [1999] and "The Golden Age" [2001]), The Flying Luttenbachers, Lake Of Dracula, Wilco, Rivulets, Mats Gustafsson, Sten Sandell, Jaap Blonk, John Butcher, and a great many others.

Lonberg-Holm's concert works have been premiered by William Winant, Carrie Biolo, the Austin New Music Co-Op, Subtropics Ensemble, Duo Atypica, the Schanzer/Speach Duo, New Winds, Paul Hoskin, Kevin Norton, the E.S.P. Ensemble, and others. His scores for dance have been performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and Dance Theater Workshop as well as many other venues. He is a former composition student of Anthony Braxton and Morton Feldman. He performed improvised music in the role of a troubled composer who finds inspiration in the love of a couple he spots on the street in a short film for the Playboy channel."

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Lonberg-Holm)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



1. Part One 26:45

2. Part Two 20:29

3. Part Three 5:33

Related Categories of Interest:

EMANEM & psi

Improvised Music
Stringed Instruments
London & UK Improv & Related Scenes
Free Improvisation
Duo Recordings

Search for other titles on the label:
Emanem.


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