The Squid's Ear Magazine


Jane in Ether (Klein  Mayas / Voutchkova): Oneiric (Confront)

The Berlin trio of Miako Klein (recorders), Magda Mayas (piano), and Biliana Voutchkova (violin, voice) further refine their fully improvised approach into an immersive sonic practice, where sustained textures, extended techniques, and collective restraint blur individual voices into a cohesive, ever-shifting sound world, captured at the Studio for Electroacoustic Music at the Akademie der Kunst in Berlin.
 

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Product Information:

Personnel:



Miako Klein-recorders

Magda Mayas-piano

Biliana Voutchkova-violin, voice

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Label: Confront
Catalog ID: core 48
Squidco Product Code: 37057

Format: CDR
Condition: New
Released: 2025
Country: UK
Packaging: Cardboard sleeve, sealed
Recorded at Studio for Electroacoustic Music Akademie der Kunst, in Berlin, Germany, on October 29th, 2023, by Jacqueline Butzinger.
Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

Artist Biographies

"Miako Klein, Berlin-based musician, performer and improviser, has a greatly varied musical background. Classically educated on the recorder and violin, she has extensive experiences in performing contemporary music, as well as in Early and improvised music. Miako constantly questions and challenges the conventional ways of music performance by pushing boundaries between styles and genres, by experiment, and by interdisciplinary collaborations. She performs as a soloist and chamber musician and often collaborates with composers who have written works for her.

​Her recent projects as a performer include the production of "The Past" with Constanza Macras | Dorky Park, the premiere of the opera "Thanks to My Eyes" by Oscar Bianchi / Joel Pommerat with Ensemble Modern and further performances throughout 2012 in Brussels, Paris, Lisbon and Strasbourg, the interdisciplinary project "Synecdochism" composed by Chikage Imai, which is based on the synthesis of Japanese Performance art with contemporary Western music, as well as being part of the creation as composer and performer of dance production "INFLUX" by Hybride Cie (Paris/ Avignon).Miako has played with Ensemble Modern, ICE International Contemporary Ensemble, Quartet New Generation, and she regularly performs with trumpet player Sava Stoianov (member of Ensemble Modern), trumpeter Brad Henkel, her band Pain Perdu (with Mathis Mayr and Sebastian Flaig), trio KAZE and the Early music ensemble "apparatus musicus berlin". She was former member of the Renaissance Recorder Consort "The Royal Wind Music" and the "Espiga String Quartet". As an improviser she performed with Brad Henkel (Brooklyn), Audrey Chen (Berlin), Jasper Stadhouders (Amsterdam), Harald Austbø (Amsterdam) a.o.Throughout 2010/11, she worked as musician at the Cirque du Soleil Show ZAiA in Macau. She won fellowships as Artist in Residency at Kunstmeile Krems in 2014 and Akademie Schloss Solitude 2014-15.She has performed at the Ultraschall Festival Berlin, MATA-Festival NYC, Festival Musica Strasbourg, Early Music Festival Barcelona, Emergences Festival Avignon, Festival Aix-en-Provence, Boulevard Festival s'Hertogenbosch, DeSuite-Muziekweek Amsterdam and Klangwerktage Hamburg. Miako's live-recordings have been broadcast on German radio stations including HR/DLF, WDR3 and Concertzender.At young age Miako won prizes in numerous competitions including first prize at the "International Recorder Competition of Engelskirchen" and the "SONBU" International Recorder Competition of Utrecht/NL. She was awarded first prize at Germany's National Youth Competition, "Bundeswettbewerb Jugend musiziert", on multiple occasions. Miako also won the "Prize of the City Erlangen for the Best Interpretation of Contemporary Music", the special award for outstanding ensemble performance by "Stadtsparkasse Köln", and the IRINO-Foundation Tokyo award for contemporary music.The daughter of a classical pianist, Miako received her first musical lessons as a young child. At the Westfalian music school she was then taught the recorder by Gudula Rosa and the violin by Tor-Song Tan. Miako studied the recorder with Paul Leenhouts at the Amsterdam Conservatory, and graduated with distinction. She also studied violin as a second major with Lex Korff de Gidts. Miako received additional private recorder lessons from Winfried Michel and Walter van Hauwe, and violin lessons from Martin Dehning and Vesselin Paraschkevov. She undertook chamber music lessons at the Dutch String Quartet Academy and participated in masterclasses conducted by Eberhard Feltz (Berlin), Isabel Charisius (Alban Berg Quartett), Stefan Metz (Amsterdam) and the Auryn-Quartett.

Miako is currently studying at the UdK Berlin as a Master soloist for Early music with Prof. Christoph Huntgeburth."

-Miako Klein Website (http://www.miakoklein.com/about)
2/6/2026

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"Magda Mayas, born 1979, is a pianist living in Berlin. Developing a vocabulary utilizing both the inside as well as the exterior parts of the piano, using preparations and objects, she explores textural, linear and fast moving sound collage.

Alongside the piano, Mayas has recently been performing on a Clavinet/Pianet, an electric piano from the 60s with strings and metal chimes, where she engages with noise and more visceral sound material, equally extending the instrumental sound palette using extended techniques and devices.Mayas performs internationally solo and in collaboration with a large number of musicians and composers.Current projects are "Spill", a duo with drummer Tony Buck, a duo with Christine Abdelnour (sax) and "Great Waitress", a trio with Monika Brooks (acc) and Laura Altman (cl).

She is currently undertaking Phd studies at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden and investigating extended instrumental techniques, spectral music and psychoacoustics in an improvised music context.

Since 2013 she has also been producing radio pieces for ABC Australia and Deutschlandradio Kultur and has released 20 CDS to date.

Magda Mayas has performed and toured in Europe, the USA, Australia, Mexico and Lebanon and collaborated with many leading figures in improvisation and composers such as John Butcher, Andy Moor, Zeena Parkins, Joelle Leandre, Paul Lovens, Ikue Mori, Phill Niblock, Peter Evans, Andrea Neumann and Axel Dörner. She has performed at festivals and exhibitions such as Maerz Musik (2012,2015), Documenta (2012) or the Berlin Biennale ( 2014)."

-Magda Mayas Website (https://magdamayas.jimdo.com/bio-cv/)
2/6/2026

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"Biliana Voutchkova is a dedicated, thoroughly engaged composer-performer whose work combines regular performances of major solo violin/ensemble works and new works by contemporary composers often written for her, improvisation and performance work reaching into the realm of dance and movement. Her constant research as a creative artist spans the widest possible range of sound and movement and extends her sonic, physical and technical capacities evolving into the development of a highly individual artistic musical language.

Biliana is a risk taker approaching contemporary classical repertoire with the same inspiration and freedom characteristic of her forceful improvisations. She collaborates with an international pool of renowned artists - among those are Mazen Kerbaj, Audrey Chen, Ute Wassermann, Iva Bittová, Robin Hayward, Jacques Demierre, Matthias Bauer, Frances-Marie Uitti, Séverine Ballon, Helmut Lachenmann, Michael Thieke, Hans Peter Kuhn, George Lewis, Georg Nussbaumer, Clayton Thomas, Axel Dörner, Peter Ablinger and many others. ​Biliana has been heard at festivals and concert series worldwide, her appearances ranging from celebrated concert venues such as Carnegie Hall in New York, the Berliner Philharmonie and Radial System V in Berlin, and Suntory Hall in Tokyo, to performances in the most vivid experimental places such as Kule/Labor sonor, Ausland, Quite Cue, Studio 8 and Exploratorium in Berlin, Saal 100 in Amsterdam, and the Knitting Factory in New York. After her 14 years long residence in the USA, Biliana now lives in Berlin and collaborates with the Splitter Orchestra, Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop, Ensemble Modern, Zeitkratzer, Work in Progress, Ensembles United Berlin, Mosaik, LUX:NM and others. She is the co-founder of her dance/music group GRAPESHADE and OSM (open sound & movement collective). Her recent/current projects include solo concerts at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, MuseRuole Festival, Radar Festval, Radialsystem V and Unerhörte Musik, concert appearance with Iva Bittová and Phil Minton, the solo portrait concert/presentation and the project "Gazes that matter" at Ballhaus Naunynstrasse, the performance of Alban Berg's chamber concerto for the March Music Days Festival, the concert tour in Bulgaria/Serbia with Voutchkova/Thieke duo supported by the Goethe Institut and performances for the festivals Klangwerkstatt, Jazzfest and Faithful in Berlin, Blurred Edges in Hamburg, Rainy Days in Luxemburg and Klarafestival in Brüssel.

Born in the family of musicians, Biliana Voutchkova begins playing violin at the age of four, makes her orchestra debut at the age of nine, and records her first CD for the Japanese label Crown Record Ltd. at the age of sixteen. She studies classical violin, in her college years starts being involved with the contemporary and improvised music scene in New York. Among her teachers are Peter Arnaoudov, Abram Stern and Felix Galimir. Ms. Voutchkova holds degrees from the University of Southern California and New School for Social Research/Mannes College of Music in New York (MM in music). She has received top honors at the Kozian International Music Competition, CRS National Competition for Performing Artists, and Music and the Earth International Contemporary Music Competition. At the age of nineteen, she was invited to the United States, and was presented the special Jasha Heifetz Violin Scholarshipfor for her studies at the University of Southern California. After her move to New York in 1995 her continuous interest and exploration of the music of today remains being a major part of her work. "

-Biliana Voutchkova Website (http://www.bilianavoutchkova.net/about.html)
2/6/2026

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


Track Listing:
Related Categories of Interest:

February 2026
Improvised Music
Free Improvisation
Jazz
European Improvisation, Composition and Experimental Forms
Trio Recordings
Stringed Instruments
Unusual Vocal Forms
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New in Improvised Music
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Confront.


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