Castelló/Voutchkova · XIPE

Angélica Castelló (Blockflöten, Elektronik) & Biliana Voutchkova (Violine, Stimme) · XIPE: Ivan Bringas (Guitarra Expansiva) & Giulia Deval (Stimme, Tape)

Angélica Castelló (Blockflöten, Elektronik) & Biliana Voutchkova (Violine, Stimme) – Amati Lenta

The duo will perform their own version of Biliana’s variable collaborative piece Amati Lenta. The piece was originally developed with Olivia Block and premiered as a duo in Chicago. It features violin and field recordings prepared in advance alongside improvisational material performed in real time by the two artists. The performance is guided by the speed and clarity of the tapes as it is altered by the devices and a live re-recording is made, then multiplied further for the next performances. This variable work is constantly developing and building a kind of an archive of itself which is evident each time it is performed. Amati Lenta emphasises themes related to the multiple ways time is experienced through sound and recordings, and how meaning is created and altered through the recording process of sound. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyU6tukWdaY&t=8s

Angélica Castelló’s sound work and compositions concentrates on fragility, dreamworld and the subconscious. She continuously performs solo and in various collaborations everywhere between Mexico City and Vienna. Among her activities are numerous compositions for ensembles, radio works, as well as installations that operate at the interface of music, performance and visual arts, and releases on labels like Interstellar records, Mikroton recordings, Monotype records, Mosz, chamafu nocords, Orlando Records, einklang_records, Mandorla Label, Thalamos, upside down records and more. https://castello.klingt.org/

Biliana Voutchkova is a dynamic and thoroughly engaged interdisciplinary artist, composer-performer, violinist, improvisor and curator with a truly personal, unconventional artistic language. Through the prism of listening, her early training as a classical violinist and the years of development as contemporary artist-performer, she explores states of spontaneity and intuitive resonance embodied in her multifaceted activities. Her work includes regular concert performances of original/site specific work, long durational and multidisciplinary performances, improvisations, compositions and installations with focus on the interconnection between inner world and sound space. Biliana works internationally as a soloist and in various collaborations. She is the founder and curator of the DARA String Festival and DUOS2022, SHAPE+ platform artist for 2022/2023 and recent recipient of the German Residency Stipend at Cité des Arts/Paris. http://bilianavoutchkova.net

XIPE: Ivan Bringas (Guitarra Expansiva) & Giulia Deval (Stimme, Tape)

XIPE is an Italian-Mexican duo that sees the interaction between Giulia Deval’s voice and magnetic tapes and Ivan Bringas’ Guitarra Expansiva, an instrument based on the invention of mobile elements that interact with the neck of the acoustic guitar. XIPE’s compositions are the result of a research into the possibilities offered by the construction of artefacts and the use of extended vocal techniques influenced by minimalism, freak folk and radical improvisation. In 2021, XIPE has been invited by the audiovisual research center Hangar of Barcelona for and International Residency in the frame of the AUDIOFORMAL Programme where it developed it’s debut album NEPANTLERAS. The album was released on 1 April 2022 by zOaR Records (NY), mastered by Elliott Sharp and presented through a long tour between Europe and Mexico. XIPE also worked on multimedia projects such as Cebrasno. Tres marchas, developed at NUB Project Space in Pistoia (ITA), an audiovisual composition in three acts based on the imaginary gaits of the zonkey, a hybrid creature between a zebra and a donkey.

Ivan Bringas (Mexico City, 10.08.1990) is a guitarist, improviser and composer from Mexico City. His education began very early growing up at Café Jazzorca, a concert center and label founded by his parents that programs musicians engaged in developing their language mainly through improvisation and free jazz. At the age of 10 he entered the Escuela Nacional de Música of UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México) to study classical guitar with the masters Juan Carlos Laguna and Marco Iván López Miranda; he finished his studies at Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi in Turin (Italy) where he is actually based. Over the years he deepened his training by being in contact with musicians such as Leo Brouwer, Víctor Villadangos and Fred Frith. Since 2007 he has been developing the project “Guitarra Expansiva” which won INBA (Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes de México) award in 2010. He released Guitarra Expansiva in 2011 for Jazzorca Records and Que viva s’aninnia for the Italian label Objet-a in 2015.

Giulia Deval (Turin, 06.01.1993) works in the field of vocality and sound art. Different formats such as live sets, creation of sound dresses, concerts of imaginary characters and radio plays have as their basic ingredients voice and found analogue electronics. Her project Antes de la Catàstrofe. Rutas Etnográficas 3302, a participatory action for voices and magnetic tapes, passed the pre-selections of Pierre Schaeffer Award announced by INA GRM, GMVL, Phonurgia Nova and Euphonia being among the best 11 projects in 2019 and won MIBACT’s MOVIN’UP / SPETTACOLO PERFORMING ARTS in 2020. She took part to Moondog Project, a Torino Jazz Festival Original Production, together with the Italian ensemble Lapsus Lumine and the musicians Jim Black (drums) and Ernst Reijseger (cello).

https://xipe.bandcamp.com/album/nepantleras