randform

randform reported already earlier about the decline of music education in Berlin. The last post was about a protest note by well-known musicians who protest against the cutbacks of music education in schools .
Currently you can hear the Vuvuzelas everywhere here in Berlin — they are quite LAUUUUt (this is approximately the noise of a german Vuvuzela) — thus one could easily conclude that the decline of music education already reached the bottom.
But of course the Vuvuzelas are due to the soccer fever and luckily there are still some people left in Berlin who prove that its music education has not (yet) reached the bottom. Here a video snippet from the concert of the Musikalische Werkstätten (a music project with pupils from the Berlin districts of Lichtenberg-Hohenschönhausen, Treptow-Köpenick und Marzahn-Hellersdorf, organized by Landesmusikakademie Berlin) where pupils perform not with Vuvuzelas but partially with similar simple instruments the piece “seven nation army” (here the original) in a very cool style.

During the concert I was a bit concerned that parts of the ceiling in the gym at FEZ, where the concert took place would fall down, however then I told myself that just because the ceiling is deformed (probably due to ball shots, see image) that doesn’t necessary imply that it will fall down. ??

The protest has now a website at http://www.ohne-musik-keine-bildung.de/ and you can leave your signature against the cuts in music education (german newspaper article in Morgenpost about the campaign)

The International society for the interdisciplinary study of symmetry ISIS (not to confuse with Isis Healing or other Isis disambiguations) is soon organizing a conference called “Days of Harmonics” (Regular registration fee: 400 Euro) (Aug. 23 – Aug.28 2010, AUSTRIA). The proceedings are probably going to be published in the journal visual mathematics by the mathematical institute Belgrade.

Soheil Nasseri (who was featured a couple of times here on randform) is again becoming an actor. This times he is going to play the role of a pianist of the 19th century (means in particular one hour of Chopin). He will perform together with an orchester and the ballet of John Neumeier, Lady of the Camellias. The show is going to be end of Mai in the Metropolitan Opera House, which fits in about 30000 people!
(small clarification added on May 3: The Metropolitan opera house fits in 3800 people at one performance, since there are 8 performances with Soheil Nasseri this gives altogether about 30000 people who may attend his performances)
Before this big event is taking place he rehearsed his performance here in Berlin in the Salon Christophori – a repairshop for fortepianos and other historical instruments in front of ca. 100 highly critical inhabitants of Berlin (…just to make sure that New York gets the right quality! ) His performance was partially together with Tuyêt Pham (mimicking the orchester).

The performance was no exception since next to the repairshop (where you can by the way adopt the repair of a fortepiano) Salon Christorphori hosts a series of high quality performances of artists who enjoy the possibility to perform in a rather casual context (and with better conditions than in a department store). Unfortunately the future of the Salon is rather unclear since the place is currently refurbished with unclear (and most likely gentrified) future tenant situation.

“Small” cultural occasions like the above described are important for the cultural life of a city. They serve not only for local communication and entertainment but are equally of educational value. Unfortunately as described before music education in Berlin is not as it could be and more unfortunately the situation is worsening. In a protest note well-known musicians protest against the cutbacks of music education in schools .

Soheil Nasseri with Tuyêt Pham saying good bye

That is how it currently looks in front of Salon Christophori

Another musical event I attended last week (just in case you wonder what I am doing):
The fantastic crossover project featuring the flying steps and the well-tempered clavier -> youtube video

via create digital music . Quote from there:

Thanks to Patrick Flanagan for the tip. Patrick predicts that “this is the beginning of steamfunk.”

On the heater in the entrance hall of our appartment building neighbears left a collection of VHS magnetic tapes for free.

I was wondering wether there exist/will exist VHS lovers in the same way as there exist Vinyl lovers (see e.g. this documentary about vinyl lovers or this randform post). (VHS scratching?! huh)

just in case you wondered what cat caspari of tonrand may have been up to lately – here a link to a new comment.

The media over here didnt like the fact that the Oscar Academy Awards organizers tried to hide the glamour before the show. Well I dont know how much glamour there is in LA, but on randform there is today!

We usually try to avoid promotions on this blog, however there are exceptions! Annette Dasch – a former school mate from Tim (they actually went together to China with their school orchester) is a new great talented soprano singer, some call her Berlin’s Anna Netrebko. Berliners may also know her from Annettes DaschSalon. She was recently here in munich for promoting her new CD. She even performed some songs together with pianist Martin Stadtfeld, who was also promoting. Here some images from the event in a munich store, which was quite funny.
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An amazing Multi-Touch interface for audio applications by Randy Jones:

It is actually a master thesis. Here is his project page.

(via cdm)

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Just to justify myself I assign the handsonic HPD 10 and the silent violin the status of an underestimated instrument.
the handsonic being on the market for quite a while now is still dead usefull and both are good tools for performing in small japanese flats.