Endphase

endphase

official website: http://www.endphase.net

The Endphase project is an initiative of the composers Alberto C. Bernal, Johannes Kreidler and João Pais. From February 2009, the Spanish sound artist and Ars Electronica collaborator Enrique Tomás joined Endphase. It intends to surpass the traditional musical conceptions (not only the aesthetic aspects, but also the stylistic and the technical, when such boundaries are separable) and to create an environment in which several ideas, concepts and approaches can be realized.

The project was initiated in the beginning of 2004, with a first performance in June of that year at the Music Academy in Freiburg (Germany). Since then performances have been mounted in a number of countries (Germany, Hungary, Netherlands) and different contexts (solo or partial concerts), including specialized new music festivals such as Darmstadt and university refectory performances. Laptops are used for sound production and processing (occasionally in conjunction with external sound sources), and several types of peripherals (MIDI, joystick, foot pedal, contact microphones) for controlling.

Each Endphase is built up in a flexible way during the working phase, in which several models, ideas and processes are discussed by the three members and rehearsed individually and in group rehearsals. The concert execution is the last stage of the project, the Final Stage (Endphase), where the previously realised materials will be played in public. Thus, the result is not an improvisation in the manner of a discourse built upon patterns of action and reaction, but rather a conceptually-defined composition, which only assumes its final form in real time through the improvisation.

After each Endphase an “endpoint” is reached: an individual performance will not become a repertoire piece or be performed again. Wherever it has been possible, the performances have been documented, leaving only the ideas, concepts and working techniques, which can be reused in a subsequent Endphase. Because of the nature of the project, each Endphase is not only a single and unrepeatable piece, but also part of a work-in-progress, positioned in time.

official website: http://www.endphase.net