Menu
Humans are dependent on nature for their survival. It is therefore not surprising that nature has always played an inspiring role in music and connects us with the people of times gone by. “The Zodiac Happening” is a different kind of concert – a moving narration of short nature episodes. Be it a beguiling melody by Debussy, the extraordinary song of a bird from the red desert of Australia, a touching song about hunting bears or a bizarre scene from Stockhausen’s famous zodiac melodies. Nature is an inexhaustible source of inspiration and this concert is far more than just a musical performance. It is a powerful message to our consciousness and an appeal for change.
You can experience a refreshing mixture of solo and chamber music literature from contemporary composed and improvised music, played by four outstanding musicians of the current music scene, with works by C. Debussy, K. Stockhausen, H. Taylor, P. Oliveros, Radiohead, and T. Takemitsu, among others.
Susanne Fröhlich is a recorder player and dedicates herself to old and traditional music v.a. contemporary music, as well as improvisation, creative composition and new concert formats. She regularly gives concerts and workshops in Europe and abroad. As a former founding member of the recorder quartet QNG – Quartet New Generation, she performs both as a soloist and in various formations, as well as in several art and music theater productions, et al. with Saâdane Afif, Ari Benjamin Meyers, andcompany&Co and Constanza Macras/dorkypark.
She has performed in numerous world premieres at renowned concert halls and festivals around the world, including with Ensemble Adapter, Figura Ensemble, Ictus Ensemble, Marc Sinan Company, Neue Vokalsolisten and the Trickster Orchestra. Susanne has won numerous international competitions and scholarships, including in Berlin, Darmstadt, Graz, Krakow, New York and Rotterdam. She lives and teaches in Berlin and has held a teaching position at the University of the Arts since April 2010. In October 2019, she completed her artistic-scientific research project on “The new potential of a recorder in the 21st century” at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz with distinction and was awarded the “Award of Excellence 2020” by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research. In 2021 she received scholarships from the Musikfonds Berlin and the Akademie der Künste Berlin. In 2022, she won the German Jazz Award and the TONALi Music Award with the Trickster Orchestra.
Meinrad Kneer studied jazz and popular music in double bass at the conservatories in Hilversum and Amsterdam, Netherlands. Since then he has moved musically between jazz, improvised music, contemporary composed music and ethnic music. He has given concerts throughout Europe, as well as in the Middle East, Turkey, Morocco and Mexico. In 2002, he was awarded one of the most highly endowed Dutch music prizes in the form of the ‘Jur Naessens Music Prize’. As artistic director and composer, he currently leads various ensembles, namely his Phosphoros Ensemble, the Meinrad Kneer Quintet and the Trio Baars/ Kneer/ Elgart.
He also works with the double bass quartet Sequoia, the trio Rose/ Kneer/ Barrett, Andreas Willers’ 7of8, the Oğuz Büyükberber Trio and the Julie Sassoon Quartet, among others. His internationally renowned label Evil Rabbit Records, founded in 2006, is dedicated to European contemporary improvised music.
Marc Sinan is a composer and guitarist. He lives and works in Berlin and releases the recordings of his works on ECM Records. His mostly full-length works address current socio-political issues and have been performed at festivals such as the Schleswig-Holstein Musikfestival, Istanbul Festival, MaerzMusik and at venues such as the Wuppertal Opera, the Humboldt Forum Berlin, the Gorki Theater and the Vienna Konzerthaus.
Sinan has collaborated with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Dresdner Sinfoniker, No Borders Orchestra, Ensemble ConTempo Beijing, the Belgrade Ensemble Metamorphosis, Sonar Quartet, Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart, and countless other ensembles, musicians and artists from Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and North and South America. In his work, he explores new ways of collaboration between artists in a transcultural and transmedia context.
Oğuz Büyükberber is a clarinettist and composer. In his work, he combines contemporary composition, jazz and influences from his Turkish origins in his style. His oeuvre includes over 60 albums, including releases on ECM and Blue Note, a detailed textbook explaining his own improvisational systems, exhibitions of his visual art, university lectures and dozens of commissions for ensemble pieces as well as electro-acoustic and audio-visual works. He studied bass clarinet with Harry Sparnaay at the Amsterdam Conservatory and received composition lessons from Theo Loevendie.
In addition to a further degree in fine arts, he integrates his own visual art into his musical work. His activities as an artist with modular synthesizers are often presented under his stage name OX Barber. Composing and improvising in an avant-garde environment is where he feels most comfortable, be it purely acoustic, purely electronic or anything in between.