Monday 21 October 2019, 7.30pm
Pleased to welcome back the Japanese duo of Minami Saeki (voice) and Taku Sugimoto (guitar) following a performance of material from their debut collaborative recording – Songs – at OTO last year. For this show they are joined by London-based, German cellist, Ute Kanngiesser for a series of one-off duo performances.
Recorded outdoors, Songs has an unhurried openess, with the deceptively stark unwinding of sparse voice and instrumentation leaving the listener feeling almost as if they've stumbled upon something secret, unintended to be shared. But there is nothing possessive about the soundworld that Saeki and Sugimoto conjure up, which loses none of it's expansiveness through being moved indoors.
film actress, singer, and dancer
born in Nagasaki on the 18 February 1990
she studied classical ballet, contemporary dance, classical singing, etc.
she has acted in films, e.g., “Village on the Village” (Yukihiro Kurokawa) or “Natsu no Musumetachi-Himegoto” (Teiichi Hori) among others.
she is active as a singer and has performed with Taku Sugimoto, Junichiro Tanaka, Wakana Ikeda, Masafumi Ezaki, Takashi Masubuchi, Manfred Werder, Stefan Thut among others in the fields of both pop and experimental music.
the CD “Songs” is a collaborative work with Taku Sugimoto.
composer / guitarist / improviser
Currently he is more active in composing, while maintaining an interest in improvisation.
These past few years he has performed, worked, and collaborated closely with Radu Malfatti, Manfred Werder, Stefan Thut, Cristian Alvear, Christian Kobi, Simon Roy Christensen, Johnny Chang, Takeshi Masubuchi, and Minami Saeki.
He is a member of Suidobashi Chamber Ensemble, an ensemble focusing on performing compositions of contemporary or experimental music.
http://www.japanimprov.com/tsugimoto/index.html
http://soundamerican.org/idobata-kaigi-01.html
Ute Kanngießer is a London based cellist and composer from Germany. Over the years, she has carefully deconstructed her classical roots and almost exclusively performs unscripted, improvised music. Much of her work has evolved in relationship with other art forms such as film, poetry, dance and site specific work. She is interested in the vast expressive possibilities of her instrument in relation to body, space, and others, always looking to rediscover or redefine what is musical/lyrical in this moment in time.
Recent releases include Blue Monday - a collaboration with writer Zara Joan Miller - on New York label Reading Group.
