Festival Alternativa: Day 1.

Katarina Gryvul

As Western Europe has begun to take notice in recent years that rich, dense music is also being created in Eastern Europe, Katarina Gryvul has emerged as one of the most talked-about names in this ‘new’ context. The Ukrainian composer, violinist and singer made her breakthrough with the album *Tysha* (2022), which bridged the worlds of neoclassical, power ambient and deconstructed club music. On her second recording, Gryvul presented a maximalist yet sophisticated vision that balanced pure spectacle with restraint, and abstraction with clarity. In the four years since its release, she has become a fixture on the European festival circuit, teaching and composing for ensembles and films. Above all, however, she released the album *Spomyn* last year, which confirmed her status as an exceptional composer and demonstrated her evolution in the field of production.

Gryvul routinely combines electronics with traditional instruments, and above all with the voice. Fluid synthetic bursts and, as a rule, subtly hinted-at beats intertwine with the sound of the violin, harp or ninera. The vocals hover halfway between an operatic aria and East Slavic folk, and it is precisely this that is key to the overall effect. Amidst the cold glitches and quasi-orchestral grandeur, she gives the music a human dimension: despite all the modern techniques, its beauty is also, in a way, fairy-tale-like.

Open Family

The idea of the free improv scene as one big family is quite natural, given how it is interconnected through a myriad of collaborative projects. Four of its leading figures present the very concept of an ‘open family’: one that offers closeness and acceptance, yet does not stifle or shut itself off from the outside world, and above all, one in which mutual listening forms the foundation.

At least part of this international ensemble, whose members are dedicated to performing contemporary compositions as well as improvisation, will be well known to the Alternativa audience. Violinist Tiziana Bertoncini has performed with the Prague Improvisation Orchestra and in a duo with Thomas Lehn, who plays the modular synthesiser in Open Family and appears regularly in Prague. Percussionist Ingar Zach has performed here with Dans les arbres, as well as accompanying Arve Henriksen. And whilst flautist Alessandra Rombolá may not be a familiar name, she is certainly an experienced musician with recordings on key labels such as Another Timbre and Al Maslakh.

Open Family’s live recordings showcase both advanced techniques and a deep mutual understanding. The sound tends to be rather subtle, carried by the flute and violin, which – in their search for lyricism within dissonance – oscillate between noise and drone, but above all present delicate melodic motifs. The gurgling modular synthesiser offers both dynamic players a sensitive mechanical counterpoint. And Zach’s characteristic preparations – particularly of the bass drum – are often imperceptible; yet it is precisely these unobtrusive layers that give the music depth and allow the delicate tension, which the quartet builds so convincingly, to shine through.

Viola Yip & Michael Vorfeld

An intergenerational encounter by the light of a bulb – that is how the joint project by Viola Yip and Michael Vorfeld might be briefly described. The duo are separated by years and, until recently, by geographical distance; yet they are united by a shared interest in radical sound within a multidisciplinary context. Berlin-based Michael Vorfeld is a percussionist, instrument builder and visual artist whose practice, since the 1980s, has increasingly featured his own sound objects and stringed instruments alongside percussion; in addition to solo projects and installations, he also takes part in a range of improvisational collaborations. Viola Yip is originally from Hong Kong; she began to become involved in the experimental scene in New York during the last decade and is currently based in Berlin. Her work, which moves on the edge and beyond the boundaries of noise, often has a strong visual aspect; in a number of her performances using hand-made instruments and devices, one might even speak of a cyborg-like dimension.

This joint performance will build on their solo explorations of the potential of light bulbs as sources of sound – and, of course, light. Yip and Vorfeld operate in sonic worlds that will be familiar to fans of Pan Sonic, full of geometric yet raw electrical discharges, hints of techno-style beats and raw noise. At the end of the process of erasing anything human, what remains is sheer intensity.