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BACH: Aria “Großer Herr” on mobile devices - by DigiEnsemble Berlin featuring Tobias Berndt
Primiere: The DigiEnsemble Berlin exclusively uses digital devices to perform the aria “Großer Herr, o starker König” from the famous and glorious Christmas Oratorio by Johann Sebastian Bach sung by Tobias Berndt.
For two years now, the DigiEnsemble Berlin has explored the opportunities of mobile music. This aria, however, is a very important step in the course of the musician’s quest, due to the high qualitative aspiration and requirements of the piece. Lastly the DigiEnsemble Berlin physically premiers the piece together with the singer Roman Trekel at the Berlin Cathedral on the 16th December 2012.
The realization of the musically challenging aria is a culmination for the mission of acquiring virtuous playing techniques with smartphones. Matthias Krebs chose this aria consciously with the intention of accomplishing a signifying step in the ensemble’s development. Experts like music professors from the Berlin University of the Arts were consulted to optimize the musical adaption and musical interpretation.
Furthermore, the technical level was enhanced by utilizing a number of elaborate controllers. An important sound quality improvement for this musical interpretation was enabled by a new motion control app called “MIDI In Motion” by Florian Schwehn.
In the process of the project, the digital devices became serious musical instruments on a high level of proficiency and differentiation that has not been reached before.
The entire sound is created on the digital devices themselves. Therefore, three apps run simultaneously. These are “ThumbJam” as a sampler for all instruments, “Geo Synth” as the instrumental surface and “MIDI In Motion” as a motion controller of volume (Schwehn has provides us with a beta version), connected via virtual midi.
The realization of this video came about in cooperation with the Deutsche Telekom, which backed the video and studio recordings in summer 2012 involving Markenfilm and the Emil Berliner Studios. The DigiEnsemble Berlin is very grateful for this cooperation. Furthermore, the DigiEnsemble Berlin had the chance to use the video material for its own version. Matthias Krebs was in charge of the production, appreciably supported by the cutter Liesa Rademacher from Feinfilm. They aimed at giving a close view to reinforce the musical impression.
— video credits —
DigiEnsemble Berlin
- Tobias Berndt - bariton
- Tammin Julian Lee - conductor
- Matthias Krebs — solo trumpet
- Miriam Akkermann — flute
- Tim Neuser — violin 1
- Dustin Dick — violin 2
- Sven Ratzel — viola
- Uwe Schamburek — bassoon/cello
- Timon Kossack — bass bowed
- Daniel Grote - organ
- THX to: Prof. Dr. Richenhagen and Prof. Dr. Supper
- THX to: Florian Schwehn
music production
- Daniel Kemper (Emil Berliner Studios)
camera
- Kai Klinke, Neels Feil (Markenfilm Crossing)
video production
- Matthias Krebs (vision, management, punos)
- Liesa Rademacher (cutter, feinfilm)
- Mathias Geck (color grading)
- Lukasz Fabijanczyk (logo animation)
- Bastian Schick (logo sounds)
- Nastasia Mohren (ass., punos)
Many THX to Gesa Meynen and GRIMM GALLUN HOLTAPPELS.
The film was shot on 20th September 2012 at the old theatre stage of the Heimathafen Neukölln in Berlin. The video was release on the 17th December 2012.
DigiEnsemble Berlin Release 2012
CC BY NC SA
(Quelle: digiensemble.com)
Smartphone Concert at the Berlin Cathedral on third Advent Sunday
Big News: the DigiEnsemble Berlin will be performing in the Berlin Cathedral - new technology meets old masters.
During the Sunday Church Service on the third Advent, we will perform Händels aria “Ombra Mai Fu” from the opera Xerxers, sung by the sopranist Anna Gütter. Another highlight will be our premiere of the sophisticated bass aria “Großer Herr, o starker König” by J.S. Bach from his famous Christmas Oratorio. The well-known Bariton singer Roman Trekel will support us. Further, we will play an experimental space-sound-collage based on a concept by Sven Ratzel. It is resting upon the chorale “Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland” and its antecessor “Veni redemptor gentium” by Saint Ambrose.
We would be happy to have you among our audience. It will be a public evening church service on the third Advent, 16th December, starting at 6 PM.
(Quelle: digiensemble.de)
Our Digi-Christmas Song “Silent Night”.
This song was composed, produced an performed on mobile devices only. But, is it possible to play a Christmas carol on smartphones – while not sounding plastic but conveying a warm Christmas mood?
In the early hours of St. Nicholas Day, we finally released our holiday gift for christmas for you - the result of a musical experiment. We are proud to present our first smartphone Christmas clip: “Silent Night.” We arranged, developed and played this magical Christmas song directly on our smartphones and tablets in various, collective rehearsals. Afterwards, the song was recorded in a professional sound studio. We were supported by the great voices of Marc Godau and Viola Bornmann. In the end, we liked the result very much, so that we decided to produce a video. It perfectly pictures the use of our mobile instruments, comprising eight different music apps as, for instance, SoundPrism, GeoSynth, DrumsXD (iOS) and Nodebeat (Android).
In order to our earlier mobile music pieces, “Silent Night” is a special case for us. It is a folk melody, which is in its realization absolutely meant for making music with smartphones. We realized that for the first time we “though inside our instrument”. We aimed high and the result exceeded our expectations. The musically central theme came from the app “NodeBeat” (Android), which was used to get an intuitive, visual sound framework. The realization of “Silent Night” is hence a very important step in our whole experiment of making music with apps.
Our leader, Matthias Krebs, had the original idea of converting a folk melody into a pop song played with smartphones. The realization of the project started by the end of August 2012 under the direction of Marc Godau. The song was recorded on 18th September in the Soundtank Studios. Two days later, it was filmed on the theater stage of the Heimathafen Neukölln (film crew by Markenfilm Crossing). Lastly, the video material was post-produced by the cutter Liesa Radmacher (feinfilm) from mid November until the beginning of December under direction of Matthias Krebs.
This video is meant to enchant the Christmas season, but also to show the opportunity of how an ordinary device turns into an actual musical instrument by the use of the right app.
We hope you enjoy our “Silent Night” an wish you a Merry Christmas.
——Credits——
DigiEnsemble Berlin [music apps]
- Marc Godau (voc, arr.) [Samplodica]
- Viola Bornmann (voc., pad) [NodeBeat, SoundPrism Pro]
- Willi Struzyk (bass) [iFretless, Beatmaker2]
- Puya Shoary (drums) [Drums XD]
- Tim Neuser (git.) [Geo Synth, iShred]
- Matthias Krebs (pad, backings) [SoundPrism Pro, ImproVox]
- Matti Klein (keys) [MusicStudio]
Clip production
- Matthias Krebs (vision, punos)
- Markenfilm Crossing (camera)
- Klas Yngborn (SoundTank Studios)
- Liesa Rademacher (cutter, feinfilm)
- Susanne Hassepaß (cutter, feinfilm)
- Mathias Geck (color grading)
- Lukasz Fabijanczyk (logo animation)
- Bastian Schick (logo sounds)
- Nastasia Mohren (ass., punos)
Many THX to Gesa Meynen and GRIMM GALLUN HOLTAPPELS.
(Quelle: digiensemble.com)
We are proud to announce that we will soon release a splendid smartphone-music version of the Christmas song “Silent Night.” The whole video will be released on Saint Nicholas Day, 6th Dec 2012. We have been preparing this special project since summer. Marc is giving you an insight into his perspective, explaining the special case of realizing “Silent Night” with the DigiEnsemble Berlin.
The Sound of Winter
It is summer. People are walking around in summer clothes. And so does the DigiEnsemble Berlin. With one slight distinction: we are rehearsing a Christmas song.
When I was asked to arrange “Silent Night” for Smartphones etc., I was yet again confronted with a conflict. On the one hand, I really enjoy making music on my iPad, but on the other hand, I do not think enough inside the instrument as I do with other conventional instruments that I already utilized for writing music. I am convinced that those who also seriously engage with this new way of making music will agree that thinking away from the accustomed instrument is rather difficult. Quite often, you simply tend to imitate a conventional tone that would sound better and more natural with a real piano. This conflict occupied my mind for a long time and affected my work.
When the idea of the pop song emerged, I started creating a lot of ideas, while quickly discarding many of them a moment later. My thoughts were repeatedly torn between spaceship music and classical Swing. When the six of us met for the first rehearsal, I was still dissatisfied with my product. I prepared two proposals for that rehearsal: a swing version and a rather open draft, which could retrospectively be called “Captain Kirk’s Lullaby.” In our initial debates about how to approach the piece, it quickly became clear to all of us that we had to run another path: To find out what original iPad music is, it must evolve from itself – from making music with iPads. Consequently, we started experimenting with ideas. We checked out sounds, discussed rhythms and tried many different things. This way of working was very pleasant since the piece “Silent Night” was in a sense the rough diamond that we were now cutting. Hereby, the abolished parts were the knocked off splinters leading to a Gesamtkunstwerk which could not have been imagined before. Most of the time, we worked as a team, which was especially comforting the pop song, since the group improved and perfected the piece to its final state. Thereby, everybody was responsible for his or her own part. Interestingly, the overall playing structure developed rather late, since we spend a lot of rehearsals on testing different ideas rather than finding a fixed form. But not everybody was pleased with this way of working.
With hindsight, I realized that especially the recording session finalized the piece while it once and for all proved to the group that it was not one of those pieces that you could easily anticipate beforehand. I believe that we, to some extent, sensed the meaning of think inside the App instrument – or whatever you want to call it.
Thanks to everyone!
Yours Marc
(English translation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDPkObLJSlc)
The Realization of a Bach Aria
We are currently working on a rather big project: the realization of the aria “Großer Herr, o starker König” from the Christmas Oratorio by Johann Sebastian Bach. What a glorious piece! But as you can see, we are not an ordinary orchestra – here we do not utilize conventional instruments, we play tablet PCs and smartphones. The TV program Metropolis (ARTE) visited us at an early stage rehearsal of our new project. In the process of rehearsing it becomes clear to the viewer and us how we grew into the project and into an actual ensemble.
To realize a piece from the Christmas Oratorio has been a long conceived vision of our leader Matthias Krebs since it is the “Faust of classical music.” This well-known and marvellous piece is already approached with respect by ensembles with conventional instrumentation. But the realization on smartphones with the intention of not loosing any artistic value is yet another sophistication.
In the course of two months rehearsing for the Christmas Oratorio on digital devices, we realised how we little by little turned into an actual ensemble. Since we are all trained musicians we have high musical expectations while learning how to play these new instruments. Precise playing was achieved by practising hard. Consequently, we started to involve our whole bodies in playing music while interacting with the other players. Additionally, a professional conductor leads the ensemble through the piece.
As mentioned in the clip, there were dialogues between the DigiEnsemble Berlin and several cantors in Berlin, explaining our new project. Now, we are happy to announce that we will perform the Christmas Oratorio as well as the aria “Ombra Mai Fu” and a new special composition for smartphones at the Berlin Cathedral on the 16. Dec 2012. We will contribute the pieces to the Sunday church service. Everybody is looking forward and waits in suspense for the reaction of the audience.
Hard Rock: DigiEnsemble Performs “Word Up” at LinuxNacht
Channelling Korn’s take on the Cameo classic, we played a hard rock version of “Word Up” on our mobile devices at the LinuxNacht in Berlin in Mai 2012. It was one of several events in the context of the LinuxTag and concentrated on networking and development of social space. We were invited as a special guest and surprised the audience with making mobile music. We played different styles, but especially the rock songs proved popular. Here is a video of the hard rock song “Word Up.”
Every single note was played live on our iPads and iPhones – there were no loops or playbacks. The song developed a high energy and we felt like an actual rock band. We used Apps like iShred, Drums XD, Basist and GarageBand. The realization of the song was actually not too difficult and we earned a lot of positive response.
Throughout our performance, we have revived interest in our search for adequate ways of making music with smartphones and tablets. Based on lots of interesting talks after our show, we can now hope for developments in the field of linux driven devices for smartphone music.
Workshop @Vibe in Cairo with the DigiEnsemble Berlin
Cool, the guys from BLACKOUT STUDIOS made an awesome video from one of our workshops in cairo. Thank you!
The DigiEnsemble Berlin performed at the opening ceremony of the “German Weeks 2012” in Cairo (Link).
When we stayed in Cairo there we made a workshop at “Vibe for Developing Arts” to give a little insight how we are playing our mobile instruments individually. As you can see it was a lot of fun.
(Quelle: youtube.com)
We like to present you a rough live recording from our show at Q110 (Deutsche Bank) in Fabruary. Thank you very much!
Matthias Krebs and his digital orchestra are trading in violins and pianos for iphones and touchpads.
Link: http://www.hilker-berlin.de/en/kunst/junge-wilde/digiensemble
Photo: Cora-Mae Gregorschewski
”But how does the DigiEnsemble perform? “That was the big question in 2011” says Krebs. For now, the musicians place themselves in a half circle and primarily communicate by elbowing each other. “We have a lot of ideas in the back of our heads right now. The next five years have already been planned out.” Krebs is currently working on a fugue that is meant to project different tunes into the audience.” (Q: Hilker)
