Trio Transmitter

More than just an ensemble for contemporary music, Trio Transmitter is a group of explorers which dauntlessly transcends all disciplines, mixing science and art with relish.

– Tomas Fitzel, rbbKultur

 

Trio Transmitter is an innovative new music ensemble that presents inventive concert programs and interdisciplinary performances. It’s three members are internationally touring instrumentalists, composers, and music theater performers.

The ensembles focusses on world premiers of new compositions which often have a performative character. In close collaboration with composers or as composer-performer-pieces they create works that are distinctively written for the Trio.

In 2022, musica aperta took place in Berlin’s KunstRaum Niculescu with the support of inm Berlin, featuring music notated in graphic form, a panel discussion and an art exhibition of musical graphics.

In 2021, the ensemble received a working grant from the Musikfonds, within the framework of which they realised an interactive music theatre video that explores the boundaries between new music concert, streaming performance and video gaming.

Invited by Kontraklang Berlin in 2020, Trio Transmitter presented Benedikt Bindewald’s piece Hochhäuser voller Menschen (high-riss houses full of people) – a miniMUSIKTHEATER, which reflected on the current experience of the lockdown and included a live video projection of Bindewald, who was trapped in Israel because of the Covid19 regulations at the time. 

In 2019 the Trio presented an interdisciplinary three-part concert performance: Cells, Sounds & breeding Souls. Developed in cooperation with Bio Artists Fara Peluso and Margherita Pevere, the series was sponsored by a grant from Haupstadtkulturfonds Berlin. They investigated the life cycle of an artwork: its creation, reception and deconstruction from the perspective of contemporary music and artistic-scientific exploration of living materials. The series included world premiers of Peter Ablinger. Neo Hülcker and Christian Vasquez a.o. 

2016 saw the release of the Trio’s CD camera obscura on NEOS Music presenting solely world premiere recordings. The music had been developed for the concert evening Transmitter 2015 which was funded by the initiative neue musik berlin and included world premieres by Hana Hartman, Nuria Núñez Hierro and Markus Wettstein a.o.

In 2012 the ensemble made its debut at the International Umlaut Festival, where they premiered Florian Bergmann’s Lebst du schon? – eine multimedial composition, which combined instrumental music with electronic sound production, slide projections and performative actions.

Florian Bergmann

Florian Bergmann (born 1984 in Berlin) is a composer, multi-instrumentalist and performer. He is artistically at home in a broad spectrum of contemporary music, ranging from new music and contemporary music theatre to experimental jazz and improvised music. He studied at the Hanns Eisler School of Music and the Berlin University of the Arts from 2004 to 2009.

His catalogue of works includes pieces for instrumental ensembles, chamber orchestras, solo instruments, music and dance theatre, for children and young people, for interdisciplinary formats and for various jazz formations. In 2022 he received an individual grant from the Musikfonds for the composition of the music theatre piece “Knots” and in 2021 a working grant from the Berlin Senate of Culture for his solo cycle “Alone Together” as well as a composition grant from the German Orchestra Foundation for his electro-acoustic research series “Sonic Essence”. Bergmann worked as an arranger for the production “Stadt der Arbeit” by the Neue Philharmonie Westfalen in 2021 and as co-composer and orchestrator for the production “Dunkel ist die Nacht, Rigoletto!” by the Bielefeld Philharmonic Orchestra in 2020. As a composer, co-director and performer, he realised the music theatre performances “Bubbles” (2022) and “Klangquadrat” (2017) at the Theater o.N. in Berlin. In 2012, his interdisciplinary performance “Perspectives” was shown at Ballhaus Ost (Berlin).

In 2011 he composed the music for the contemporary dance piece “The Wood Project “Bergmann plays as a (bass) clarinettist and saxophonist in various formations, including at the Acht Brücken Festival Cologne, Festival D’Automne à Paris, Grec Festival Barcelona, Munich Biennale, Musiktheatertage Wien, Glatt&Verkehrt Krems, Multiphonic Festival Cologne, Unerhörte Musik & Kontraklang Berlin, Philharmonie & Konzerthaus Berlin and also throughout Europe, the USA, Brazil, Taiwan and Singapore. In 2011, he was awarded the Hanns Eisler Prize for contemporary interpretation. Bergmann has worked as a theatre musician and performer at various major theatres, including Deutsche Oper Berlin, Berliner Ensemble, Deutsches Theater Berlin, Nationaltheater Weimar, Theater o.N., Teatro della Tosse Genoa, Radialsystem Berlin and Neuköllner Oper.

 

Alba Gentili-Tedeschi

Italian pianist Alba Gentili-Tedeschi’s dedication to contemporary music and interdisciplinary art has thrived in her home base of Berlin. Always searching for new ways to expand her art, Alba explores meaningful artistic collaborations with composers, actors and visual artists.

Alba has performed at festivals such as the Münchener Musiktheaterbiennale, FirenzeSuonaContemporanea, Rainy Days, Infektion!, Kontraklang und Unerhörte Musik Berlin, and in venues such as Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Tonhalle Zürich, Lingotto Turin, Grande Théatre Luxembourg, Staatsoper Berlin, Komische Oper, Neuköllner Oper, Volksbühne, Haus der Kulturen der Welt Berlin. She has won competitions for both classical and contemporary music and given the world premieres of numerous compositions.

Alba is a core member of Opera Lab Berlin, a collaborative ensemble for contemporary opera and theater. Since Sciarrino’s “Macbeth” in 2014 Alba has being regularly engaged by the Werkstatt der Staatsoper Berlin, both as pianist and performer. After starring in Manos Tsangaris’ “Abstract pieces”, her latest collaboration has been in 2020 in “La piccola Cubana” by Henze – up until the production had to be interrupted because of the pandemic.
As a dedicated chamber musician, Alba performs frequently across Europe as part of the clarinet and piano Duo Kermani-Gentili, whose critically acclaimed CD “Ode an die Rhapsodie” has been released in 2018 on the Genuin label.

Alba studied piano with Silvia Rumi and composition with Irlando Danieli at the “Giuseppe Verdi” Conservatory in Milan. After graduating with first class honors at Milan’s Conservatory, in 2006 she moved to Berlin for further studies with Linde Großmann at the Universität der Künste. She received her Diploma in 2011, as well as completing studies with Piero Rattalino at the solo Academy “Incontri col Maestro” in Imola-Italy. Since 2020 she holds a teaching position at the UdK Berlin.

Benedikt Bindewald

Benedikt Bindewald is a violinist, performer, composer, and wandering musician. Born in Frankfurt/M, grown up in Kalbach near Fulda, studied violin in Berlin and Bremen, studies composition in Berlin, played with Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Bremer Philharmoniker, Ensemble Zwischentoene Berlin, Lunaire Quartett, Robert-Walser-Quartett (before: Lautlos-/Hodler-Quartett), Maulwerker and a lot of other groups, performed in Schauspielhaus Zürich, Philharmonie Berlin, HAU Berlin, Schauspielhannover and all the wonderful places with smaller names, loved/s to work with Ruedi Häusermann, Daniel Ott, Dieter Schnebel, Thomas Klug, Misha Bolourie, Till Wyler von Ballmoos, Younghie Pagh-Paan, Rilli Willow and all the great people still less famous right now, invented pieces like PLASTIKFLUT (plasticflood), 48 hours NEUKÖLLN ECHT LIFE TELEVISION, and many others, works together with Die Auster Bunny, Ensemble Meitar and Castle in Time Orchestra (Tel Aviv), Duo Mobile, Trio Transmitter,  Henosode-Quartett and Jerusalem Street Orchestra at the moment, sometimes hikes alone with his  violin apart from usual hiking trails, knowing that the fast way is not always the good way.

Nikolaus Schlierf

Nikolaus Schlierf is at home as a violist and tenor in contemporary as well as baroque and early and medieval music.
 He received his musical training with the Regensburger Domspatzen.

He initially studied viola in Nuremberg with DR.H.Kohlhase and in Frankfurt with Pr.J.Heyer and completed his studies in Freiburg with J.Lüthy and Garth Knox. He studied chamber music with H. Beierle and W. Levin in Basel. During this time he was also a founding member of the Ensemble Resonanz.

In 2001 he played the world premiere of “Requiem for Viola Solo” by B. Guckelsberger at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, 2002 Cd recording.
 In 2003, together with M. Schlabes and H. Koloska, he won 1st prize in the Hanns Eisler Competition for Interpretation.
 From 2006 to 2022 he played in the SonarQuartett Berlin.
As a solo performer, he explores the transformation of natural sounds into music and the emergence of musical phenomena, e.g. in his own work “Evolution” a sound journey from noise to art song.

2022 debut as Evangelist in Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, and 2023 in the Passion by H. Schütz.