Code of Silence (2020)

Three part concert series celebrating Splitter's 10th anniversary. Code of Silence brings the collective back to its roots: large scale group improvisation. The project does however raise the bar – the musicians completely waive spoken language during the preparations.

The idea originated when Splitter questioned its habits as a group and wanted to find out how a collectively organized music sounds like, that comes into existence without the involvement of rational conversation. In the past 10 years of collective cooperation, the group developed a wide array of strategies and methods of shaping sound. Code of Silence lets them discard all concepts and improvise without speaking for one whole day – every session is recorded and the musicians listen back to the recording immediately. This process is repeated several times, on the following day the doors are being opened for a public concert that presents the results.

CoS I/III happened live on September 8th and 9th 2020 at WABE in Berlin.

Code of Silence II/III

Code of Silence III/III

Splitter Music Festival II - Counterbalance! (2019)

The second edition of Splitter Music Festival once again focuse on strategies of contemporary improvisation and progressive musical practice in the context of large scale, non-hierachic ensembles. The complex artistic disposition of the Splitter Orchester is informed decisively by dissent, disagreement and the coexistence of a multitude of more or less contradictory individual perspectives.

Thematically, the main point of focus of the second edition was on the balancing of these artistic antagonisms inside of an anarchistic, self organised group dynamic. Radical de- and reconstruction of musical concepts arise necessarily as modes of cooperation, if the result is not supposed to block out participating individual positions in the unison. The festival program fused apparent contradictions on the planes of composition, improvisation, instrumentation and spatial disposition and thus lead musicians and audiences alike in previously uncharted terrain.

Program

November 22nd 2019

Skills: ENTHUSIASM (2019, world premiere) for Splitter Orchester
Magnus Granberg: Let Past My Weary Guiltless Ghost (2019, German premiere) for Skogen

November 23rd 2019

Splitter Orchester: Vortex (2019, world premiere)
Oren Ambarchi / Will Guthrie: Live Set

November 24th 2019

Continuum / Big Circus (2019, world premiere)
four hour durational concert installation by and with Splitter Orchester, Skogen, Skills, Oren Ambarchi, Will Guthrie