Studio Dan was founded in 2005 as an ensemble at JazzWerkstatt Wien. Initially, the artists focused on creating an instrumental ensemble with flexible performance possibilities, today they form a multidisciplinary artistic production collective. During the concert at the Musica Electronica Nova festival, they will premiere Paweł Hendrich’s work, as well as compositions by Oxana Omelchuk and Juan Pablo Trad Hasbun.

The Just a Little Beat is the first piece written by Paweł Hendrich for Studio Dan. The specificity of this band lies in its members being traditionally trained classical musicians, as well as improvisers and jazzmen. Thus, the work is a notated composition in terms of form and content, but it also contains equally important elements of improvisation on the sound material defined by the composer. Therefore, the musicians will be able to fully use their potential. In the piece, the composer uses techniques (sound production and rhythm construction) derived from popular and club music in an innovative way. The work will be an example of a mind-boggling interpenetration of popular music genres with the content and form of contemporary music – in principle largely distant from each other.

“My unflagging interest in the impermanence of things, reflected in my research on music from the past, leads me this time to the history of the recordings. The material from which they were created, the various paces of their reproduction, the discovery of unknown names, exciting stories, and above all, the unknown musical repertoire are at the centre of my composing interests,” says Oxana Omelchuk about the Wow and Flutter for two solo trombones and ensemble. The duo vibrante Altera Nudos vacantes for theremin, bass guitar and Juan Pablo Trado Hasbun’s ensemble was created especially for the line-up of Studio Dan in 2020. The term duo vibrante refers to the two electronic instruments in the group, the electric bass and the theremin, which, while exhibiting opposite characteristics, have similar applications at the same time. The duality between the Duo and the Nudos is no less important. The Nudos vacantes represent the ensemble’s acoustic instruments that respond to the development of electronic sounds during the performance of the work. When interacting with each other, the metaphorical knots that bind them together loosen up, and the layers begin to interpenetrate.