NEWS
N.B. THIS PAGE MAY VARY IN UP-TO-DATE-NESS2024-----------------
MARCH 21
Some documentation of my GRM/Reimagine Europe commissioned work for cello and tape is up online.
2023------------------
JUNE 22
In Australia to perform for Liquid Architecture and this very generous and in depth profile/portrait piece by the amazing Amy Cimini just went up on their Disclaimer journal <3
https://disclaimer.org.au/contents/judith-hamann-s-spectral-ministration-hums-shakes-saws-and-other-sounds
Show info: https://liquidarchitecture.org.au/events/la-presents-robbie-avenaim-alan-licht-and-judith-hamann
JUNE 7
This little live release just came out via the cafe oto in house digital arm of otoroku. Thanks so much to Oli and everyone at oto who was part of this! Cover drawing by Amanda Chisholm. Write up and links etc. below...
https://www.cafeoto.co.uk/shop/judith-hamann-41222/
For this set, recorded at OTO in December 2022, Judith draws from process-based materials to do with humming and shaking, and from the start there is an immediate symbiosis between voice and body, body and instrument, with the sense that the cello is not so much being played as acting as extension of the body itself.
In the opening section, Judith seemingly crafts a one-person duet between voice and cello; a simultaneous call-and-response where the relationship between the caller and responder is ever fluid and shifting. There's a generosity here in the unselfconscious intimacy of the playing, inviting the audience to witness what at first seems to be as much personal ritual as public performance. The wordless vocalisations and bowed tones circle and weave around each other, as open and ethereal as gossamer threads in sunlight.
These threads hold weight, however, and as the hummed notes fall away a greater density starts to build upon the strings; harmonics and overtones pulsing in unison as shifting long notes gradually curl and fret underneath, with clusters of notes emerging and submerging with a restless momentum. Judith dextrously combines a richly evocative, ever-evolving tonality with a lightness of touch that doesn't so much belie the impressive technique displayed across both hands, as render it moot; virtuosity is fully evident here but virtuosity is not the point.
As the intricately woven tones gradually fragment and pull apart in the final few moments of the set, there is a palpable sense that the space of the room has subtly shifted, through a sound as weightless as the air, and as full of life.”
Recorded by Billy Steiger
Mixed and mastered by Oli Barrett
Cover illustration by Amanda Chisholm
MAY 15
Terrible at updates lately but coming up soon ✨✨✨
FEBRUARY 18
Upcoming dates for the US and a v special festival in Sweden <3
2022------------------
DECEMBER 6
Hello, I am a little late making a post about this, but the latest Marja Ahti and I made is now out in the world.
You can find it here:http://www.secondeditions.org/catalog/011
Or order from usual suspects anost, soundohm, boomkat etc.Digital is available on Marja's bandcamp as well: https://marjaahti.bandcamp.com/.../a-coincidence-is...
Or order from usual suspects anost, soundohm, boomkat etc.Digital is available on Marja's bandcamp as well: https://marjaahti.bandcamp.com/.../a-coincidence-is...
There's a really generous and considered editorial piece by Bradford Bailey at Soundohmhttps://www.soundohm.com/article/marja-ahti-judith-hamann
And an interview Marja and I did together for Tobias Fischer you can read here: https://15questions.net/.../marja-ahti-judith.../page-1/
And a lovely early review from Brad Rose at Foxy Digitalis here: https://foxydigitalis.zone/.../marja-ahti-judith-hamann.../
OCTOBER 18
Marja Ahti and I made a record together for the excellent Second Editions and it’s now available for preorder at Anost, releases on Nov 25. I’m so grateful for Marja’s sounds and thinking in my life and happy this is going out into the world. Full spiel below:
Second Editions presents a new collaborative work by Marja Ahti and Judith Hamann.
After their distinguished duet ‘Portals’ for Cafe Oto's Takuroku label, ‘A coincidence is perfect, intimate attunement’ is a wonderful sophomore collaborative work pieced together over two years of changing seasons, ideas, moods, and feelings. The release is formed from a shifting field of sound correspondence that pivots on moments of coincidence, of a tuning in.
What are we opening ourselves to when we tune in to sound? How can one be truly open to a sound? How can the activity of recording move beyond notions of capture and release into more generative frames? Rather than a tool purposed for preservation or ‘conservation’ of memory, of time and place, can recording sound instead form new vibrant or vibratory spaces of attunement?
‘A coincidence..’ is an LP length composition of multiple interlocking parts, created through exchange, alignment, unpredictability: the title borrowed from poet Fanny Howe falling right into place, a flock of birds in flight, pitches matched and moved across different geographies and temporal frames. Marja & Judith have created an intuitive, lyrical longform piece that considers the idea of attunement itself as, in some sense, the smallest form of measure or denominator connecting their respective practices: across field recording, just intonation, electronic sonorities and instrumental bodies. ‘A coincidence..’ reflects a sense of a willingness to tune in to impulses given, or gifted to the other, a position that embraces an intimate synchronicity.
Recordings & correspondances between 2020-2022. Mixed by Marja Ahti & Judith Hamann. Mastered and cut by Anne Taegert at Dubplates & Mastering in Berlin, 2022. Title quotation from Night Philosophy by Fanny Howe, Divided Publishing, 2020. Photogrpahy by Joshua Bonnetta. Thanks to Nino Bulling, Niko-Matti Ahti and leo. The work was supported by Kone Foundation, Akademie Schloss Solitude and NEUSTART KULTUR.
OCTOBER 12
Yann Leblanc invited me to do my first interview published in French, and it’s a really generous profile piece, published in Lionel Marchetti’s online journal La Revue des Ressources. Thanks so much to Yann for the invitation <3
Link is here:
https://www.larevuedesressources.org/Libre-d-etre-et-de-devenir.html
AUGUST 13 In the US for a tiny visit to present some new work, and new to me work with Sarah Hennies. Performing as part of Sarah and Mara Baldwins installation/performance project at the Shaker Heritage Society, and then Sarah’s ‘The Reinvention of Romance’ at the Bemis Center in Omaha Nebraska. More details/info on the schedule page ✨
JUNE 16
I’ve recently arrived at the Amant Siena residency program where I’ll be spending the summer living and working. It’s HOT, but incredibly beautiful. Really looking forward to diving into some deeper work here after a hectic past few months. More about it here:
https://www.amant.org/residencies/siena
MAY 21
‘Mit Glück hat es nichts zu tun’ by Anike Joyce
This evening Anike Joyce Sadiq’s exhibition ‘Mit Glück hat es nichts zu tun‘ opens at Kunstlerhaus Stuttgart. I worked with Anike on this show and made a four channel sound installation repsonding to the scaffolding installation that ended up forming a key component of the show.
It’s been a lot! But such a pleasure to be part of this unfoldind and growing collaborative practice with Anike. We will also do a performance together for the opening tonight at 20:00.
More about the exhibition and Anike’s work here:
https://kuenstlerhaus.de/en/inhalt/10635/
FEBRUARY 27
BLANK FORMS RESIDENCY - MARCH 3-5
Looks like the numbers are traveling ok (touch wood!), so I'll be in residence at Blank Forms soon, performing three concerts on March 3, 4 and 5. It's been soooo long since I visited and I am so excited to be coming.
The three programs are:
March 3: Reading by the amazing Nora Fulton + Sarah Hennies piece for humming cellist and electronics, 'Loss.'
https://blankforms.org/events/judith-hamann-nora-fulton/
The three programs are:
March 3: Reading by the amazing Nora Fulton + Sarah Hennies piece for humming cellist and electronics, 'Loss.'
https://blankforms.org/events/judith-hamann-nora-fulton/
March 4: A Coffin Spray (for Jeff) + a new thing I made in response to the Jerry Hunt exhibition I'll be performing in (that I am quite nervous about).
https://blankforms.org/events/judith-hamann-2/
https://blankforms.org/events/judith-hamann-2/
March 5: Shaking Studies + Humming Suite (all the "hits")
https://blankforms.org/events/judith-hamann/
https://blankforms.org/events/judith-hamann/
All shows are masked and vaxxed pls. The venue has stairs, but please let me know if you have any access needs and I'll do what I can! xoxo
![]()
FEBRUARY 1
This week James Rushford and I are taking our new co-composed piece 'Midmeste' for cello and portative organ for a spin.
Feb 3 - Wabe, Berlin
part of Craving Coincidence, curated by Marja Ahti
in person concert 2G+
https://www.digitalinberlin.de/marja-ahti-guests-cc-no-2.../
Feb 6 - Theaterhaus, Stuttgart
part of ECLAT Festival Neue Musik
hybrid concert, in person 2G+ or streamed online via here:
https://www.eclat.org/en/konzert/midmeste/
The making of this piece was supported by and produced in partnership with Akademie Schloss Solitude and ECLAT Festival Stuttgart
JANUARY 3
Keith Prosk invited me to talk with him about my work for the excellent Harmonic Series newsletter. Even though I am very rambly and at times plain old inarticulate when I talk, I am so grateful for the amount of thought and listening and thinking that went into this interview.
The interview is up here
The interview is up here
This edition also feat. notation by Raven Chacon, and the team's trademark great music writing in reviews, including a great take on the whole 'list' genre. It really is one of the loveliest corners of online writing about this kind of music around, so completely aside from the Judith content, you should have a gander.
2021-------------------
DECEMBER 102021-------------------
New duo cassette with Joshua Bonnetta now available for preorder <3
Joshua Bonnetta & Judith Hamann "RE-RECORDER"
C30 - Canto 36
This release initiates a series of propositions between Bonnetta and Hamann exploring film sound design as a relation of anecdotal music. Each side is composed of location recordings, musical fragments, foley, in-studio recordings, outtakes, and sketches gleaned from various re-recording processes. In the absence of images, these sound propositions reflect on the possibilities of a particular form of ‘aural cinema,’ of fictional spaces constructed from the reordering and recasting of documentary and documentation.
Bonnetta: Contact mics, electronics, tape, synth, & field recordings
Ithaca & NYC. 2019-21
Hamann: Cello, Voice, Synth
Berlin. 2021
https://cantimagnetici.bandcamp.com/album/re-recorder
DECEMBER 1
En route to Oslo to perform at the new Munch Museet with the amazing Nora Fulton!
https://www.munchmuseet.no/hva-skjer-arkiv/judith-hamann/
Many thanks to Blank Forms and all at MUNCH for putting this together.
After that, on to Athens to join this wild line up:
https://www.onassis.org/whats-on/tectonics-athens-21?fbclid=IwAR268k-F6CR0sS0vmvod14czB6Jblet9fPH_ifNYX7D1NCJMwG_rDeid938
NOVEMBER 1
I’ve just relocated to start a residency at the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart, but I’ll be back a little in Berlin to say hi this month, doing the following nice things:
07/11
Nancy Mounir: “Nozhet El Nofous (Those who were not invited)”
Listening session for Berlin Jazz Festival with Maurice Louca and Uygur Vural
Silent Green, Berlin
https://www.berlinerfestspiele.de/en/berliner-festspiele/programm/bfs-gesamtprogramm/programmdetail_358017.html
13/11
Raed Yassin Phantom Orchestra (solo set)
Morphine Raum, Köpenicker Str. 147 Berlin
https://raedyassin.info/phantom-orchestra
14/11
Werner Dafeldecker ‘Neural’ peformance
Liebig 12, Berlin
http://www.liebig12.net/14-11dafeldecker-capece-hamann-heilbronn/?fbclid=IwAR1Ss6gpDGFkykE8ERRxv9xsea_YN0jUJBE9lfJkAtcCidiz7Kmn1RoVNoI
OCTOBER 20
Looking forward to beaming some cello through Anthea Caddy’s parabols at the HKW this week at The Sound of Distance
https://www.hkw.de/en/programm/projekte/2021/the_sound_of_distance/start.php
In Albi, France to made my debut as a “singer” (omg) for Riverrun festival and the Harmonic Space Orchestra’s presentation of Marc Sabat’s Gioseffo Zarlino:
https://www.gmea.net/evenement/gioseffo-zarlino
SEPTEMBER 1
SOME SHOWS
Who would have thought this sort of schedule might ever happen again?! Not me! Some upcoming things this month:
September 3
Cologne Jazz Week
performing with Stefan Schoenegg’s ENSO
Alte Feuerwache, Cologne
September 8 - 11
Ambient Festival
Performing with Alvin Lucier’s Ever Present Orchestra
St Apostlen, Cologne, and Zionkirche, Berlin
https://ambient-festival.com/ever-present-orchestra/
September 18
Antechamber
Ledreborg Slot (DK)
https://instagram.com/visitantechamber
September 24
SPACE EXPANDING: Kontraklang
Performing Catherine Lamb’s String Quartet no. 1
Villa Elisabeth, Berlin
https://kontraklang.de/concert/space-expanding/
September 30
Wunderkammer Festival
Solo set
cc Strombeek
https://www.ccstrombeek.be/podium/wunderkammer
JULY 23
A COFFIN SPRAY (FOR JEFF) OUT TODAY ON SUPERPANG
Hello, today a new piece goes out into the world via Italian label SUPERPANG. It’s called a ‘A Coffin Spray (for Jeff)’ and you can find it here:
My friend Jeff died on a winter blue moon in the midst of Germany’s eight month lockdown. Another friend whose loss we had to reckon with in covid sensitive shifts.
On the day of decorating his coffin this piece arrived that afternoon like a gift almost fully formed, moving through an intuitive uncovering of intervals in a responsive unfolding. In thinking of a mentor's adage in times of crisis, "just one breath in front of the other," here bow, breath, and entangled bodies of instrument/performer perform a sort of reiterative grounding, a leaning into material solidity or transparency of tone, following the path carved out by the sonorities of the cello: its whirring, humming and spectra; momentum and flux; moving from a grounding, into the air.
Jeff was a freelance sound designer and artist, and like so many of us who choose this way of living (oh, the precariousness) had no financial buffering post departure. We are trying to raise funds to hold a proper memorial service and cover his crematorium plot costs, so as this gift from/to Jeff goes out into the world, my bandcamp revenue will go towards this fund, in the hope we can finally gather together to send off and hold collective space for our dapper, hilarious, oh-so-dry-witted, james bond-like, plane flying, whisky (and all things good really) connoisseur, brilliant brained, generous, and much missed, trench friend.
p.s.
It feels very strange to be releasing this music today, as another close community steps into the space of shock and grief of losing Peter Rehberg.
I just saw him on Sunday. It’s very hard to process.
My heart is breaking for people I love so much including his partner Laura, his close friends, his musical/creative family.
I wish the act of a hug was a simpler proposition right now.
It’s too soon for these thoughts, I know, I’m sorry if this comes out all wrong, but I wanted to try and say something about this particular piece as something that emerged from within the folds of grief, that unpredictable creature, but that in this specific space there was something generative, and loving, something anchoring, something to breathe into, lean into. It doesn’t feel like it right now, I know, but it’s not only a heavy space, the space of grieving. This piece is not coming from a weighty darkness, but from/into an opening, something connective, a kind of movement, a gesture towards the motion of change.
I’m sorry, I am sure this is muddled and strange, and not giving either loss the space they deserve.
I’m not sure if this helps or hinders, but I suppose, perhaps it might mean something that it’s there.
JULY 9
TRACE CONSTELLATIONS OPENING DATE
tl;dr I have an installation thing opening July 17th, come say hello and question my life choices with me!
TRACE CONSTELLATIONS
Judith Hamann and the Alte Münze courtyard.
As part of a series curated by Patrick Klingenschmitt: ‘Sound on Demand’
Raum on Demand - Alte Münze courtyard
Molkenmarkt 2, 10179 Berlin
July 17, 19:00
https://www.instagram.com/raumondemand/
This installation will be viewed/heard in an outdoor open air environment, access to the courtyard is step free.
I'm honestly not sure if anything is actually going to work/sound/look in any intelligible way but I guess we'll see...?
And now for a classic me accidental essay:
‘Trace Constellations’ is a kind of sound installation as slippage, a collapsed, imaginary surface of the sonic life of the Alte Münze courtyard and the interior resonance of Raum on Demand.
I’m thinking of this as a ‘constellation’ because that kind of approach to mapping seems to hold within it the idea of multiple nodes of inquiry sharing a space with inferences and connections able to be traced into different shapes and relation.
That’s another way of saying: it’s a bunch of cats taped together really, a weird, wide ranging study of the space via:
dreamed leaf creatures, etymological trails, feedback, breath and bronchioles and rhizomes, field recordings from the listening position of plants that no longer exist, traced histories of bamboo in colonial Europe and shopping mall replications, breath, ye olde text to voice cliches, humming, large scale graphite drawings, multiple temporal metabolisms, institutional aspirations of mainstream German jazz via its so-called ‘emancipation’ from Blackness and accountability, weather, coins, haunts, and of course, there’s some cello tracings in there too.
-
During the course of its making, this piece somehow developed its own logics: primarily, that of an inquiry into what forms might emerge when something remains without its originary context; without its body or frame, when it slips outside its own temporal scaffolding. It moves towards how we might configure remainders, traces, parts, into a rendering of a new whole, how we might recast losses, ghosts, and artefacts into their own dimensions (in terms of measurements, spaces, or dwelling places).
This refers not only to things past, but the reaching for, the tending toward future iterations, or horizons. This courtyard is, in many ways a witness to the slow extinctions/extinguishing of cultural imaginaries in progress, from its past life as a coin mint ‘outside’ of capitalism in the DDR, to a future jazz centre without Black leadership or connection to local community, without reparations.
This work takes place in an attempt at a sort of blurring; of weather, uncanny layers, days and spaces collapsed then replayed, hallucinations, visions and fragments, glimpses of alternate leaky versions of now.
Using audio material generated by the Raum and Hof themselves in the form of feedback and field recordings, layered with interpretations and contributions undertaken away from the space, this work lives in a porous position, in-between document and fiction.
-
The Alte Münze courtyard and I haunted each other for a little while, leaving traces to follow in our respective absences. As much of me leaked into this space really, as it in turn leaked into my own; a courtyard nested inside my own apartment, inside a quarantine, dragging along with me as far as summer solstice permanent daylight in the north of Norway, embroidering and burnishing a ‘place, out of place.’
Povinelli asks: what if we reconsider the limits of ourselves, our bodies, how we mark out the edges of us, where we might end and the world begins, ideas of limit, contagion and entanglement. Humans often think of our skin as one limit, one sort of edge, but she asks us to consider "Where is the human body if is viewed from the lung?"
Breathing puts us in intimate relation with other systems of respiration; a leaf, green plants, bacteria, animals, microbes; it forms a porous exchange with multiple systems, eco-systems, scales, cycles and spaces. In living, we cannot avoid taking in the world, we cannot avoid breathing ourselves back out into it.
This piece is intended to be something that breathes; that allows for multiple simultaneous spaces emerging, disappearing, opening, focusing, interrupting. Something that might sneak up on you, that you may or may not really notice, depending on your timing, depending on your luck.
JUNE 21
Berlin shows
This weekend I am playing not one, but two, in person, live concerts in Berlin (!!)
June 26
Harmonic Space Orchestra - Harmony, Emptiness, SpaceWorks by Catherine Lamb, Chiyoko Szlavnics, and Marc Sabat.Konzerthaus Kleiner Saal, Berlin
https://www.konzerthaus.de/.../freiraum-harmonic.../6920
Harmonic Space Orchestra - Harmony, Emptiness, SpaceWorks by Catherine Lamb, Chiyoko Szlavnics, and Marc Sabat.Konzerthaus Kleiner Saal, Berlin
https://www.konzerthaus.de/.../freiraum-harmonic.../6920
June 27
Solo set for Music for the Cosmos (Sacred Realism)Petersburg Art Space, Berlin
https://www.facebook.com/events/562149308109672?ref=newsfeed
Solo set for Music for the Cosmos (Sacred Realism)Petersburg Art Space, Berlin
https://www.facebook.com/events/562149308109672?ref=newsfeed
WILD
JUNE 2
Best of Bandcamp, May 2021
Such a lovely surprise that this piece is on best of bandcamp experimental this month. Thanks so much to Longform Editions and Alan Jones for your support in bringing this piece into the world. Thanks to Marc Masters for listening.
https://daily.bandcamp.com/.../the-best-experimental...
Some days I still think that the accompanying essay is comparable/a necessary compliment/perhaps even stronger in some ways (?) to the sounds, but I also like that they exist alongside each other, companion species.
APRIL 14
Longform Editions - Hinterhof
Hello, I made a piece for Longform Editions which is out today. I feel incredibly lucky to be a part of this edition's cohort of artists: Angel Bat Dawid, r beny, and Theodore Cale Schafer and their beautiful pieces. I want to say a big thank you to Longform Editions whose approach to bringing these new durational works in the world is so wonderful, and to Alan F Jones (Laminal Audio), as well as the friends whose voices threaded their way into this piece.
As is my tendency at the moment, I accidentally wrote an “essay”
about the piece and its process, and also answered some questions about listening from the LE folks.
Maybe it says something if you need a lot of words to explain a piece? Maybe that something is not always a negative shading, perhaps it's nice sometimes to have something brought alive in a different way through text and context? I'm not sure honestly, but you can read ALL about it over here:
Maybe it says something if you need a lot of words to explain a piece? Maybe that something is not always a negative shading, perhaps it's nice sometimes to have something brought alive in a different way through text and context? I'm not sure honestly, but you can read ALL about it over here:
https://longformeditions.bandcamp.com/track/hinterhofor here: https://longformeditions.com/editions/hinterhof
(excerpt below)
"What does it enact to share a quotidian sonic space, to hear the same reflections, frequencies, and contours, even if mediated by windows and floors, ceilings and walls? More specifically to this time perhaps, what does it do or comment on in relation to questions of isolation? Can you consider yourself part of a community that is framed only by a shared listening experience? Is it possible to feel a sense of solidarity or belonging despite our atomised apartment living, via what we hear?
I know that this space for listening has affected the shape and the weight of my own loneliness this winter lockdown, in the way one might bounce its heft on your palm like a stone, feeling its material loading, its density, contours, and textures. I also think about the kinds of poverty and density of living which this house would have once held. The listening space of this hinterhof was designed for a particular class and economic strata of people, so in some ways, we are all listening through an old instrument: a sonic space whose resonance is defined via a residual architecture of inequality, intended for a very different audience."
APRIL 5
Goose Apparitions for Audiograft Festival 2021
Flight Path No.1, 2021
I'll be showing some of my works-in-progress research on 'Goose Apparitions' for Audiograft Festival's online 2021 edition. I'm in such beautiful company in this festival, alongside friends and people whose work I adore including Sally Ann McIntyre, claire rousay, Clara de Asís, Nisha Ramayya, Lucía Hinojosa Gaxiola, Tomoko Sauvage, a.hop collective feat Bonnie Jones, Ryoko Akama, Anne F. Jacques and many more superstars, and even more wonderful things! Thank you so much to Patrick Farmer for inviting me to be a part of this and for encouraging me to me let my childhood bird enthusiast self run completely wild.
LINK: http://www.audiograft.co.uk/
Official text: Judith presents a collection of embryonic explorations falling under the broader umbrella of 'goose studies,' collating recent writing, performing, and thinking about geese. Drawing on research begun during a three month period sharing an island in Finland with a host of barnacle geese last year, thinking-with barnacle geese calls into question how we construct, and in turn how we might dissolve or alter how we perceive categories, marvels, and time. Here, Judith collects together work-in-progress fragments, responding to geese in all their simultaneous holding together of gaggle and skein, tangled and clear, mirabilia and mundane, they become (and in turn Judith also becomes) apparition, mark makers, maps, haunts.
Skein Map No.1, 2021
Most of this work is in contexts/forms that I'm not sure I am at all competent in: drawings, writing, video, speaking. I also tend to feel super uncomfortable showing things that are 'unfinished,' and I am wary of being overly naive about this research and the forms it has taken. In otherwords, I feel *quite* nervous about it really, but if you'd like to listen to/read/view a constellation of things about skeins and labyrinths, haunting and trace, flight paths and satellites, agency, horizons, tendencies and desires, contradictory animals, and barnacle geese as a potential way of cutting across historically positivist European systems of scientific thinking about the distinction between life and non-life, then have a look xo
February 15
Days Collapse at Barents Spektakel
These pieces will be presented in an installation for this magical festival on the border of Norway and Russia. I’m wishing so much I could be there in person!
More info about the wonderful company these pieces are in can be found here:
https://www.barentsspektakel.no/lydstua/
2020------------------
December 18
Free Jazz Collective
I did a really lovely interview with Fotis and there were also some nice reviews, you can find them here:
interview - humming - shaking
November 18
Days Collapse
This last solo release of the year is officially out in the world <3
There a detailed interview and more information about the record over here:
http://www.anothertimbre.com/judithhamann.html
Immense thanks to Simon Reynell at Another Timbre for asking me to do this ‘quarantine commission’ for Another Timbre, to Alan F. Jones at Laminal Audio for your detailed and generous work midwifing this record, to Liene Pavlovska for your beautiful painting of Suomenlinna, HIAP for hosting me through the strange spring, and Creative Victoria.
October 15
Press
Look, I’m very bad at these things generally, but it seems there’s a little flurry of kind and lovely things emerging in the last 24 hours and so I thought it would be worth mentioning them here.
First of all, the amazing Sarah Hennies is the subject of a beautifully put together article in the New York Times by Steve Smith. He was kind enough to ask me a little about Sarah’s piece for cello, humming, and electronics ‘Loss’ which will be part of my forthcoming Blank Forms release, and there’s even a little quote from me in the article. You can find it here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/15/arts/music/sarah-hennies-composer.html
Also, Lousie Gray wrote a lovely long review of all three solo records which have emerged in the last short while for the Wire Magazine’s November issue. Here is a snippet of the start and end so you also get to see that Sarah and I are review neighbours this month (cute):
ANNND, Vanessa Ague was very patient with me and talked to me a bit about life and all three solo records for Tone Glow, whose interviews are always so good I felt like I let the team down by being so boring! But you can read that here:
https://toneglow.substack.com/p/035-judith-hamann
Thanks to Black Truffle and Blank Forms for all your support in putting these records out and I just hope people who make the time to listen get something from them. I feel like that ‘DOES ANYONE NEED SOME EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC’ meme right now.
October 13
Harmonic Space Orchestra
In many ways, as the numbers climb in Berlin and restrictions tighten around us, it feels like some strange miraculous thing that in a few days we will begin a week-ish long festival of just intonation and micro-tonal music here. It’s been such a rich, rewarding thing to emerge from my time in strict isolation in Finland into this group of people and sound makers, to swim around in the electricity of just tuned chords. It’s been all consuming but also a very beautiful thing. The full set of James Tenney’s Postal Pieces will be realised at the KINDL concert, and then I’ll be playing chamber music works by Chiyoko Szlavnics, Fredrik Rasten, Marc Sabat, and of course more Tenney with an incredible group of friends and performers.
More about it all can be found over here: https://www.harmonicspace.org/
August 19
BLANK FORMS SOLO RELEASES
Shaking Studies LP, Music for Cello and Humming CD
Hello, this is a post about the release of these records, announced for preorder today on Blank Forms. They are linked, sister records under one umbrella release, documenting the work I have been focused on the past few years in my solo cello performance practice, and include Sarah Hennies substantial and magical solo for humming cellist and electronics ‘Loss’.
Shaking Studies - LP
Music for Cello and Humming - CD
If you have seen me play solo in the past few years it was most likely material from one of these two projects: I would have either been shaking or humming.
There is so much I could say about them, but I’m finding it hard to know which things it should be.
I’ve dragged my feet a long time making a solo cello focused record, I think mostly because I am unsure how to make a convincing work object which documents a living, constantly shifting performance practice, which is about navigation of material between bodies in real time. This is me trying to do that, and I am still unsure if I have managed it, or if it’s even possible, but I feel like I got close.
It is also a real act of vulnerability for me in many ways putting these things out in the world, because I do love this performance based work. I mean that in the sense of having a loving relationship with/to this work. We have been through a lot together. I am vulnerable and uncertain about it because it is so very close to me, it’s woven from the threads running closest to the core of the person I am when I’m playing the cello, which is perhaps the most-myself and most-not-myself I can be simultaneously.
I know it’s a lot of solo Judith all at once with the other things coming out too, but the pandemic has shuffled many things around and dates and records seem to me the most innocuous casualties of its dramatic reordering.
Sorry I always write too much.
It really did take a village to make this happen so I want to say thank you so much to Sarah Hennies for your piece ‘Loss’, and to Anthony Pateras for ‘Down to Dust’. Immense thank you to Casey Rice and Leo Abrahams for capturing these sounds and supporting me in such profound and beautiful ways, I love you both very much. To Alan F Jones Laminal Audio and Werner Dafeldecker for your work with me on this material, you legends.
Thank you to Rachel Yezbick and Karla Pringle for shaking with me over the past few years, to Jessika Kenney for all your sphymogological guidance well before I realised what I was even doing, to Nora Fulton for your beautiful notes.
You can read the notes here: https://blankforms.org/wp-content/uploads/Liner-notes-by-Nora-Fulton.pdf
Thank you to Patricia Leite for your paintings, Josephine Rowe for dream poem manifestations, Yvette Jackson for the magick, Samuel Ekkehardt Dunscombe for the 414, Patrick Ward and Alexander Garsden for your ears and encouragement, Oren Ambarchi and Crys Cole and Laura Siegmund for providing me with a place to live and work through the last winter, all at HIAP Suomenlinna, Gabrielle Karlsén Beretta at EMS, Alexandria Smith and Jessica C. Flores from the UC San Diego music department, Joshua Bonnetta for always cracking a lean and believing in me and for the gift of the clinking recording, to James Rushford and Charles Curtis for everything, I am so grateful. Thank you to Lawrence and all at Blank Forms for helping me realise this as recorded work and for all your support in bringing it into the world.
I finished making this earlier this year in the shadow of losing a friend and mentor, and strangely now am releasing it into the world mourning another. There is so much loss folded into this work, old worn cornered kinds and some fresh aches.
I was reading David Rattray’s essay on Lecomte this morning and was thinking about this line from the Metaphysics of Absence:
“Rhythm is movement linked to absence…
…Life is a fragile hybrid pulsing, instant by instant, between being and nothingness”
These records are about lots of things, but today these feel like a tangible part of it: a braiding of pulse, absence, tenderness.
August 8
PEAKS
Hello, this is the cover of my first solo electro-acoustic record 'Peaks' which is available for preorder from yesterday on Black Truffle.
There’s so much to say, but mostly I want to say massive thank yous to Oren Ambarchi for all your support, and to Alan F. Jones at Laminal Audio for all your work ❤️ I’m such a lucky Judy.
Part of this record was made/recorded at Ano Syros so big thanks to Danae Stefanou and Ioannis Kotsonis and my incredible sounding paths cohort. I made this record in the evenings of my Krems residency, big thanks to Paula Linger and Jo Aichinger for hosting me there.
It’s available for preorder here:
https://blacktruffle.bandcamp.com/album/peaks#https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a1428452500_10.jpg
https://kompakt.fm/labels/black_truffle/releases
https://forcedexposure.com/SearchResult.html?SearchType=Basic&Type=artist&Key=judith%20hamann
In February 2019 I arrived at a residency in Krems, where I had a relief cry on arrival as it was the first time I'd had my own space and stopped traveling for well over a year. I was really in the heart of what I now look back on as my permanent-state-of-exhaustion phase. I had a reasonably serious work agenda there to do with cello things, lots of reading, some writing, but in the evenings I took advantage of the fact I had monitors and started noodling around with recordings I'd gathered over the years, from when I lived in San Diego, and from the complete madness of my no home tour life the past few years.
This record was made in that time, quite quickly, like a flash flood and I think that I quite like that it has found its way into the world just now: now that we don't travel, we don't tour, now that I sort of live somewhere for the first time in a long time, to put out a record that was in part driven by homesickness for California and itinerant restlessness, that's making was facilitated and restricted by a limited time frame in a temporary "home."
Musically this sort of started in bits and pieces with something akin to studies in ambient music/concrete cliches, trying to understand how to do and make certain things, but perhaps I am just a real sentimental pop musician at heart, because I grew to love them. It's nostalgic, I think, in the Homeric use, in the sense of the 'pain of homecoming.'
June 7
Geography update
I’ve arrived in Berlin after having to leave Finland. It’s a difficult time to move countries, sure, but nothing compared to the pain and grief being carried by Black folks in my former home of the United States right now. I feel this moment as a real moment of reckoning for my birth place, so-called Australia as well, which has been largely disengaged and unmoved by Blak deaths at the hands of police for a long time.
There are so many places I would encourage peple who might be reading this to donate, to listen, to read, to learn, to stand up, to have the difficult conversations, to be the killjoy at the dinner party, to argue to defund the police and abolish prisons, to mourn, to support, to grieve publicly, to educate yourself, to do this work ev-er-y-day. I’m going to put some things here, which I will probably update over time. Now is a time for centring and lifting up Bla(c)k voices.
I’ve been posting a lot of resources for white folks to get educated and keep working on my instagram, and some more wordy, petition-y stuff on my facebook, but here are some things:
Bigger umbrella resources for actions/donations/bail funds/justice
USA
Black Lives Matter USA: https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co
National Bailout: http://nationalbailout.org/
AU
Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance WAR: https://www.facebook.com/WARcollective/
National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services: http://www.natsils.org.au/
Pay The Rent: https://paytherent.net.au
Sisters Inside Bail fund: https://gf.me/u/x3x2a4
LGBTQI funds and orgs led by or focused on BIPOC
USA
The Okra Project (Black Trans support) https://www.theokraproject.com/
The Marsha P Johnson insitute https://marshap.org/
LGBTQ - Freedom Fund: www.lgbtqfund.org
The Trevor Project: https://www.thetrevorproject.org/
AU
Black Rainbow http://www.blackrainbow.org.au/
Sources to LEARN (please please credit and PAY Black folks for their labour in putting together these resources where you can)
For scaffolding anti-racism education:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PrAq4iBNb4nVIcTsLcNlW8zjaQXBLkWayL8EaPlh0bc/preview?pru=AAABcrmSWg0*DGlqxREci3iNQuzetJK9mA#
For a fabulous anti-rascism resource with less scaffolding:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/10KQLLE8hXksOj0QK4DJMFRm4idQ9CuGLpiS6dWuAfpk/edit
Black artists and labels to support on Bandcamp list:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1OIUBp4kFxmpWJihhq6WLwJQR1Am4DsD59bEYlJZxeGY/htmlview?usp=sharing&pru=AAABcqVgZAE*Liusbx4IHxqJsSS8QdRLng#
Sherwood Forest Zine Library (AMAZING collection of zine on racism, abolition, police, activism and justice)
https://www.sherwoodforestzinelibrary.org/recently-added-pdfs-links?fbclid=IwAR0USYXRkf6MKZgT89cWpQRf9P01p7FjHwtQ-x6Nrzvx0sOOIwIpjKCANqs
MAY 27
Portals out today
Experimental music treasure Cafe Oto have recently launched an online label TakuRoku to support the venue and artists during COVID times, and I was lucky enough to collaborate with the magical Marja Ahti on this project for it. It’s been one of the great joys of this strange spring, sending recordings back and forth with Marja, and I’m so glad to be able to share it. Link below.
https://www.cafeoto.co.uk/shop/marja-ahti-judith-hamann-portals/
Swedish-Finnish composer/sound artist Marja Ahti and Australian cellist/composer Judith Hamann developed Portals collaboratively from their respective lockdown spaces in Finland, sending recordings back and forth across the eastern most arm of the Baltic sea from Turku to Suomenlinna. Their lines of acoustic & electronic sound pull each other through different composite terrains, revealing imaginary scenery and creating a palimpsest of geographies and time. Akin to film-maker Andrei Tarkovsky's focus “on the pressure of time", Marja and Judith give weight to each frame of sound’s internal narrative, letting each move slowly from land to island, sea to forest, mundane to remarkable, domestic to public, as if caught in dream motion. As the title suggests, the release offers frames, or windows into Marja and Judith's combined hearing, into spaces they've created together during this time: simultaneously near and distanced.
Marja Ahti / electronics, magnetic tape, field recordings
Judith Hamann / cello, field recordings
With thanks to HIAP Suomenlinna for providing Judith with safe harbour this spring.
Cover design by Oli Barrett
MAY 11
HIAP Open Studios
The open studios event at HIAP this Spring session has gone online due to COVID restrictions, and you can find all of us and some little excerpts of things I’ve worked on while in residence over here:
https://www.hiap.fi/event/hiap-open-studios-spring-2020/
I’m particularly fond of these frottage pieces I’ve been working on, where I’m thinking about the activity of frottage as something akin to an act of recording. These pieces, like some of field recording/feedback work I’ve been working on here, create imaginary ‘recordings’ of physical space, objects, and textures, fictional landscapes. I’ve been taking rubbings of my interior walls, outdoor stone walls, trees, and rocks, making them part of the one tracing, a recording of an impossible surface.
Photos by Sheung Liu, with many thanks to HIAP
APRIL 28
Rammed Earth tests
Gravel collected from Suomenlinna and Finnish red clay
APRIL - MAY 2020
APRIL 6
Long drawing
It grows...
MARCH 29
AMPLIFY 2020 Quarantine - Erstwhile - Days Collapse...
Erstwhile wonder Jon Abbey, in collaboration with Vanessa Rossetto and Matthew Revert is curating and making some magic happen for AMPLIFY 2020: Quarantine. So far some of my favourite artists and humans have made work for this amazing project, and it’s been one of my highlights of each day during this wild time listening to each submission.
Jon was kind enough to invite me to make something and you can have a listen over here:
https://amplify2020.bandcamp.com/album/days-collapse-days-collapse-night
Or keep it forever as a lossless download here:
https://we.tl/t-LAiGMuh4Yt
Some of my favourites so far include pieces by Andie Brown, Radio Cegeste, Reinier Van Houdt, Will Guthrie, Alan F Jones, Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson, and of course super beautiful pieces by Vanessa Rossetto and Matthew Revert.
MARCH 28
A Jurist for Nothing
Out tomorrow on Gertrude Tapes, is Alan F Jones’ latest solo. It’s a beautiful record, and I am lucky to have been invited to join Al with one of my fave duo partners Lori Goldston for one special track...
It’s a hard, risky, brave time to be putting out vinyl, so please support your local record label if you can!
Check out Al’s record here:
https://thegertrudetapes.bandcamp.com/album/a-jurist-for-nothing
MARCH 21
Geography Update - COVID-19 cancellations etc.
Hi everyone, a very special Judy geography update.
I've had people writing worried whether I'm ok, which is a fair question since
a) I don't live anywhere
b) my housing is usually tied to shows
c) there are no more shows for a long time
tl;dr I'm ok-ish at the moment
STAY INSIDE - WASH YOUR HANDS - ISOLATE YOURSELVES
I am very lucky right now, because I arrived at a residency with HIAP on the island of Suomenlinna in Finland just before shit got *really* real. I have stable housing and a place to work somewhere isolated and beautiful until the end of May which is incredible anyway, but feels extra miraculous since we are in the midst of a pandemic and my respiratory system is total rubbish. All my work has been cancelled just like everyone else's and it's terrifying but I'm safe rn. So don't worry about me, at least not right now anyway.
I'm so impressed and amazed and thrilled by how quickly people are inventing new things and figuring out how to survive and make music and creating new digital spaces and thank you in particular Café OTO Fielding Hope, Ilan Volkov and Jon Abbey’s AMPLIFY 2020: quarantine for everything you've been doing/posting, it's such a help to so many people. Please check out what they're up to if you love sounds and support them and the artists they are working with/posting.
I know there's so much to worry about right now and everything is wild but if you love music please buy it directly from artists/smaller labels which are under threat particularly in places which don't have any form of healthcare or social safety nets, if you can afford it please donate your tickets from events which have been cancelled instead of asking for a refund, donate to venues/artists who are live streaming what you would have spent on overpriced pub beer at very the least!
Also if you're in a position to, please consider donating to your local domestic violence support organisations who will be really needed for people at risk in this bunkering down time, please donate to protecting first nations folks health if you're quarantining on stolen land, also to mental health orgs, and fundraisers for sex workers who are particularly vulnerable in this messed up time.
I have no idea what happens next. Thank you everyone for checking in on me it's been a brutal and sad week.
STAY INSIDE WASH YOUR DAMN HANDS
Xx
MARCH 8
HIAP Suomenlinna
I’ve recently arrived in Finland where I will be doing a three month residency at HIAP on the island of Suomenlinna. I’m thrilled to be here and looking forward to a quiet time making many things. Huge thanks to the Australia Council for the Arts for this opportunity.
These are weird times, stay safe out there, wash your hands!
FEBRUARY 5
Feb tour dates
I’ve arrived in the UK for a little quiet time in Canterbury before this run of compeltely different but all wonderful shows gets going. More details on the schedule page but coming right up...
FEBRUARY 10
Anthea Caddy + Judith Hamann, Cafe Oto, London
FEBRUARY 16
Solo performances for ‘Open Day’ Musical Ecologies (Sarah Hennies - Loss and a Shaking Studies solo set), Onassis Cultural Center, Athens
FEBRUARY 18
Solo/duo with Biliana Voutchkova, Instants Chavirés, Paris
FEBRUARY 21
Malibu + Judith Hamann, Sonic Acts Festival, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
JANUARY 18
Heiligenstadt LP
Coming out in the spring on Fragment Factory: Heiligenstadt LP with BJ Nilsen and Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson.
2019------------------
DECEMBER 5
EMS Composer in Residence
Anthea Caddy and I have been in Stockholm for a few days now, spending a week as composers in residence making new work at EMS. It’s such a wonderland at the studios here and I’m excited to be working on finishing up material for our new co-composition supported by the APRA AMCOS Art Music Fund.
I’ll be staying on for an extra few days to perform at Fylkingen on a wonderful bill hosted by the excellent folks at FRIM, more info on that here: https://www.fylkingen.se/node/2637
Anthea in her natural element: surrounded by speakers
NOVEMBER 17
One Arm Bandits
I spent the weekend with all these mates in Middletown CT recording Alvin Lucier’s cello quartet One Arm Bandits. Here we all are holding possible the best transport pick up sign I’ve ever come across. Can’t wait to hear how it all comes out.
OCTOBER 31
USA visits
I’m getting ready to head to the US for a few weeks, and I’m so looking forward to seeing so many friends and making some exciting new work, playing some shows, and doing some exciting recording projects...
First up, I’m thrilled to be performing works by Eliane Radigue with Charles Curtis for Blank Forms on November 4th in NYC. From there I spend a few days visiting my former home(s) in Southern California, before heading to Harvard to work with Yvette Janine Jackson, then Middletown CT and back to NYC to play with my favourite bagpiper David Watson. More info can be found on the schedule page...
OCTOBER 22
Upcoming German activities
I’m back in the Northern Hemisphere for a long while now, and this weekend I’m moonlighting as a ‘drummer’ with Ned Collette in the Netherlands and Germany.
Coming up fast is a huge presentation of Anthony Braxton’s Sonic Genome for the Berlin Jazz Festival at the Groupius Bau with 60 musicians from all over the world, performing a six hour realisation of this work. Should be wild.
More info can be found here:
https://www.berlinerfestspiele.de/en/berliner-festspiele/programm/bfs-gesamtprogramm/programmdetail_293795.html
OCTOBER 12
Upcoming in Birraranga/Melbourne
Doing a few things in Melbourne this week, including INLAND, an Mlab performance and artist talk, and most importantly premiering Cat Hope’s new ‘concerto’ for two cellos, choir, and electronics with cello mate Tristen Parr and the Monash University Singers.
https://www.monash.edu/mlive/whats-on/events/monash-uni-singers-talkshow/
SEPTEMBER 15
ECM 50 concert
I’m in Oslo making some new beautiful things with Mette Henriette and Johan Lindvall and on the 28th we perform for the ECM 50th Birthday festival, sharing the evening with Carla Bley Trio. It’s so lovely to be here, and many exciting things are ahead...
SEPTEMBER 3
BIFEM 2019
Heading to Bendigo today to work with my favourite string quartet, this week we’ll be developing the Australian premiere of Robert Ashley’s string quartet and pay our respects to all living creatures who inhabit dark places and who, over the years, have developed acuity in the art of echolocation (Lucier’s Vespers), among works by Katie Young and Deniz Nurhat, and a working on a new version of Ann Rosén‘s Graphite Barrier, for electronics, string quartet, and live graphite.
More info here: https://www.bifem.com.au/
AUGUST 20
Supersense
In Melbourne for Supersense Festival of the Ecstatic, performing with my loves Golden Fur, and as a trio with Rully Shabara and Tony Buck. There are so many incredible artists traveling to Melbourne for this festival, I’m so looking forward to these treats.
More information here: https://www.artscentremelbourne.com.au/supersense-festival
JUNE 22
TURA Sonus Tour
I’ve been involved in TURA New Music’s regional program in the Kimberley for a few years now, and am so thrilled to be going out this year with the amazing Naomi Pigram, Mark Atkins, and Aviva Endean. I’m so lucky to get to work with these artists and people and landscapes and communities and kids in one of the most amazingly beautiful places on earth.
http://sonus19.tura.com.au/the-tour/about
The Kimberley has one of the highest indigenous suicide rates in the world, and specifically the highest indigenous youth suicide rate in the world. Numbers are already past 70 deaths for 2019. This is a crisis, and needs to be part of our national conversation, NOW. If you’d like to read more about this, please check the following links:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-17/indigenous-suicide-rates-at-crisis-levels-communities-say/10814874
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/may/14/unspeakable-how-can-australia-stop-the-indigenous-suicide-epidemic
https://theconversation.com/why-are-we-losing-so-many-indigenous-children-to-suicide-114284
JUNE 19
Dark Mofo
Touched down in Hobart yesterday and I’m so, so looking forward to playing with Mette Henreitte for Dark Mofo. There is some really magic connecting taking place in the lead up to our concert tomorrow. I think the show is sold out, but there might be some tickets on the door if you’re lucky... <3
https://darkmofo.net.au/program/mette-henriette
JUNE 6
West Coast tour
A little string of west coast happenings coming up with two of the most amazing women I know and have the immense good fortune to get to make music with: Anna Homler (in California) and Lori Goldston (for the PNW shows).
JUNE 8 - Duo with Anna Homler: Interpreting the work of Dorit Cypis
Santa Monica Prefecture, Los Angeles
JUNE 9 - Solo performance for The Unwrinkled Ear
Coaxial, Los Angeles
JUNE 11 - Lori Goldston + Judith Hamann duo
Nalanda West, Seattle
JUNE 13 - Lori Goldston + Judith Hamann + Alan F. Jones + Greg Kelley + Eric Padget + Austin Larkin
Teatro de la Psychomachia, Seattle
JUNE 14 - Lori Goldston + Judith Hamann duo
Toast, Vancouver BC
JUNE 15 - Lori Goldston + Judith Hamann duo
The Business, Anacortes
MAY 23
Up ahead
Another small announcement that is somewhat future oriented. I’ll be an artist in residence at EMS Stockholm with Anthea Caddy December 2 - 8 this year, working on a new composition for multi-channel diffusion in part thanks to the APRA AMCOS Art Music Fund’s commission of our new work.
http://elektronmusikstudion.se/composers/2019/1060-judith-hamann-anthea-cadd-ems-2-8-december-2019?fbclid=IwAR3muBAF4xTh3AIn6ZaWvQlrTO7wKIvMd-IaJ9XWt2Rh9GHltHPh5X0oLFE
Then from March 1 to May 30 2020, I’ll be an artist in residence for HIAP (Helsinki International Artist Program) on the island of Suomenlinna, Finland thanks to the Australia Council for the Arts.
I’ve never spent any time in Scandinavia so I am stoked about these upcoming jaunts.
Photo credit Martina Biagi for Tempo Reale
MAY 20
CDMX
I’ve had a magical time performing in two very special spaces in Mexico City the last couple of days: Diego Rivera’s Anahucalli Museum with Fear of the Object, and Ex-Teresa with Rogelio Sosa for his release on Substrata. Here are some photos from the Ex-Teresa show by the amazing Rhizomes Films www.rhizomesfilms.com
MAY 10
I’m thrilled to announce that Anthea Caddy and I are among the recipients of this year’s APRA AMCOS Art Music Fund. We’ll be making a new electro-acoustic work together over the rest of the year, and then touring it about to many places. We are in some wonderful company, congratulations to all the successful applicants! For more information:
http://apraamcos.com.au/news/2019/may/the-2019-art-music-fund-awards-grants-to-nine-composers-for-brave-new-works/
APRIL 27
ON THE ROAD AGAIN
I’ll be spending the next six weeks touring in the US, Mexico, and Canada. Check the shedule page for updates about shows! First up, Fear of the Object (Kjell Bjorgeegen and Chris Cogburn) tour in Texas and central Mexico. Kjell’s practice is centered on flicker and I, unfortunately, suffer from stroboscopic migraines, so I’ll be spending every show blindfolded.
April 27 FOTO - Austin + Martin Taxt
April 28 FOTO - Dallas
April 30 Pikelet, Los Angeles, Zebulon
May 4 FOTO - San Miguel de Allende
May 8 FOTO - Puebla
May 11 FOTO - Oaxaca City
May 16 FOTO - Mexico City + Juan J Garcia
May 17 Rogelio Sosa - Ecliptic lauch - Mexico City, Ex-Teresa
APRIL 20
Beissel
This came out a little while ago, but I only recently received the real life physical copies of this new-ish album of Klaus Lang and Golden Fur’s collaborative piece ‘Beissel’. They look gorgeous and Angie Jennings’ artwork is just stunnning. Thank you so much to Simon Reynell at Another Timbre for putting this out.
I remember the process of making this really vividly, styaing with Klaus in the Austrian Alps, getting locked in the monastery during the world cup semi-final, James and Sam swimming in the lake and DJ Solid Sounds jamming some wrong Rod Stewart tunes at the local. I’m so happy this is out in the world, and that so far, people seem to like it. Here are a couple of early reviews of the album:
Just Outside - Brian Olewnick
Boring Like a Drill - Ben Harper
Here’s a photo of James and Klaus having a light nap outside the monastery at St. Lambrecht back in 2016
MARCH 24
Alloys review
I’m a bit late posting this, but despite some inaccuracies (like the confusion between the title of my research project with Charles Curtis and my solo cello work), it’s a nice review from this month’s Wire Magazine of my record with Lori Goldston out on Marginal Frequency.
MARCH 19
MaerzMusik
I’m in Berlin for the next couple of weeks for Maerz Musik. I’m doing two great shows which happen to be the opening and closing concerts. More info on the schedule page!
https://www.berlinerfestspiele.de/de/berliner-festspiele/programm/bfs-gesamtprogramm/programmdetail_276700.html
MARCH 16
Solo touring
Porto beach feelings
MARCH 9
I’m in Berlin for rehearsals right now but I have a short, slightly hectic, but exciting stretch of travel ahead including:
March 10 - A live solo recording/filming session in London
Contact me for details if you'd like to attend.
March 12 - Playing a little Alvin Lucier with The Ever Present Orchestra
(crazy line up of magical ones on this bill includign Oren Ambarchi, Thurston Moore, John Tibury, Lucy Railton, and Jennifer Walshe)
Round Chapel, London
March 14 - Solo at DAMAS, Lisbon
March 17 - Solo at Sonoscopia, Porto
March 18 - Duo with Ingar Zach, Cruce, Madrid
MARCH 1
Bye Krems
So long and thanks for all the pastels
FEBRUARY 20
Heading to Amsterdam today to play Sonic Acts with Anthea Caddy. I’m so happy to be part of this amazing festival,in amazing company, playing at the Paradiso, and also to be fulfilling something of a dream, by performing with the GRM acousmonium.
https://2019.sonicacts.com/programme/festival-opening-21-feb
From the festival program:
“Exactly 11 years since we first had the honour of hosting them, we welcome back our friends from the National Audiovisual Institute’s Musical Research Group in Paris (Groupe de recherches musicales, Institut national de l’audiovisuel – or Ina GRM), with their legendary 80-speaker orchestra, the Acousmonium. The evening will feature commissioned works by Okkyung Lee and BJ Nilsen, a new piece by Thomas Ankersmit dedicated to Maryanne Amacher, legendary works by Dick Raaijmakers, Eliane Radigue and Régis Renouard Larivière, and acousmatic live performances by Beatriz Ferreyra, Anthea Caddy and Judith Hamann, as well as François Bonnet and Keith Fullerton Whitman.”
FEBRUARY 2
I’ve just arrived in Krems, Austria where I’ll be an artist in residence for the month of February. I am unreasonably excited about having my own space to work and live for this time period, once I get through the exhaustion of that last couple of months! I’ll be working on some writing connected to an ongoing discourse based project with Charles Curtis, new solo cello work, and developed some recorded/fixed media projects.
More information about the residency can be found here:
https://www.air-noe.at/de
JANUARY 17
Alloys - Lori Goldston and Judith Hamann
coming soon on Marginal Frquency
https://marginalfrequency.bandcamp.com/album/mfcd-e-alloys
Postscript (Jan 29)
Lovely write up by Steve Smith on the National Sawdust Log here
https://nationalsawdust.org/thelog/2019/01/25/on-the-record-January-25-2019/?fbclid=IwAR2upc2ddc56Gm7YOiN9CEbRR84KrcQ3mTqSs5vK56wAzsZpn2m_iX84wG8
JANUARY 1
After the longest new years day ever (40 odd hours, the magic of time travel!) I’m going to bed in California. Very excited about upcoming projects here with some incredible musicians. The next few weeks are making me more excited about playing ‘pieces’ than I have been in a long time...
Details on the schedule page but also here:
JANUARY 14
Monday Evening Concerts
Performing Sarah Hennies ‘Contralto’
Zipper Hall, Los Angeles
http://www.mondayeveningconcerts.org/jan-14-2019--contralto.html
JANUARY 16 & 17
He Pūtōrino Mākutu (a magic flute): a taonga pūoro puppet opera
With original music by: Rob Thorne (Ngāti Tumutumu), Celeste Oram and Alex Taylor
Hearing the Future Festival - San Diego Symphony
The Sandbox, San Diego
more information here:
https://purchasing.sandiegosymphony.org/single/psDetail.aspx?psn=7176
2018------------------
DECEMBER 2
Winging my way to Mexico City for this excellent thing. So happy to be returning!
NOVEMBER 10
I’ve retrurned to Southern California for a short stretch, the first trip to the US since getting a new artist visa for the US and I am slightly overwhelmed by just how wonderful it feels to be back, how much I’ve missed it, how complex it feels on telescopic level, personal, social, community, professionally, artistically, politically, activism-ally.
I’ll be playing a few shows in SoCal, then heading off to Chicago, Ithaca, Baltimore, and Mexico City over the next few weeks. One very special thing I’ll be doing here, is a performance of La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela’s The Melodic Version (1984) of The Second Dream of The High-Tension Line Stepdown Transformer from The Four Dreams of China (1962) in Dream Light as part of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Fluxus Festival at Walt Disney Concert Hall. I feel very lucky to have the opportunity to work with Charles Curtis, Jung Hee Choi, and Ben Neil among many others to bring this realization into being, and to revisit this work again.
More info on that here: https://www.laphil.com/events/performances/216/2018-11-17/fluxus-fluxconcert/
And more info on upcoming shows in Northern America on the schedule page.
SEPTEMBER 20
Temporary Berlin
I’m spending the next little while in Berlin while certain life questions and concerts and visa paperwork all being works in progress plants me in something of a limbo state. However, there’s much to be working on and seeing and doing here, and I’m keeping busy preparing for the premiere performance of Sarah Hennies’ new work ‘Loss’ for humming cellist and electronics on October 7th, as well as a short jaunt to London to play a solo set for Silver Road Presents. More info in the schedule section. Here’s to Autumnal splendour, leaves and hail.
AUGUST 8
Resident of the Forest
I’ve been fortunate enough to be invited to undertake a two week artist in residence work period at the Cooroora Institute on the Sunshine Coast. It is so beautiful up here, and I’m excited about the work underway in collaboration with artist Karla Pringle, as well as having the opportunity to develop some new cello work. Some photos below...
My immense thanks to the Australian Cultural Fund for making this residency possible.
JUNE 20
Australia time
I've arrived back in Australia (very) fresh from performing in the UK. I did a sneaky solo set for the Inland Concert Series in Melbourne before heading off to the Kimberley with the Tura New Music regional tour to work in community and schools. More info here: http://narlitour18.tura.com.au/the-tour/about
After this, I'll be performing at the Avantwhatever festival in Melbourne and presenting a paper and performance on my cello based 'Shaking Studies' work at the Gender Diversity in Music Making conference at Monash University.
https://www.avantwhatever.com/festival2018.html
https://arts.monash.edu/events/event/the-gender-diversity-in-music-making-conference/
Then, finally, I'll be taking a break from touring and playing, doing some hiberation in Melbourne winter, and hopefully carving out enough space to get making again, writing, working out new material, recording even (!). Phew. It's been a wild year.
APRIL 10
Anthea Caddy and Judith Hamann at Tempo Reale, Florence
I have packed up and left the United States for good, following the completion of my doctorate at UC San Diego. Off into the wilds of the world I now go, the rest of the year a mixture of Europe and Australian adventures.
First up, a short residence period for Tempo Reale in Florence! Info on the show, and also the workshop can be found below...
http://www.musicaelettronica.it/trk-sound-club-anthea-caddy-e-juditha-hamann/
Anthea and I are extremely grateful to Creative Victoria and the Australia Council for the Arts in making this possible for us.
APRIL 3
LIVE/WORK
Coming up is the last show I'll be organising in SoCal, and it is really exciting for me to be curating an event that is focused on installation and performance based work, but not in any way sound oriented. This show will unfold throughout the live/work loft at space for art, using beds, bathrooms, laundries, parking lots, to house works that speak to ideas of a kind of porousness between domestic space and working space. Some of favourite artists and people from San Diego and Tijuana have kindly agreed to be part of this last event, and I'm so excited to see it all together in the space.
MAR 3
Julia Reidy and Judith Hamann Tour
This is sort of my "last hurrah" tour, a farewell tour if you will. Julia and I will mostly be performing solo sets of our own, but I'll also be doing some playing with people who have become really important to me over the time I've lived in the United States.
More info about Julia here:
juliareidy.bandcamp.com
julia-reidy.com
FEB 20
No Idea
I'm so honoured to be traveling to Austin to perform with this amazing collection of musicians. Very much looking forward to my first time in Texas.
http://noideafestival.com
FEB 7
RE:SOUND
I've barely been back in San Diego a second, but I'm heading to the Bay Area to perform at this amazing series that I'd always hoped to play ever since my mate Joe Cantrell told me about it. I'm looking forward to meeting A-168 (the bunker with seven second reverb), and all the Re:Sound crew.
http://www.re-sound.net
JAN 12
Heading home for the summer
I'll be in Australia doing all these lovely things with these lovely people shortly. There's more info on the schedule page but looking forward to some home time for a spell...
January 18 Ned Collette Band w/ Wirewalker + Strings - Gasometer, Melbourne
January 22 Inland Concert Series: Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello - Church of All Nations, Melbourne
January 23 Make It Up Club 20th Birthday Celebrations: trio with Clare Cooper and Bonnie Lander (plus SO many amazing friends!) - Bar Open, Melbourne
January 24 + 27 The Now now Festival: with Steve Heather and Ned Collette + with Cor Fuhler and Bonnie Lander - 107 Projects, Sydney
February 3 - 4 SoundOut Festival - Drill Hall Gallery, Canberra
2017---------------------
DEC 29
Ashering
Here are some results of the recent collaboration with Cedric Tai which premiered in Detroit recently.
Concept and Mechanisms by Cedric Tai, Score "Ashering" by Judith Hamann.
Prints from multiple performances of the score at Simone DeSousa Gallery as performed by Yuri Popowycz (Violin) and James Cornish (Trumpet)
NOV 22
Arnold Dreyblatt Tokyo Ensemble 2017
12/16 (SAT)
Super Deluxe
Arnold Dreyblatt
Jim O'Rourke
Oren Ambarchi
Konrad Sprenger
Samuel Dunscombe
Eiko Ishibashi
Judith Hamann
Toshiaki Sudo
Joe Talia
NOV 19
Shaking Studies
Many exciting ideas, developments and concepts floating around after a great weekend with friend and collaborator Rachel Yezbick. Shaking tables, hyperobjects, slow motion, accelerometers. More soon...
Photo from structural engineering lab at UC San Diego
NOV 1
Gossamers
I'm thrilled to announce my album with Rosalind Hall is almost out in the world on the wonderful caduc. Immense thank yous from both of us to Mathieu Ruhlmann, Alan Jones, and Matthew Revert for all your care, magic and contributions to this release.
Most of all, THANK YOU to the amazing Carolyn Connors. Without you, this album would not exist.
Available on Nov. 15th in an edition of 100 glass-mastered CD packaged in an outsized gatefold card stock cover with printed bookmark in a PVC sleeve.
Artwork and design by Matthew Revert
http://caduc.org/index.html
OCT 30
Upcoming PNW dates
Nov 3 (Seattle, Woodland Theater) - Duoss (long form improvised duos/trio set w/ Greg Kelley and Alan Jones)
Nov 5 (Seattle, Racer Sessions at Gallery 1412)
Nov 9 (Seattle, Earshot jazz festival at The Chapel Performance Space) with Lori Goldston
Nov 10 (Vancouver, BC, Red Gate) - Quiet City performance series solo with Dashes, Mathieu Ruhlmann + Joda Clément + Alan Jones, and Man Forever.
AUG 30
BIFEM
BIFEM is happening again. I’ll be tearing around like crazy all weekend, playing 13 pieces. Particularly exited to be playing with my beloved string quartet! Bendigo ahoy...
http://www.bifem.com.au/2017/home#