The cyclical sound environment is sound installation, an instrument and a system to amplify and transform sound through the physical characteristics of matter. It harvests the sound of voice and piano, and transforms it into physical vibrations in the ice, metal, and wood elements of the installation. These vibrations transmit a physical trace of music into the matter. This trace is picked up by contact microphones, geophones, and hydrophones embedded in the material, and amplified for the audience to listen from within the ice, metal, and materials.,

In a performance and installation Andrew will present the installation, sonified climate data, with the music of Franz Schubert in one of China’s premiere music and technology festival with pianist-artistic researcher Marlene Heiß, video artist Daniele Lucchini, and media artist Nova Krause.

music: Franz Schubert
poetry: Wilhelm Müller
bass: Andrew Munn
piano: Marlene Heiß
live electronics: Nova Krause
projection & video design: Daniele Lucchini
cyclical sound environment & data sonification: Andrew Munn
field recordings: Ludwig Berger (glacial recordings), Sabrina Bühn, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Kilian Jörg, Daniele Lucchini, Andrew Munn.
neck piece research, design, and creation; aesthetic consultation: Margherita Pevere
environmental data: Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule in Zürich, Institute for Interdisciplinary Mountain Research at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Centers for Environmental Information*
technical advice: Samuel Hertz, Timo Kreuser, Phønix16, Sebastian Reuter
DigiMuse producer: Qingqing Ji

The cyclical sound environment was developed in residencies and working periods at Sansusī Festival, Henry Miller Library (Big Sur), and A Circle Studio in Berlin.

Andrew will join the erhu player and electronic musician, Yang Wang, for a workshop and artist talk at the Goethe Institut Shanghai to conclude a three-week residency to bring environmental histories of the Yangtze and Danube Rivers in conversation with one another in a collaborative research and performance project that melds practices from European chamber music, traditional Chinese music, electronic music, field recordings, data sonification, and sculptural sound installation.

The event is in two parts, a small group workshop for participants to experiment with techniques of data sonification and material resonances, and an artist talk and presentation for the public.

Franz Schubert’s music and Wilhelm Müller's poems  sketch a path from the familiar pains of unrequited love to a deepening sense of alienation, an irreconcilability between self and world. As it nears its 200th year, it remains a work of elegant simplicity; it carries problematic notions of masculinity; it reminds us of what winter once was; it forms an envelope for confessions; sometimes it is mistaken for an invitation to virtuosity; it is hauntingly beautiful. 

Andrew will perform the cycle with pianist Jacob Greenberg at Buddhistisches Tor Berlin. Before the performance, the center will offer a short introduction, exploring the cycle from a Buddhist perspective.

Tickets and More Information

3 to 4 voices on mono signal chains. Live tape recording. Listening and improvisation. Physical production of sound, captured on a single tape. Live auction of the sound artifact.

20nine30, upstairs. 29 Paul Lincke Ufer, Berlin

with the pianists Seoyon MacDonald and Nanxi Liu, I will present excerpts from Schubert’s Schwanengesang and Winterreise.

contact andrew.munn.bass@gmail.com for location.

With the pianist Peter Grunberg of the San Francisco Opera and Symphony, I will share a program of songs by Beethoven, Eisler, Rorem, Schubert, and Schoeck in an event that frames music in relation to contemporary questions of ecology, ethics, and technology. 

Alongside the music, I will present a miniature prototype of a sound installation of melting ice, steel, and natural materials that I have designed with the interdisciplinary production hub A Circle.

A Circle is the beneficiary of the event, and donations are invited to support our work at the intersection of music, ecology, ethics, and technology.

contact andrew.munn.bass@gmail.com for location.

Bass Soloist in Handel’s Messiah (Part 1) with the Pennsylvania Chamber Orchestra and State College Choral Society.

On November 5, 1978, something unique happened: Austria enshrined in its constitution the prohibition of nuclear energy. On the anniversary of this historic step, the collective for a Zwentendorf Holiday celebrates and demand the first ecological holiday in Austria at Vienna Museum of Folklore. Music and sound art to make the occasion is performed, curated, and created by Andrew Munn.

Download the Press Release

Treffpunkt Hollywood – Kunst im Exil

with
Elaia Quartett
Jeonghwan Kim, piano

Arnold Schönberg (1874–1951)
Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte op. 41
für bassbariton, Streichquartett und Klavier

Treffpunkt Hollywood – Kunst im Exil

with
Elaia Quartett
Jeonghwan Kim, piano

Arnold Schönberg (1874–1951)
Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte op. 41
für bassbariton, Streichquartett und Klavier

In 1942, Arnold Schoenberg, already living in exile in the United States, set Lord Byron’s satirical “Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte” to music as a pointed protest against the rise of Hitler and fascism in Europe. Andrew will join Benjamin Günst violin | Georgii Moroz violin | Seo Hyeun Lee viola | Yehjin Chun cello | Benjamin Lai cello | Marcel Mok piano for a program including Pavel Haas: String Quartet No. 3 and Dmitri Shostakovich: Piano Quintet in G minor, Op. 57 ~35'

Tickets and More Information.

Andrew will be joined by pianist Jacob Greenberg to present Berlin Verses for the conference of the Institute of Critical Theory in Berlin

Berlin Verses, adaptations of Hanns Eisler’s Hollywooder Liederbuch that bring the political questions of Brecht and Eisler into the present
An die Nachgeborenen, Hanns Eisler’s rarely heard setting of Brecht’s three part poem
Fünf Klavierstücke. Op. 23, Arnold Schoenberg

Presented with the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung.

Andrew will sing a program of chamber works by Lilia Boulanger and Elise Bertrand with fellows of the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel.

Tickets

Arnold Schoenberg composed Ode to Napoleon Bonaparte on Lord Byron’s 1814 poem condemning the tyrant on the occasion of his abdication and exile. Schoenberg composed the work for string quartet, piano, and sprechstimme in 1942 while in exile from Germany in Los Angeles.

Andrew will join musicians of the Barenboim Said Academia and Michael Barenboim in an evening of Culture and Resistance.

All proceeds will benefit the Al Jawad Camp, supporting its mission to educate displaced children in Gaza.

Andrew will sing the bass solos in Buxtehude’s Membra Jesu nostril at the Berliner Dom with the Baroque Orchestra Aris & Aulis conducted by Adrian Büttemeier.

Andrew will sing the bass solos in Bach’s Cantata Nr. 92 Ich hab in Gottes Herz und Sinn at the Berliner Dom with the Baroque Orchestra Aris & Aulis conducted by Adrian Büttemeier.

Ticketing and more information to follow.

Andrew will make his debut at the Berlin Philharmonie with the Sibelius Orchestra and conductor Simon Rössler as the bass soloist for Verdi’s Requiem with Aphrodite, soprano, Mart Świderska, mezzo soprano, and Peter Lodahl, tenor.

Ticket Further Information

Andrew will be joined by pianist Jacob Greenberg to present Berlin Verses for Annual Eisler Tage of the International Hanns Eisler Gesellschafft.

Berlin Verses, adaptations of Hanns Eisler’s Hollywooder Liederbuch that bring the political questions of Brecht and Eisler into the present
An die Nachgeborenen, Hanns Eisler’s rarely heard setting of Brecht’s three part poem
Fünf Klavierstücke. Op. 23, Arnold Schoenberg

Presented by the International Hanns Eisler Gesellschafft

Andrew will join pianist Cole Knutson for a program of satirical songs by Shostakovich and Slonimsky as a guest artist at the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music

Andrew will present a concert as part of Hidalgo Festival’s 2024 edition.
Program, collaborators, and ticket information forthcoming