ERB MAYAS HEMINGWAY TRIO followed by: Sharing Realities with Magda Mayas

Christoph Erb: tenor and soprano saxophone

Magda Mayas: clavinet

Gerry Hemingway: drums

This type of improvisation is sometimes ritualistic in nature and usually unfolds at the twilight of rationality. The manifestation of this spiritual connection reinforces initiatives of pure creation, which animate the three companions, even individually. There is, of course, no need to raise one’s voice to be understood by peers; the mutual consideration with which Erb, Mayas, and Hemingway conduct their conversation forms the foundation of this approach. Ultimately, it can be compared to an alluring string instrument played with the bow of intersubjective sympathy. (adapted from an article by Massimo Ricci)

Christoph Erb has performed regularly in Europe and the United States for many years with bands such as the Erb/Baker/Rosaly Trio, “Easel” with Fred Lonberg-Holm and Michael Zerang, “The Urge Trio” with Tomeka Reid and Keefe Jackson, and the Adasiewicz/Erb/Roebke Trio. In 2012, he received the Art and Culture Recognition Award from the City of Lucerne. As a bandleader, he leads his groups Lila, Veto, BigVeto, and erb_gut. With the latter, he won the ZKB Jazz Award from Zürcher Kantonalbank in 2005. He has played with the acclaimed cellist Tomeka Reid, Paul Lovens, Michael Vatcher, Mike Reed, Josh Berman, Joshua Abrams, Hans Koch, Frantz Loriot, Christian Weber, and many other internationally renowned musicians. He has toured extensively in Europe, the United States, Russia, Japan, and South America. In 2007, he founded his label veto-records, and in 2011 the sub-label veto-records/Exchange.

www.erb.li

www.veto-records.ch

Magda Mayas has lived in Berlin since 1999. She studied jazz piano at the Berlin University of the Arts from 1999 to 2001, at the Amsterdam Conservatory with Misha Mengelberg in 2001, and graduated as a performing musician at the Hochschule für Musik “Hanns Eisler” in Berlin from 2002 to 2004. Since 2015, she has been a doctoral candidate at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, working in the field of improvised music with advanced instrumental and timbral techniques. She completed her PhD in January 2020.

She has developed a range of special performance techniques for the “inside” piano and has since explored the tonal possibilities of the instrument. In doing so, she uses advanced performance techniques, amplification, and piano preparation as a process of abstraction, while also focusing on the physicality of the instrument as a whole. Since 2009, Magda Mayas has also performed on the clavinet, a 1960s electronic keyboard with metal strings and reeds. Here, she expands the instrument’s tonal possibilities using its interior with various objects and electronic effects.

Her current projects include a duo with drummer Tony Buck, “Spill”; a duo with saxophonist Christine Abdelnour (Paris); and a trio, “Great Waitress,” with Laura Altman and Monica Brooks (Australia). She has given masterclasses and workshops across Europe, the United States, and Australia, including at Columbia University, Mills College, the universities of Gothenburg, Malmö, and Stockholm, the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, and Monash University in Melbourne. Since 2013, she has also produced radio broadcasts for ABC Australia and Deutschlandradio Kultur, among others, and has released over 30 recordings. She has performed widely in Europe, the U.S., Australia, Mexico, and Lebanon, collaborating with renowned contemporary musicians and composers such as John Butcher, Andy Moor, Eddie Prévost, Phill Niblock, David Sylvian, Zeena Parkins, Fred Frith, Hamid Drake, Joelle Leandre, Paul Lovens, Ikue Mori, Nic Collins, Ken Vandermark, Andrea Neumann, and Axel Dörner.

She has participated in artist-in-residence programs at Villa Aurora, Los Angeles (with Tony Buck, 2016), and the Montalvo Arts Centre, USA (2017 and 2019). She has performed at festivals and exhibitions including Maerz Musik (2012, 2015), Documenta (2012), the Berlin Biennale (2014), and the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (2015). She co-curates the “Music Unlimited” festival in Wels, Austria, every November.

www.magdamayas.com

Gerry Hemingway (b. 1955) is a composer, drummer, visual artist, and educator who has been at the forefront of creative music for four decades. Born in 1955 in New Haven, Connecticut, into a musically inclined family (his grandmother was a concert pianist, and his father studied composition with Paul Hindemith), he became interested in drums at the age of ten and worked professionally as a musician by seventeen, primarily in jazz and bebop.

In the 1970s, New Haven was home to many innovative musicians. It was here that Hemingway met Anthony Davis, Leo Smith, George Lewis, and Anthony Braxton (the free jazz elite), performing with them for the first time. Hemingway joined the Anthony Braxton Quartet, remaining a member for eleven years (1983–1994). In 2007, he reunited with Braxton for a historic session resulting in the 4-disc set Old Dogs (2007, Mode/Avant).

In the late 1980s, he began performing with the Reggie Workman Ensemble, which at various times included Oliver Lake, Jeanne Lee, Marilyn Crispell, John Purcell, and Don Byron. He was part of the core of Anthony Davis’s Epic Ensemble, performing as a soloist in Davis’s violin concerto Maps and in the works Under the Double Moon and Tania (recently released by Koch Classics). In May 1999, Hemingway performed a duet with pianist Cecil Taylor in Antwerp, Belgium, at the invitation of De Singel.

Hemingway met trombonist Ray Anderson and bassist Mark Helias in the late 1970s, forming the “legendary” BassDrumBone trio. For their 30th anniversary in 2007, the trio received a grant from Chamber Music America to compose a series of new works reflecting 30 years of collaboration, published as The Other Parade on Clean Feed. To celebrate their 40th anniversary in 2017, the group released The Long Road, featuring guests such as Joe Lovano and Jason Moran.

https://www.gerryhemingway.com/

Sharing Realities:

Magda Mayas is part of the Berlin curatorial collective Khomasi, which produces Making Waves, a monthly series of screenings, meetings, and lectures on topics such as freedom of expression, art as resistance, Palestine, the current political situation in Germany, and related subjects.

Designed to facilitate open discussions and provide a platform for dialogue on Palestine, the initiative aims to cultivate understanding, empathy, and solidarity, amplifying the critical voices of Palestinians, Jews, racialized minorities, and other marginalized communities within Berlin’s and Germany’s cultural landscape. Through art, dialogue, and community building, the project seeks to overcome divisions, promote inclusivity, and counter polarization and attempts at silencing.

The goal is to create a space where diverse perspectives can be recognized, heard, and valued.