01/12
Through this Looking Glass tops two lists

It is my pleasure to announce: Joana's Through this Looking Glass is listed as one of the best portuguese releases in 2011 by portuguese musicjournalist Rui Eduardo Paes and has also been recommended as a christmas gift by the editorial staff of "Neue Musik Zeitung".

http://rep.no.sapo.pt/artigos_melhores_2011.htm

www.nmz.de/artikel/klaenge-bilder-und-texte-die-uns-bewegen

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12/11
Extracts from reviews of Through this Looking Glass

In the course of 2011 some very nice reviews of Through this Looking Glass were published. Here you find a selection of extracts:

Es gibt nicht sehr viele Musik-DVDs, die mit einer ausgesprochen eigenen Ästhetik Furore zu machen in der Lage sind. […] Dies ist die erste Produktion des Labels „blinker – Marke für Rezentes“ in Köln. Die erste Produktion wird nur schwer zu übertreffen sein.

(Martin Hufner, NMZ)

 

[…] It is a work of great charm. It is sound poetry. It is one of the most successful and attractive high modern keyboard works that I've heard in years. Joana Sa must be appreciated if you want to know where modernism has gone. It's here. […]

(Grego Applegate Edwards, http://classicalmodernmusic.blogspot.com)

 

[…] Das vielstimmige Klangspektrum lässt oft überhaupt nicht mehr an Klavier denken. […] Dem Hörer erschließt sich so ein wie im Spiegelkabinett unendlich gebrochener Kosmos des scheinbar so vertrauten Klaviers. […]

(Rainer Nonnenmann, Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger)

 

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05/11
Recording of the Bagatelles + fieldrecording

The Asasello Quartett recorded Anton Webern's Six Bagatelles for string quartet op. 9 on tape. On May 16 the four of them played it a 24 times at a stretch - by heart. In the recording room a stereo-magnetictape was running under the direction of Felix Bastian Dreher. And all over the place Paul Paulun had installed his supplemental microphones to capture the whole process in the field. Soon more about what will be released on vinyl in autumn.


Paul, Felix and the quartet before the recording.


The team of the Deutschlandfunk, Felix and the quartet.

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03/11
Through this Looking Glass is released in Portugal

On March 23 Through this Looking Glass is released in Portugal accompanied by installations and presentations at Trem Azul and FNAC.

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03/11
Through this Looking Glass at Fernseforum für Musik in Bremen

The movie Through this Looking Glass will be shown at Internationales Fernseforum für Musik (March 9 - 12 2011 in Bremen).

www.fernsehforum-musik.de

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02/11
The Asasello Quartett with Webern's Six Bagatelles on Vinyl

As next release blinker is preparing a recording of the Sechs Bagatellen für Streichquartett op. 9 by Anton Webern played by the Asasello Quartett. Recorded in one take and analogue this compact piece that Webern wrote between 1911 and 1913 will appear on EP (vinyl) in autumn 2011, including a surprise on the B-side. The recording of this coproduction with Deutschlandfunk will take place in the Kammermusiksaal of Deutschlandfunk on May 16 2011.

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12/10
Segment about blinker on german radio WDR 3

On the 14th of September there was a broadcast about blinker and Joana Sá at TonArt on WDR 3. Raphael Smarzoch has interviewed Joana and blinker. In this segment he presents blinker as new Cologne based label and its first release, the DVD+CD Through this Looking Glass by Joana Sá:

www.wdr3.de/tonart/details/artikel/wdr-3-tonart-a4acc5cb5e.html

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07/10
Release-concert on 09/24/2010

We are very happy, to celebrate the first release on blinker (Joana Sá: Through this Looking-Glass / DVD+CD) in a concert of the reiheM where Joana Sá will play Through this Looking-Glass live.

Friday, 09/24/2010, 21:00
Studio der musikFabrik / Im Mediapark 7 / Köln

reiheM
Joana Sá
Through this Looking-Glass

for prepared piano, electronics, mobile, toy piano, props
and with inserts from the film of the same name
Director: Daniel Neves
Mobile: Rita Sá

Joana Sá: piano and performance
Helger Nelson: technician

8 EUR / 5 EUR

reiheM wird initiiert durch Mark e.V. und gefördert vom Kulturamt der Stadt Köln sowie durch den Ministerpräsidenten des Landes Nordrhein Westfalen.

www.reihe-m.de

Further Concert-dates in Germany:

Sunday, 26th of september 2010, 20:00: cuba, Münster

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06/10
Trailer: Through this Looking-Glass

In the 20th century the piano had to suffer through a lot: It was beaten with fists, people sat down at the keys without playing a single note, they populated its inside with everyday-utensils, and so on. The portuguese pianist Joana Sá picks up a multitude of these developments in "Through this Looking Glass". But she does not compulsively work through the contemporary vocabulary. Instead she explores its potential for development and widens the sound of the piano dauntlessly by applying the possibilties of electronics. This piece for piano, that works with scenery, has been turned into a dreamlike black and white movie by the director Daniel Neves.

Through this Looking-Glass will be released on blinker in autumn 2010. Watch and listen to the piano like you never have before:

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05/10
Joana Sá's Through this Looking-Glass being cut

The film based on Joana Sá's performative piece for piano Through this Looking-Glass is being cut in Lisbon. The piece was created during a scholarship in Cologne in 2009/10. Being written for prepared piano, electronics, mobile, toy piano and props it is characterized by so many scenic-performative elements, that only a DVD could capture it in its entirety. So Joana has turned her concept into a movie in Lisbon in March. This film is going to be the first release on blinker, including an additional audio-CD. It was directed by Daniel Neves. And the result is a phantastic world in black and white, a clear-sighted work at the piano, a poetic guide to contemporary music.

Joana Sá und Daniel Neves during filming / Photo: Nuno De Azevedo e Silva

Inspired by the dreamlike and partly paradoxical images of Lewis Carrol's "Alice in wonderland" and Through the Looking-Glass" as well as by the situational intensity of Robert Schumann's "Kinderszenen" op. 15 it embarks on a journey into the freedomand imagination of a child. It wants to challenge rigid structures and clichés. It highlights completely unusual aprroaches to the piano and throws a close glance at them to watch them from a distance in the next moment. A sophisticated preparation of the piano, the amplification and electronically modified reproduction of pianosounds and curious playing-techniques meet a surreal setting with deformed furniture, different kinds of wind up toys, a toy piano and an abundant mobile with phantastic creatures in black metals silhouettes (by New York based artist Rita Sá)

Daniel Neves lovingly plays with details and unusual insights to the piano. He gets lost in blurs or flickering to subsequently guide the viewers eyes to the next anchor and to dreamlike give him the unexpected.

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