Esther Venrooy + Pygmy Jerboa

Thu 07 Apr, 2011, 8pm

Esther Venrooy (b. 1974, Rosmalen, The Netherlands) is a composer working in the field of audio art. After completing studies in classical saxophone, Venrooy attended the European Dance Development Center (Arnhem) as a composer in residence, where she began employing electronic and digital techniques in pieces aimed at choreography and stage performance. Gradually her music evolved into an independent means of expression and she continued her work with electronica at the IPEM (Institute for Psycho-acoustics and Electronic Music) in Ghent, Belgium where she still resides. At this time she started utilizing film editing paradigms as a foundation for her personal composition methods.

Her works range from purely electronic composed music to improvised combinations of electronica with traditional instrumentation such as piano, guqin, pipa and satsuma-biwa. Since 2006 she has created site-specific works as well as multimedia performances and installations. Much of her work has been released on CD or vinyl and has received good critical acclaim.

Esther Venrooy has performed her music and presented her sound installations extensively in cities such as Antwerp, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Brussels, Berlin, Madrid, Hamburg, Cologne, Frankfurt, Washington DC, New York, Hangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing. She collaborated with visual artists Hans Demeulenaere and Lieve D'hondt, with architect Ema Bonifacic and with musicans Min Xiao-Fen (pipa), Wu Na (guqin) and Heleen Van Haegenborgh (piano). Apart from her artistic activities, Venrooy is a lecturer on 20th century music and experimental arts at the Ghent school of fine arts, where she also runs the Sound Lab.

pygmy jerboa is Maria Stankova (b. 1984, bulgaria) and Iván Naranjo (b. 1977, mexico). They perform with live electronics, the voice gone inhuman, homemade/junk instruments, surfaces and supercollider. Their music often transverses composition and improvisation rules and anarchy. The group has performed in Bulgaria, Germany, Mexico the USA and is currently based in Brooklyn.