Clare has performed solo Harp and Guzheng concerts internationally at the Musee des Beaux Arts (Nantes), AMAT Festival (Valencia), Strasbourg Contemporary Art Museum, Blaest (Trondheim), Square Gallery (London), Offsite (Tokyo), Ausland (Berlin) and has done extensive research on exploring resonance, improvisation and extended vocabulary on both instruments.
Sci-Fi duo with Chris Abrahams (the Necks) studies the all too familiar ground between the DX7 synthesiser and the Chinese Guzheng (double album OUT NOW buy your copy through HALF THEORY AUSTRALIA or order thought METAMKINE France).
"Awe-inspiring in precision, quiet confidence and beauty" - Gail Priest, RealtimeArts
HAMMERIVER was formed by Cooper in Sydney 2003. Situated somewhere between Alice Coltrane and Led Zeppelin, Hammeriver draws inspiration from Jazz, musique concrète, blues, electro-acoustic improvisation and psychedelic rock. The Berlin based group consists of Clare Cooper, concert harp / Chris Abrahams, piano / Christof Kurzmann, electronics / Toby Delius, saxophone / Clayton Thomas, double bass / Werner Dafeldecker, double bass and Tony Buck, percussion + guests. The Sydney based group is Cooper, Abrahams, Thomas & Robbie Avenaim, percussion + guests
After 5 years of research GERM STUDIES launches a double album of 198 tracks, with wall chart featuring illustrations by hundreds of improvisers, artists and family members. GERM STUDIES on myspce198 scratches, itches and ailments. Ranging from the microscopic to the pure-atomic, these detailed fragments of shared time live like few musical statements dare. GERM STUDIES searches for symmetry between an outdated digital synthesizer and an even more ancient horizontal harp – finding gems in the bleak, prickly landscape of a microphone capsule. This seemingly verbose statement of 198 pieces decorated with 198 illustrations, featuring an exhausting list of matching song titles is a tribute to sound.
More than a collection of improvisations by two imaginative musicians, Germ Studies is a defining document, presented with all the care and attention to detail that these complex, bizarre and beautiful pieces deserve. “The interplay between artists is never less than enthralling, their actions raw, revealing, and lovingly recorded, a ceaseless procession of sounds veering off in all directions.” Joshua Meggitt review for Cyclic Defrost Australia
Right now: Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (En Concert a Paris Vol 2, 1987), Les Rallizes Denudes (live. le 12 Mars 1977 a Tachikawa), Gustav Mahler (Symphony 9 in D - IV Adagio, 1910 - awesome), Hecker (Sun Pandamonium, 2003), Joe Williams (A Man Ain't Supposed to Cry, 1958), Splinter Orchestra (Playing Together, 2007), GRACE JONES (Nightclubbing, Slave to the Rythm...), Sun Ra (Disco 3000)
Sounds Like
Collaborators Past/Present:
Crys Cole, Julie Rousse, Christine Sehnaoui, Felicie d’Estienne D’Orves, Jean-Luc Guionnet, Seijiro Muramaya, Robin Hayward, John Eckhardt, Diego Chamy, Alexander Babel, Christof Kurzmann, Andrea Neumann, Chris Heenan, Nils Ostendorf, Martin Ng, Robin Fox, Clayton Thomas, Trondheim Jazzorkester (with Sidsel Endresen, Eivind Lonning, Espen Reinertsen, Martin Taxt, Kari Roennekleiv, Michael Duch, Tor Haugerud, Ingar Zach, Klaus Ellerhusen Holm, Jim Denley, Kim Myhr), CAB (with Burkhard Beins and Chris Abrahams), Hammeriver (with Chris Abrahams, Clayton Thomas, Tony Buck, Tobias Delius, Christof Kurzmann and Werner Dafeldecker), Picket (duo with Cor Fuhler), Crax (trio with Cor Fuhler and Axel Doerner) Hammeriver Australia extended (with Chris Abrahams, piano / Robbie Avenaim, drums / Clayton Thomas, double bass / Matt Earle, electronics and guests Tony Buck, drums / Jeff Henderson, baritone sax / Lloyd Honeybrook, baritone sax/ Karen Booth, alto sax / Monika Brooks, accordion / Jaime Fennelly, harmonium / Daniel Whiting, laptop / Cicada, video), Michael Theike, Kapital Band 1 (with Nicholas Bussmann, Cello / Martin Brandlmayr, percussion / Tony Buck, percussion / Andrea Neumann, inside piano / Werner Dafeldecker, double bass), Ken Vandermark, Christine Sehnaoui, Olivier Di Placido, Ignaz Schick, Sabine Voegel, Burkhard Friedrich, Sascha Demand, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Kim Myhr, Katrin Geller, Robin Fox, Andre Vida, Pin Pin Pin (with Steve Heather and Magda Mayas), Michael Zerang, Sabine Vogel, Alex Nowitz, Andrea Neumann, Morten J Olsen, Dale Gorfinkel, Alex Babel, Nicholas Bussmann, Valerio Tricoli, Patrick Thinsy, Kinya “Zuluâ€? Tsuruyama, Keiko Ninomiya, Miki Sato, Ten Gentle Joys (with Thomas Meadowcroft and Jasmine Guffond), Yuko Kaseki, Annette Krebs, Christine Sehnaoui, Jean-Philippe Gross, Crax (with Axel Doerner and Cor Fuhler), Tony Buck, Sean Baxter, Louise Curham, Contrapuntal Metronimics (duo with Peter Blamey), Mike Cooper, Rod Cooper, Ivan Lysiak, Jon Rose, Unkle Ho, Ben Byrne, Thembi Soddell, Anthea Caddy, West Head Project (with Jim Denley, Clayton Thomas, Monika Brooks, Karen Booth, Adam Sussmann, Dale Gorfinkel, Peter Farrar), Mazen Kerbaj, Sharif Sehnaoui, Michel Waisvisz, Takuro Mizuta Lippit (dj sniff), Tarek Atoui, Marko Cicilliani, Xavier Charles, Darren Hanlon, Inge Olmheim, Phil Minton, Joseph Hammer, C.Spencer Yeh, Audrey Chen, Andy Haylek, Peter Jacqumyn, Peeesseye (Chris Forsyth, Fritz Welch, Jaime Fennelly), Nate Wooley, Germ, PSI, the Scott Horscroft Ensemble, Jim Denley, SUN (with Oren Ambarchi, Chris Townend, Scott Horscroft, Martin Siewert), John Butcher, Chris Burn Ensemble, Rhodri Davies, Angharad Davis, Marcio Mattos, Will Guthrie, Toshihiro Koike, Kazumi Koiche, Tetuzi Akiyama, Cooper-Moore, Alex Waterman, The Splinter Orchestra (Chris Abrahams – piano + hammond. Robbie Avenaim – percussion. Shannon O’Neill – synth. Milica Stefanovic – electric bass. Peter Farrar – alto sax. Abel Cross – electric bass. Mike Majkowski – double bass. Gerard Crewdson – trombone. Dale Gorfinkel – vibraphone. Ben Byrne – laptop. Finn Ryan – percussion. Simon Ferenci – trumpet. Jim Denley – flutes and flax. Dan Whiting – laptop. Alex Masso – percussion. Karen Booth – alsto sax. Monika Brooks – accordian. Darren Moore – percussion. Rory Brown – double bass. Clayton Thomas – double bass. Cass McGlynn – tenor horn. Clare Cooper – guzheng. Mathew Ottignon – clarinet and flute. Lloyd Honeybrook – alto sax. Ian Pieterse – baritone sax., Chris Burke, Darren Hannah, Ben Gerard, Reuben Derrick, Matt Ottignon, Rosie Dennis, April Fonti), Pannyband (Simon Barker, percussion / Carl Dewhurst, guitar)
I edited my profile with Thomas Myspace Editor V4.4 (www.strikefile.com/myspace)
Clare was born in Sydney, Australia and is currently based in Berlin. She plays both the pedal Harp and Guzheng (ancient Chinese zither), and is interested in music that stretches time, brains and hearts.
Over the past 8 years she has toured Europe, USA, UK, Australia, NZ and Japan performing solo and collaborating with artists from many backgrounds. She has performed solo Harp and Guzheng concerts at Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain de Strasbourg, AMAT Festival in Valencia, BLAEST Trondheim, Square Gallery in London, and the late Offsite Gallery in Tokyo. Cooper recently completed her Master of Fine Art exploring resonance, improvisation and extended vocabulary on both instruments. Clare is also performing in the live incarnation of Kapital Band 1 (with Nicholas Bussmann, Cello / Martin Brandlmayr, percussion / Tony Buck, percussion / Andrea Neumann, inside piano / Werner Dafeldecker, double bass), John Butcher's Octet (John Edwards, Gino Robair, Chris Burn, Dieb13, Thomas Lehn, John Butcher, Adam Linson), and Kym Myhr's Trondheim Jazz Orkester. When based in Australia Clare performed and/or recorded with minimalist ensemble the Splinter Orchestra, the Scott Horscroft Ensemble, songwriterDarren Hanlon, Hip Hop producerUnkle Ho (The Herd), and Australian pop/rock groupsSun, Prop, Gelbisonand Inga Liljestrom.
From 2001-2007 Clare Co-Directed the NOW now festival of spontaneous music, Australia's experimental sound and film festival. Outside of music, Clare is an active producer, graphic designer and Aunty to 22.
Please visit Clare's website GUTSTRING For more information, photos, recordings, performance history and biography. For bookings please email info{at}gutstring.net
............................................................................................
'GUT' Clare Cooper, 7 pieces for solo harp & guzheng 2003 (NNCD003)
“Amazing, subtly brain-dazzling set of improvisation across the harp and guzheng from this Australian lightbulb that references a bunch of previously articulated improvisatory tangents without nailing its colours to any particular tree. Moves from weird revenant ghost shapes through to huge fields of subtly-discharged vibration. Not often you hear a voice as startlingly new as this” - C. Spencer Yeh Volcanic Toungue Review
............................................................................................
Please visit Clare's website GUTSTRING For more information, photos, recordings, performance history and biography.
"Like the man who awoke to find himself drowning in a river, you may
roam the dark with 4 million other somnambulists - and never know it.
One soldier, after one of these attacks, he revealed that he had been
dreaming about trying to plow a field with a balky mule. ‘That mule
made me so darn mad I socked it,' he said. When he awoke, he found that
he had hit his wife in the face and broken her eardrum. His lawyer
successfully defended him by arguing that no one could be held
accountable for acts committed in his sleep. Why doesn’t he, like the
rest of us, lie quietly and work out the worries of his subconscious in
dreams of action, instead of acting out his dreams?"
'Strange facts about sleepwalking', in Mechanix Illustrated (Mar, 1949)
THE SOMNAMBULIST
Record PRE-Release Party
opening act: WRONG. Friday November 6th, h 22:00
live at Antje Øklesund
Rigaer Straße 71–73
10247 Berlin
you're a funky legend coops. I owe you big time. The debt will be paid my dear. Love you and kisses from my ladies. Amaia crawled for the first time yesterday, the world is lovely
Video documentation of a performance piece by my friend Nate Kassel who rode around on his bike slapping high-fives to people who were trying to hail taxi cabs in NYC. Enjoy!
Monday 7. September 2009 doors 19.00 start 21.00 free donation
Madame Claude Lübbener Str.19 Kreuzberg 10999 Berlin U1 Schlesisches Tor
COSTES (Clavier, Chant, Films / FR) Jean-Louis Costes! Known as the author/performer of the wildest noise operas, subsequently being banned in many places. He is the father of 'socio-shitcore'... "King of what? King of music? King of rock'n'roll? SOD OFF!!!"... On this tour Costes plays clavier, sings songs, and shows films from his decades of making extreme noise performance art. http://www.costes.org http://www.myspace.com/jeanlouiscostes
"five years and counting" - schraum label festival !
On
september 11th and 12th Berlin based label schraum will celebrate its
fifth birthday at Weisepuff - a new venue in Berlin-Neukölln. We invite
you to listen to some of the great acts who released music on our small
label during the last years...
*********** fr sept 11th
UTE VÖLKER SOLO accordeon solo
AXEL HALLER SOLO electric bass & objets trouvés
Torsten Papenheim's TRU CARGO SERVICE Christian Biegai - altosax Matthias Müller - trombone Dave Bennett - guitar, clarinet Torsten Papenheim - guitar, banjo Berit Jung - double bass Christian Marien - drums
*********** sa sept 12th
HUGHES / SCHERZBERG / WIESE John Hughes - double bass Lars Scherzberg - alto- and sopraninosax Nicolas Wiese - electronics
HOTELGÄSTE Michael Thieke - clarinet, altosax, zither Dave Bennett - guitar, radio Derek Shirley - double bass
