Electroacoustic quartet
Biliana Voutchkova, violin, voice
Marina Džukljev, piano
Milana Zarić, harp, zither, voice
Richard Barrett, electronics
International electroacoustic quartet consist of accomplished musicians with distinct sensibilities, working in the fields of improvised, composed, experimental and classical creative performance and research.
The interplay between violin, harp, piano, voices and electronics seamlessly reveal multi-faceted inner worlds of resonances and communication.
The quartet started their musical journey in Belgrade and Novi Sad in 2022. They performed and recorded their first album together, with support of Goethe Institut and local City government of Novi Sad.
The album will be released under Bocian Records in 2024.
Biliana Voutchkova is a dynamic, thoroughly engaged interdisciplinary artist, violinist, composer-performer, improvisor and curator with highly individual, unconventional artistic language. Through the prism of listening, her early training in classical music and the years of development as contemporary artist-performer, she explores states of spontaneity and intuitive resonance embodied in her multifaceted activities. Her work spans the widest possible range of sound, vision, movement and includes concert performances of improvisation, contemporary composition and original site specific work, exhibitions, long durational / multidisciplinary performances, audiovisual works and installation formats with focus on the interconnection between inner world and sound space.
Based between Berlin and her rural residency on the black sea coast of Bulgaria, Biliana works internationally as a soloist, in group and collaborative projects with renowned artists and with ensembles such as the Splitter and Trickster Orchestras, Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop, Zeitkratzer, Ensemble Modern, and her co-founded groups Jane in Ether, Voutchkova/Thieke duo and the Land Stages Collective. She is the founder and curator of DARA String Festival, faculty of the Academy of Arts in Bern/HKB Bern and a SHAPE+ Platform artist for 2022/2023.
Richard Barrett (Swansea, 1959) is internationally active as composer and performer, teaches at the Institute of Sonology in The Hague and is Professor of Creative Music Research at the University of Leiden. His work encompasses a range from free improvisation to intricately-notated scores, and from acoustic chamber music to innovative uses of digital technology. Current projects include a major new cycle of works for the ELISION Ensemble, with whom Richard Barrett has been working regularly since 1990, for the Fonema Consort and for Soundinitiative. Ongoing performative collaborations include with Paul Obermayer (in FURT), Evan Parker, and several other improvising ensembles such as SKEIN (with Achim Kaufmann, Frank Gratkowski, Wilbert de Joode and others) and Colophony (with Jon Rose and Meinrad Kneer). Richard Barrett’s principal composition teacher was Peter Wiegold. His work as composer and performer is documented on over forty CDs, including seven discs devoted to his compositions and nine by FURT. In October 2020 he set up the digital label STRANGE STRINGS together with harpist Milana Zarić. His books Music of Possibility (2019) and Trensforming Moments (2023) are published by Vision Edition.
Versatile musician, active in classical, contemporary composed and freely improvised music, harpist Milana Zarić combines orchestral and ensemble work with solo performance, connecting the classical idiom to contemporary sensibility and new technologies. As curator and performer in collaborative projects, she aims to create new bridges and challenge boundaries between the traditional roles of composer, performer and improviser.
Apart from her involvement in contemporary composed music, she is an active free improviser, often in various groups or in a duet with Richard Barrett. Improvisers with whom she has worked with include Frances-Marie Uitti, Elisabeth Harnik, Biliana Vouchkova, Agusti Fernandez, Chris Cutler, Paul Pignon, Annie Gosfield, Butch Morris, Rhodri Davies, Yedo Gibson, Anne la Berge, Zsolt Sőrés, Peter van Bergen, Peter Evans. She was one of the founders of Collective for improvised music ImprovE2, organisers of regular monthly events in Belgrade between 2012 and 2015, with over a hundred musicians and sound artists involved. Milana regularly collaborates with improvisers in projects throughout the Balkans.
Biliana Voutchkova: http://www.bilianavoutchkova.net
Marina Džukljev: https://marinadzukljev.com
Milana Zarić: http://milanazaric.com
Richard Barrett: https://richardbarrettmusic.com