UPROOT + Daniel Fishkin // Weston Olencki // Catalina Alvarez
UPROOT
Ganesh Anandan – shruti stick, microtonal metallophones and percussion
Kriton Beyer – harmonium, objects
+ Daniel Fishkin – daxophone
Weston Olencki – electromechanical banjo
playing his composition “Foggy Mountain Breakdown”
The artist Catalina Alvarez shows movies in transit
Di 22.07.2025
Einlass: 19:30 Uhr // Beginn: 20 Uhr
Uproot is an improvised music formation founded in 2015 and based in Berlin.
The group consists of Ganesh Anandan on shruti stick, microtonal metallophones and percussion and Kriton Beyer on harmonium and objects.
Visiting New Yorker daxophonist Daniel Fiskin joins the group for this particular concert.
www.uproot.eu
Kriton Beyer is a Greek-German musician and composer, who – as a performer and improviser – mainly works with the harmonium and the daxophone. He studied musicology in Greece where he collaborated with a variety of local music groups as well as musicians like Sakis Papadimitriou and Floros Floridis.
In 2004 he moved to Berlin, where he got heavily involved in the improvised music scene of the city.
Since then he has worked with many musicians like Phil Minton, Audrey Chen, Steve Noble, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Axel Dörner, Liz Kosack, Kresten Osgood, Tristan Honsinger, Kazuhisa Uchihashi, Tomomi Adachi, Richard Scott, Willi Kellers, Matthias Bauer, Antonis Anissegos, Olaf Rupp, Alexei Borisov, Els Vandeweyer, Harri Sjöström, Nicola Hein and Liz Allbee, dancers like Yuko Kaseki in interdisciplinary performance projects like “enLIGHTenment” and visual artists like Akiko Nakayama. Kriton Beyer founded the “Fragmentation Orchestra“, is a member of the electroacoustic trio “uproot” and the ensembles “Redox Reaction” and FDBK EXPT.
In his work with the harmonium, Kriton Beyer uses both the natural sound of his instrument and “traditional” playing techniques as well as preparations, objects and extended techniques, while his daxophone play is characterized by a very personal musical and sonic aesthetic, and an unconventional technique, also supported by the subtle use of electronics. As an improvising musician, he has performed throughout Europe. His compositions are usually characterized by conceptualism.
Kriton Beyer has also conceived and commissioned the music software CinePrompt®, which was specially developed for the use for live musical performance and live recording to films.
Kriton Beyer also curates and manages the concert series and record label “The Procrustean Bed”, dedicated to Experimental & Improvised Music.
https://www.kritonbeyer.com/
Ganesh Anandan is an Indian percussionist, composer, improviser and instrument builder. He studied the South Indian Carnatic music, namely the flute, for seven years with G. Venugopal and the Mrdangam, a percussion instrument, for seven years with K. K. Parthasarthy in Bangalore city, India. In 1977, he moved to Canada and studied western percussion notation and piano. He was part of the Université de Montréal Gamelan orchestra for a year, which highly influenced him. He was awarded several grants from The Canada Council for the Arts and Le Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec for artistic projects and higher studies in India at the renowned Karnataka College of Percussion under T. N. Shashikumar with whom he studied Tavil and Kanjira.
In 1992, Ganesh transposed the Carnatic drumming vocabulary and techniques to other types of hand percussion instruments such as frame drums, cajon and others. He published an educational book and DVD called Solkattu, concerning these transpositions.
In 1994, he built a series of melodic instruments based on the Indian 22 Shruti System (22 interval octave) including the Marimba, Metallophone, Bamboophone, Tubeophone and others. He also wrote music for them. In 2002, he built the electric six- and 12-string Shruti Stick, a cross between a Zither and a Prepared Guitar.
Ganesh was commissioned to write a piece called Autorickshaw Ride (11 min.) for Ensemble Modern (Frankfurt). He toured with them in 2004, 2006, 2008. He was also commissioned by Canadian Heritage to write a piece and present it at their annual conference for the Arts and Culture in Ottawa in 2003.
He has scored several documentary films.
Ganesh has worked with a variety of Canadian and international artists including: Ensemble Modern (Germany), Hans Reichel (Germany), Franz Hautzinger (Austria), Conny Bauer (Germany), Espace Shruti (Interdisciplinary project with French sculptor Pascal Dufaux and shruti instruments), Omar Sosa Quintet (Cuba/USA), Carlo Rizzo (Italy), Paolo Angeli (Italy), Gavino Murga (Italy), Malcolm Goldstein (US), Glen Velez, (US), Bob Brozman (US), Glen Moore (US), Savina Yannatou (Greece), Ramesh Shotham (India/Germany), Karnataka College of Percussion (India), Debasish Bhatacharya (India), Hideo Arai (dance/Tokyo) and others.
In Canada, he has worked with Ramasutra (Ram Borcar), SoCalled Orchestra (Josh Dolgin), Inuit singer Tanya Taguk, Lui Fung, Doug Cox, Rainer Wiens, Patrick Graham, John Gzowski, Nouveau Theatre Experimental (Daniel Briere and Alexis Martin), La Nef, Robert Lepage, Roger Sinha (dance/choreographer), Hari Krishnan (dance/choreographer), Margie Gillis (dance/choreographer) and others.
www.fingerworks.org
Daniel Fishkin’s ears are ringing. Composer of musical instruments. Daniel studied with composer Maryanne Amacher and with multi-instrumentalist Mark Stewart. He has performed as a soloist on modular synthesizer with the American Symphony Orchestra, developed sound installations in abandoned concert halls, and played innumerable basement punk shows. Daniel’s lifework investigating the aesthetics of hearing damage has received international press (Nature Journal, 2014); as an ally in the search for a cure, he has been awarded the title of “tinnitus ambassador” by the Deutsche Tinnitus-Stiftung. He is the only luthier that studied directly with the daxophone’s inventor, Hans Reichel; Daniel’s instruments have traveled the world, including Canada, California, Norway, Germany, France, Japan, Kazakhstan, and Australia. Daniel received his MA in Music Composition from Wesleyan University, and earned his PhD in Composition and Computer Music at the University of Virginia. He has taught courses on instrument design, electronic music, and creative coding at many universities, including most recently at Ramapo College of New Jersey, where he is Assistant Professor of Music Production.
http://dfiction.com/
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Weston Olencki is an artist and musician from South Carolina, currently living in Berlin.
Their projects position musical instruments as sites of cultural inscription, working fluidly between experimental sound, traditional musics, and their various space/time(s).
Weston has previously performed at the Borealis Festival, Counterflows, Donaueschinger Musiktage, Lampo, Musica Nova (as a soloist with the Helsinki Philharmonic), Märzmusik, Black Mountain College, philharmonie luxembourg, HKW, Festival Musica, the American Academy in Rome, Roulette Intermedium, Jalopy Theatre, Fylkingen, Pioneer Works. They were awarded the Kranichsteiner Musikpreis from the 2016 Darmstadt Ferienkurse.
They have held guest residencies at the University of Huddersfield, Harvard, NYU, Columbia, Princeton, Stanford, Northwestern, and have been a visiting artist at CalArts (2018), Stoveworks (2023), suddenlyLISTEN (2024), and EMS Stockholm (2025). Their solo discography includes Verd Mont (SUPERPANG, 2021), Old Time Music (Tripticks Tapes, 2022), pearls ground down to powder (Full Spectrum, 2024), I went to the dance (Longform Editions, 2024) and Broadsides (Outside Time, 2025), with other recording projects released by PAGANS, Dinzu Artefacts, Lobby Art, Astral Spirits, Out of Your Head, Sound American, HatHut, and Astral Spirits. They are an active member of RAGE THORMBONES and APPARAT, and perform in many contexts on low brass instruments, winds, banjo, and electronics. They also run events and sound at Berlin’s KM28.
https://www.westonolencki.com/
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After the two musical performances, Catalina Alvarez is going to show excerpts and movies from „Modos de Transporte“ – a film travel series that uses transportation to explore the deeper infrastructures of a city – its visible, invisible, and mobile systems. Catalina Alvarez makes choreographed films and experimental musicals. She is Associate Professor of Art & Engagement at Fordham University
https://www.catalinaalvarez.com/