AGGREGATE

We are looking forward to the fifth edition of the AGGREGATE Festival in Berlin! For the first time the newly restored St Hedwig’s Cathedral will be part of the festival. We are happy to announce that we are the opening concert of the Month of Contemporary Music Berlin this year on Saturday, Sep 13th with the Aggregate Festival!

Fri SEP 12 KAPELLE DER VERSÖHNUNG Bernauer Straße
20:00 Festival opening with the installation by Sandra Boss
20:30 concert
free entrance

Sat SEP 13 KAISER-WILHELM-GEDÄCHTNISKIRCHE Breitscheidplatz
19:00 Doors
20:00 Concerts
Mads Kjeldgaard
gamut inc with Sebastian Heindl / Fubbi Karlsson: Laser
Claire M Singer

Sun SEP 14 SANKT HEDWIGS-KATHEDRALE Bebelplatz
19:00 Doors
20:00 Concerts
Hanno Leichtmann
gamut inc / Fubbi Karlsson: Laser
Frédéric Blondy performs Éliane Radigue Occam XXV

TICKETS via pre:tix: day ticket 20€ reduced 10€ –– Festival pass: 35€/20€

MAY 2025 : We are very happy that the CD is now being released !
AGGREGATE new works for automated pipe organs on WERGO with recordings of the 2021 and 2022 festival editions. With works by Hampus Lindwall, gamut inc (Marion Wörle & Maciej Śledziecki), Seth Horvitz, Jessica Ekomane, Mark Fell, Nils Henrik Asheim, Arturas Bumšteinas, Phillip Sollmann and Konrad Sprenger. The concerts were recorded in the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche, the Auenkirche and the Chapel of Reconciliation. The CD can be ordered directly from us (20€ plus shipping costs), via WERGO (24,50€ plus shipping costs) or in stores. You can listen to one piece on Bandcamp.

CD 1
Conlon Nancarrow: Study for Player Piano no. 11
Hampus Lindwall: AFK, Part 2
gamut inc: Aggregat 11, Part 1
gamut inc: Aggregat 11, Part 2
Seth Horvitz: Study no. 0: Untitled
Mark Fell: Durational Interweave for Organ #5, Finger System for Organ #4
Seth Horvitz: Study no. 99: Strumming Machine

CD 2
Conlon Nancarrow: Study for Player Piano no. 21
Jessica Ekomane: Tipping Point (excerpt)
Mark Fell: Durational Interweave for Organ #7
Nils Henrik Asheim: Lost and found loops #1 (excerpt)
Arturas Bumšteinas: Gwizdały
Seth Horvitz: Study no. 1: Octaves, Systematically Filled & Folded
Hampus Lindwall: AFK, Part 1
Phillip Sollmann und Konrad Sprenger: excerpt

AGGREGATE Festival 2024

DAY 1
Fri 29. Nov 2024 – doors 7pm, concerts 8pm – Kaiser-Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche
Marcin Pietruszewski: Auditory Distortion Synthesis for Organ and Computer-Generated Pluriphonic Sound (30:00)
Maxime Denuc: a mix of tracks from »Nachthorn« and new pieces from his forthcoming album (50:00)

DAY 2
Sat 30. Nov 2024 – doors 7:30, concerts 8pm – Auenkirche Berlin
Arnold Dreyblatt: Corpula (30:00)
gamut inc: Whilst Enjoying The Balance Of The Winds (50:00)

TICKETS 15/10€ Festivalpass 25€: pre:tix

The AGGREGATE Festival is back with two days of hyperorgan music. We are delighted to present works for computer-controlled organ and electronics on two of Berlin’s most beautiful organs. With Marcin Pietruszewski, Maxime Denuc, Arnold Dreyblatt and gamut inc

The Berlin ensemble gamut inc (Marion Wörle and Maciej Śledziecki) presents the fourth edition of the AGGREGATE Festival at the Auenkirche and the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche Berlin on November 29 and 30.

There will be new works for pipe organs by Marcin Pietruszewski (Auditory Distortion Synthesis for Organ and Computer-Generated Pluriphonic Sound) and Maxime Denuc (Nachthorn +) in the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church and by gamut inc and Arnold Dreyblatt in the Auenkirche.

Together with outstanding composers from the fields of electronic, electro-acoustic and experimental music as well as new music, gamut inc will develop pioneering artistic strategies between acoustic and electronic music on internationally renowned organs as part of the AGGREGATE series. Thousands of notes and parameters are prepared, generated and manipulated using composition programs. The pipes are controlled by the computer, but the sound comes from the pipes as in traditional playing.

Maxime Denuc is an electronic music composer based in Brussels. For some years now, his solo work has focused on pipe organs. Among other things, he will present the hypnotic piece of music “Nachthorn”, in which the organ is the sole protagonist. It oscillates between dub techno and harmonic grooves. The record was highly praised by critics, especially by Boomkat, which included it in its list of the ten records of 2022. It was also chosen as the soundtrack for the Chanel Spring-Summer 2023 haute couture show.

Marcin Pietruszewski is a composer and researcher. He deals with sound synthesis and composition on the computer and explores specific formal developments in the tradition of electroacoustic music and contemporary sound art as well as non-musical fields such as auditory design, computational linguistics and psychoacoustics.

Arnold Dreyblatt (b. New York City, 1953) is an American media artist and composer. He has been based in Berlin since 1984. Dreyblatt is the Vice-Director of the Visual Arts Section of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin. One of the second generation of New York minimal composers, Dreyblatt studied music with Pauline Oliveros, La Monte Young, and Alvin Lucier and media art with Woody and Steina Vasulka. He has invented a set of new and original instruments, performance techniques, and a system of tuning.

Media partner: D/B
Partner: MODARTT
Press work: Guido Möbius
Kindly supported by Aventis Stiftung and Bezirksamt Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf
A project by gamut inc (Marion Wörle and Maciej Śledziecki)

AUTOMATED PIPE ORGANS / HYPERORGANS

Digitalisation advances ever further into areas beyond the virtual – for the pipe organ, this opens up new artistic possibilities. All of the instrument’s parameters can now be controlled by computer via interfaces, while the sound is still created in the pipes of the organ. In this way, a meshing of instrumental and electronic music, the possibilities of which are largely untapped, can be achieved. gamut inc‘s international concert series and festival AGGREGATE exposes this potential for artistic innovation in organ music of the 21st century. Composers with differing musical backgrounds and orientations create new pieces for automated pipe organs. Contemporary electronics, Neue Musik, avant-garde pop and noise music interweave with one another. Pioneering artistic strategies are explored, from purely automated organ concerts via combinations with instrumentalists to real-time control and synchronisation with electronics. AGGREGATE pursues the fundamental questions that computer controlled instrumental music poses: virtuosity and its overcoming, the limits of perception of highly compressed musical events, the crossovers and links between electronic and acoustic music, objective interpretation and the effects of mechanically precise reproduction.

organ console at Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche Berlin

INSTRUMENTS

The internationally renowned organs in Orgelpark Amsterdam, the Stavanger Concert Hall, Kaiser-Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche or in the Kunst-Station Sankt Peter in Cologne all offer unique technical and sonic possibilities. The number of pipes, timbres of the register, additional striking mechanisms, wind pressure control and the acoustics of the spaces are all very different. The organ inaugurated at St. Antonius in Düsseldorf Oberkassel in 2017 was one of the first in the world to make use of SINUA control technology, in which the registration of the instrument is radically reorganised. The full potential of the organ as a synthesiser unfolds through the instrumentation of the timbres and the selection of pipe sounds. Unrestricted automation of the register makes the creation of completely new tonal palettes possible.

COMPOSITION

The compositions explore artistic stylistic devices that only become possible through programmability: automated changes in register, concurrency of different tempos, extreme density of events, complex polyrhythms, aural-physical phenomena, or sliding transitions between tonal, noise and rhythmic. Through automation, the characteristics of the pipe organ as machine and acoustic synthesiser come to the fore, uncovering innovative artistic positions between acoustic and electronic music. Automation, which was already being applied at the beginning of the 20th century, reaches a completely new quality through computer control. Control is now significantly more reliable, register changes and note durations can be adjusted in millisecond intervals, meaning that new acoustic phenomena can be created.

AGGREGATE at St Antonius Düsseldorf Oberkassel

AGGREGATE Festival Berlin 2023
Auenkirche Berlin, Nov 2
The AGGREGATE Festival for computer-controlled organ presents a one-day edition in 2023 as part of the inauguration of the restored organ in the Auenkirche. The many possibilities offered by computer control of Berlin’s second largest organ will be explored by Canadian artist George Rahi and the retro-futuristic ensemble gamut inc.

CONTROL

MIDI technology developed in the 1980s is means by which organs can be controlled by computer. Current technology enables MIDI notes to be created in real time and immediately checked on the instrument. Algorithmic composition programmes enable intuitive composition processes with a large amount of material. Thousands of notes and parameters can be generated and manipulated in the shortest of time. The computer-controlled organ is the provisional and logical climax in the development of the instrument, which has been continually updated using the newest mechanical achievements since its invention.

gamut inc‘s AGGREGATE Festival Berlin 2022

Oct 11
Kapelle der Versöhnung, 7-9pm
festival opening with the audio-visual installation CLASH/BLEND by Playmodes

Oct 12
Kapelle der Versöhnung, 11am-9pm
audio-visual installation CLASH/BLEND by Playmodes
Gedächtniskirche, 8pm
concerts and talks by Ellen Arkbro, Adi Gelbart, Hampus Lindwall / moderation Hans Fidom

Oct 13
Kapelle der Versöhnung, 11am-9pm
audio-visual installatino CLASH/BLEND by Playmodes
Gedächtniskirche, 8pm
concerts and talks by Jasmine Guffond, gamut inc, Mark Fell / moderation Thaddeus Herrmann

gamut inc‘s AGGREGATE Fesival Berlin 2021

Aug 30 | ZIONSKIRCHE | Panels with Hans Fidom (Orgelpark Amsterdam), Sinua, Elisabeth Hubmann; Talks with Arturas Bumšteinas and gamut inc | Moderation: Paul Paulun

Aug 30 | KAPELLE DER VERSÖHNUNG | Selected works by Conlon Nancarrow, arranged for organ by gamut inc (MIDI files: Wolfgang Heisig), and a new work for hyperorgan and electronics by Arturas Bumšteinas

Aug 31 | AUENKIRCHE | Talks with Nils Henrik Asheim and Stefan Fraunberger | Moderation: Paul Paulun. New works by Phillip Sollmann and Konrad Sprenger, Stefan Fraunberger, Nils Henrik Asheim

Sept 1 | GEDÄCHTNISKIRCHE | Talks with Gamut Inc, Jessica Ekomane and Seth Horvitz | Moderation: Paul Paulun. New works by gamut inc, Jessica Ekomane, Seth Horvitz

CONCERTS since 2020

JAN 25 2020 AGGREGATE:SUSTAIN @ Orgelnacht St. Antonius Düsseldorf Oberkassel

FEB 1 2020 AGGREGATE:SUSTAIN @ Kunst-Station St. Peter Köln

AUG 13 2020 AGGREGATE:SUSTAIN @ Auenkirche Berlin

AUG 15 2020 SUSTAIN @ Kapelle der Versöhnung Berlin | Installation by gamut inc

JAN 23 2021 AGGREGATE:SUSTAIN @ St. Antonius Düsseldorf | Telematic concert by gamut inc

JAN 30 2021 AGGREGATE @ Stavanger Concert House | Telematic concert by gamut inc

JUNR 18 2021 Telematic Hyperorgan Concert @ International Symposium Orgelpark Amsterdam
gamut inc plays automated pipe organs in Berlin, Amsterdam, Stockholm and Düsseldorf

AUG 30 – Sep 1 2021 AGGREGATE Festival 2021 Berlin
Concerts & talks @ Zionskirche, Kapelle der Versöhnung, Auenkirche and Gedächtniskirche Berlin

NOV 13 2021 AGGREGATE @ Orgelpark Amsterdam

MARCH 13 – 17 2022 AGGREGATE @ Palau Güell Barcelona
gamut inc prepares installation for the automatable organ in the Palau Güell for Sónar 2022

MARCH 26 2022 AGGREGATE @ Orgelpark Amsterdam

MAY 12 – Aug 9 2022 Residency @ Villa Kamogawa Kyoto | Goethe Institut
gamut inc works on new pieces at the Weimbs organ in Kyoto, Japan

JUNE 11 2022 AGGREGATE Kyoto @ Orgelpark Amsterdam / International Symposium 2022
Hyperorgan Performance with gamut inc and Jun Sagawa in Kyoto, to be presented in Amsterdam!

JUNE 16 – 18 2022 AGGREGATE @ Sónar Barcelona 2022 | Installation by gamut inc at Palau Güell

OCT 1 2022 AGGREGATE @ Stavanger Concert House NORWAY

OCT 11 – 13 2022 AGGREGATE Festival 2022 Berlin
@ Gedächtniskirche with new works from Ellen Arkbro, Mark Fell, gamut inc, Adi Gelbart, Jasmine Guffond, Hampus Lindwall and an installation by Santi Vilanova at Kapelle der Versöhnung

NOV 17 2022 AGGREGATE @ Église St Esprit Paris with works from Hampus Lindwall, Cory Arcangel, Mauro Lanza, gamut inc and studies by Conlon Nancarrow arranged for organ

DEC 2022 AGGREGATE Residency @ Logos Foundation Gent
gamut inc develops new pieces for Hybr and quarter tone organs

JUNE 1 2023 AGGREGATE@ Igreja da Lapa, Serralves em Festa Porto
JUNE 2 2023 @ Masterclass at Academy of Fine Arts Porto about AGGREGATE
JUNE 8–10 2023 AGGREGATE@ Orgelpark Amsterdam, International Symposium
JUNE 14 2023 AGGREGATE@ St Aposteln Köln, Festival Romanischer Sommer
AUG 12 2023 AGGREGATE@ St. Nikolaikirche am Klosterstern, Orgelsommer Hamburg
OCT 21 2023 AGGREGATE@ Festival New Music Vancouver
NOV 2 2023 AGGREGATE@ Auenkirche Berlin
JAN 27 2024 AGGREGATE@ St. Antonius Düsseldorf Oberkassel
MARCH 22 2024 AGGREGATE@ Orgelpark Amsterdam
MAI 22 2024 AGGREGATE collaborations@ Église de Gesù, Toulouse Les Orgues JUN 10 AGGREGATE@ Ruhr-Universität, Audimax / Bochum
SEP 13 AGGREGATE@ Metropolitan United Church / Toronto
SEP 20 AGGREGATE@ Ascension of The Lord / Montreal
NOV 9 + 10 AGGREGATE@ Deutsches Musikautomaten-Museum / Bruchsal
NOV 29 AGGREGATE festival 2024@ Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche / Berlin
NOV 30 AGGREGATE festival 2024@ Auenkirche / Berlin
DEC 13 AGGREGATE@ KoncertKirken / Copenhagen