The music of Berlin-based violinist Biliana Voutchkova crosses styles and spans centuries. She plays Baroque classical and free improvisation with pianist Antonis Anissegos, she interacts with dancers and electronic musicians in Grapeshade, and she recently released the triple album Blurred Music (Elsewhere) with clarinetist Michael Thieke. The collection includes three complete concerts of freewheeling, microtonal chamber music, one of which was recorded at the Illinois Institute of Technology’s Carr Chapel. In that performance, the two musicians blur the lines between composition and free improvisation by spontaneously interacting with their own prerecorded material. Voutchkova will play twice in Chicago this week. On Friday at Constellation, she’ll perform live for the first time with Olivia Block—a Chicagoan who shares her interest in working with the emotional and acoustic properties of sound at a granular level. Voutchkova will respond to cassette tapes of her playing that the two women have prepared in advance, while Block manipulates the speed and clarity of the tape playback in real time. Vocal improviser Carol Genetti and visual artist Gwyneth Zeleny Anderson will open the evening with a collaborative performance. For their recent CD Chyme (Suppedaneum), Anderson created elaborate, colorful paper fold-outs for listeners to negotiate while listening to Genetti’s layered, eerily prelingual vocal tracks; in concert Anderson will project texts and animations while Genetti uses tubes, crystal glassware, and electronics to distort and magnify her voice. On Monday, Voutchkova and Belgian jazz drummer Jakob Warmenbol will perform separately and together at Experimental Sound Studio. v
Berlin-based violinist Biliana Voutchkova comes to Chicago for two exploratory shows
