On this page, I invite you meet me as a performer, experimental musician and improviser in collaborations and projects, as well as a soloist.
The collection is incomplete.
WARP | Pina Rücker+Pia Palme+Kristina Warren
This trio featuring myself along Pina Rücker, microtonal quartz glass bowls, and Kristina Warren, electronics, concertina and feedback performed at the nmr series in Vienna, St. Ruprecht in 2024. For this collaboration I revived my feedback technique using a DPA microphone inside my Kueng subbass recorder, an analogue mixer and compressor and a Genelec loudspeaker.
With this technique, I can use my subbass recorder with or without its headpiece. I developed this mode of performing for my first solo album in 2006, with technical advice from Christoph Amann and Christina Bauer (thank you, both!) and through many long practice sessions.
More information about and sounds from WARP here >>>
Rosie Middleton+Pia Palme
We met during a residency at The Banff Centre of the Arts, Canada in 2019. We spontaneously collaborated for the performance of MORE RADICALLY. The piece contains a text I wrote and a video I filmed at Banff.
MORE RADICALLY (2019) features Pia Palme, bass recorder and Rosie H. Middleton, mezzo and was recorded by the studio crew at The Banff Centre. The piece is improvised along a structure and the text. More information about the piece can be found under http://www.fragilityofsounds.org/more-radically/
A solo piece commissioned by the performer Aiko Kazuko Kurosaki
In this solo piece, I listen to a poetic text that was provided by Aiko Kazuko Kurosaki, via headphones. Listening, I perform with a Kueng C-bass recorder, making extensive use of articulation and formants while performing. The music was recorded in one take at a studio in Vienna in June 2018. The piece was commissioned by the performer Aiko Kazuko Kurosaki for an installation.
About improvisation
For me, improvisation is the fertile ground, the hot compost heap, the core of my musical practice. Improvisation helps me to reconnect to what I would describe as first thoughts – sonic images that seem to pop up from within my mind, from a silent and secluded spot deep within. Sonic ideas. They can be triggered by perceptions. My inside is always linked the outside world by my ears through the practice of listening.
When arising, these first sonic ideas appear to be fresh and immediate, at the same time raw and unrefined. I observe a similar process when I compose: in this case, the entire process extends over a much longer time span.
I improvise with different instruments. My main instrument is the contrabass recorder. I might use one, two, or three microphones for amplification, if necessary. Sometimes I use the lower part of the instrument as a feedback-generator (aerofone) in combination with electronics. Also, before 2016 I was also performing with electronics only (analogue and digital, such as ringmodulators, analogue pedals, computer), but currently I’m not doing that any more.
An example of a composed improvisational format in a spatial setting is my cartographic performance arbesbach 2016. This recording is not edited; the entire piece was recorded in one section, as it can be heard on the video. Before the recording, I did a series of experiments on site to prepare. This performance is in between a composition and an improvisation. The setting, concept and format are composed. The music is performed within this setting. One might say it is improvised; however, I find that the place, the setting and my conception very much shape the improvisation.
A key experience was an improviser’s retreat that I did in 2007: I closed myself in at a studio in Vienna practicing solo improvisation continuously for some days. In this solitary retreat, I set a schedule of practising several hours a day without stopping and concentrating on artistic practice. During this period I experienced various levels of being emptied out sonically. There were stages when I felt that all my (musical) ideas had gone. It was interesting to continue playing in that state. It seemed to me that nothing ‘sounded’ any more.
Ryoko Akama+Pia Palme
Ryoko Akama and I improvised in a studio at the University of Hudderfield in 2013, during our doctoral studies. We used electronic parts, a Shamisen, strings, various microphones, feedbacks, KOMA pedals, ringmodulators, computers, Kueng-C-contrabass recorder, fingers, tongue, mouth – having fun during a cold & snowy afternoon.
Solo improvisation @quiet cue
This improvisation with subbass-recorder and electronics was recorded live at quiet cue, Berlin March 2012. All sounds were created live, no samples involved. I like the idea of coming to a venue completely empty, without stuff on my computer, and leaving it empty again, a nomad of sound.
Hommage to Hildegard | A series of solo pieces
This series of improvisations with the Kueng contrabass recorder was recorded in a retreat in a mountain hermitage in Tyrol, at the names-day of composer Hildegard von Bingen, during a clear and cold night in 2010. Thanks to the fabulous MUKU St. Johann, I had the opportunity to practice in the small early-baroque chapel for some days and also late at night. The place can only be reached by foot and is situated on a clearing in the mountain woods. There was no (human) audience present, but I felt the presence a lot of more-than-human audience.
Klaus Lang+Pia Palme
Here, I perform with aerophone, ringmodulators, electronics, kueng-subbassrecorder unplugged and garklein recorder). Klaus Lang performs at a (pneumatic) church organ. Recorded at Marienkirche Wels (Austria) during the series Im Pavillon 2009.
DORT NICHT ALS
This piece was performed with the subbass-recorder and analogue electronics and live recorded at a concert for Forum Neue Musik in Hamburg, 2010.
KÖRNUNG | Herwig Neugebauer+Pia Palme
This is a duo-improvisation with Herwig Neugebauer, double bass that was performed and recorded live at Porgy&Bess, Vienna in 2012. I use the Kueng-contrabassrecorder amplified with 2 microphones plus an octaver.
Pia Palme+Thomas Wagensommerer
This video shows an improvisation with media-artist Thomas Wagensommerer, with whom I have been working on several projects. It was recorded at MOOZAK festival 2011.
Link to video: http://www.mediaopera.org/events/moozak-festival-tag-2