Aleksander Kolkowski is a British musician and composer whose work combines instruments and machines from the pioneering era of sound recording and reproduction (Stroh violin

Stroh violin

Stroh violin, Strohviol, or Strohviol, is a trade name for a horn-violin, or violinophone—a violin that amplifies its sound through a metal resonator and metal horns rather than a wooden sound box as on a standard violin. The instrument is named after its designer, John Matthias Augustus Stroh, an...

s, wind-up Gramophone

Phonograph

The phonograph record player, or gramophone is a device introduced in 1877 that has had continued common use for reproducing sound recordings, although when first developed, the phonograph was used to both record and reproduce sounds...

s, shellac

Shellac

Shellac is a resin secreted by the female lac bug, on trees in the forests of India and Thailand. It is processed and sold as dry flakes , which are dissolved in ethyl alcohol to make liquid shellac, which is used as a brush-on colorant, food glaze and wood finish...

 discs and wax-cylinder Phonographs) to make live mechanical

Machine

A machine manages power to accomplish a task, examples include, a mechanical system, a computing system, an electronic system, and a molecular machine. In common usage, the meaning is that of a device having parts that perform or assist in performing any type of work...

-acoustic music

Acoustic music

Acoustic music comprises music that solely or primarily uses instruments which produce sound through entirely acoustic means, as opposed to electric or electronic means...

. He lives and works in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, England.

About

Kolkowski studied music at the University of London

University of London

-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...

, Goldsmiths College, violin with Clarence Myerscough at the Royal Academy of Music

Royal Academy of Music

The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...

. Taught by John Tilbury

John Tilbury

John Tilbury is a British pianist. He is considered one of the foremost interpreters of Morton Feldman's music, and since 1980 has been a member of the free improvisation group AMM.- Early life and education :...

, Hugh Davies

Hugh Davies

Hugh Seymour Davies was a musicologist, composer, and inventor of experimental musical instruments.Davies was born in Exmouth, Devon, England. After attending Westminster School, he studied music at Worcester College, Oxford from 1961 to 1964. Shortly after he traveled to Cologne, Germany to work...

 and in 1982 participated in seminars and performances directed by John Cage

John Cage

John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...

.

Over the past 25 years he has worked internationally as an improvising violinist, interpreter, solo performer and composer for dance, theatre and film (Sasha Waltz, Rose English, Corinna Harfouch and Anzu Furukawa among others). He created several mixed-media projects in the UK and in Germany together with artists, film-makers and choreographers. From 1996 to 2003 he was resident in Berlin.

His latest work combines instruments and machines from the pioneering era of sound recording and reproduction (Stroh instruments, wind-up Gramophones, shellac discs and wax-cylinder Phonographs) to make live mechanical-acoustic music. Since 1999, he has actively explored the potential of pre-electronic sound reproduction technology in live performance. This work has been shown in Germany, Holland, Poland, Italy, Austria and the USA, and featured on WDR and Deutschlandradio

Deutschlandradio

Deutschlandradio is a national German public broadcasting radio broadcaster. It operates four national networks, Deutschlandfunk, Deutschlandradio Kultur, Dokumente und Debatten and DRadio Wissen....

 radio stations.

In 2002 he founded Recording Angels, a series that examines our relationships to recorded sound using antiquated home-recording devices such as Phonographs and acetate record cutters in performances and installations. Projects include “Voices and Etchings” for 6 singers and Gramophones (Staatsbankberlin, 2003) and “Mechanical Landscape with Bird” (MaerzMusik, Berlin 2004), featuring live singing canaries, wax cylinder Phonograph recordings and a rotating horned string quartet.
Collaborations with artists include: Martin Riches, Apartment House, Kairos Quartett, Ute Wassermann, Anna Clementi, Aki Takase

Aki Takase

is a critically acclaimed, award-winning Japanese jazz pianist and composer.-Biography:Raised in Tokyo, she studied music at Tohogakuen Music University. Starting in 1978, she performed and recorded in the USA with Lester Bowie, David Liebman, John Zorn and others...

, Tony Buck

Tony Buck

Tony Buck is a drummer and percussionist. He graduated from the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music , becoming involved in the Australian jazz scene....

, Hayley Newman, Phil Minton

Phil Minton

Phil Minton is a jazz/free-improvising vocalist and trumpeter.Minton is a highly dramatic baritone who tends to specialize in literary texts: he has sung lyrics by William Blake with Mike Westbrook's group, Daniil Kharms and Joseph Brodsky with Simon Nabatov, and extracts from James Joyce's...

, Tristan Honsinger

Tristan Honsinger

Tristan Honsinger is a cello player active in free jazz and free improvisation. He is perhaps best known for his long-running collaboration with free jazz pianist Cecil Taylor and guitarist Derek Bailey....

, Tony Oxley

Tony Oxley

Tony Oxley is an English free-jazz drummer and one of the founders of Incus Records.-Biography:Tony Oxley was born in Sheffield, England. A self-taught pianist by age eight, he first began playing the drums at seventeen. While in the Black Watch military band from 1957 to 1960 he studied music...

, Evan Parker

Evan Parker

Evan Shaw Parker is a British free-improvising saxophone player from the European free jazz scene.Recording and performing prolifically with many collaborators, Parker was a pivotal figure in the development of European free jazz and free improvisation, and has pioneered or substantially expanded...

, Sainkho Namchylak, Louis Moholo

Louis Moholo

Louis Tebugo Moholo , is a South African jazz drummer.He formed The Blue Notes with Chris McGregor, Johnny Dyani, Nikele Moyake, Mongezi Feza and Dudu Pukwana, and emigrated to Europe with them in 1964, eventually settling in London, where he formed part of a South African exile community that made...

, Jon Rose

Jon Rose

Jon Rose is an Australian violinist born in the UK in 1951. Rose began playing violin at age 7 after winning a music scholarship to King's School in Rochester. For over 35 years, Rose has been at the sharp end of new, improvised, and experimental music and media...

, Matt Wand, Richard Barrett, Phill Niblock

Phill Niblock

Phill Niblock is a composer, filmmaker, videographer, and director of Experimental Intermedia, a foundation for avant-garde music based in New York with a parallel branch in Ghent, Belgium.-Biography:...

, Christian Wolff

Christian Wolff (composer)

Christian G. Wolff is an American composer of experimental classical music.-Biography:Wolff was born in Nice in France to German literary publishers Helen and Kurt Wolff, who had published works by Franz Kafka, Robert Musil, and Walter Benjamin. After relocating to the U.S...

, Claus van Bebber, Boris Hegenbart, and many, many others.

Selection of Works with Gramophones and Phonographs (2003–2007)

• “The Saragossa Manuscript” (2007)

Composition of a live score for the classic polish baroque fantasy movie by Wojciech Has,
British Film Institute, London

• “Recordette” (2007)

Installation-workshop for Transmediale 07, Berlin and Edition Edison.
Akademie der Künste Berlin

• “What hath God wrought?” (2006)

Stroh String Quartet composition. Kettle’s Yard, New Music Commission.
Performed by Apartment House String Quartet, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, UK
BBC Radio 3 live recording and performance May/June 2007

• “Horn Driver” (2006)

Duo performance with Boris Hegenbart [#/TAU]
Mechanical-acoustic music from a Stroh violin, Gramophone and Phonograph electronically manipulated and played back through the very same horns of the antique instrument and machines.

• “Figs fly tiny” – for Glyn Perrin (2005)

Solo performance with Stroh cello, 2 musical saw

Musical saw

A musical saw, also called a singing saw, is the application of a hand saw as a musical instrument. The sound creates an ethereal tone, very similar to the theremin...

s, CD players, speakerdrivers and custom built electronics.
Festival Experimentelle Musik Munich

• Recording Angels: “Cheep Imitation” (2004)

for Stroh violin, Serinette (bird organ), Gramophone, Phonograph with specially made recordings of birdsong on wax cylinders and 78 rpm acetate records - A collaboration with sound artist Martin Riches.
Commissioned by Stare über Berlin Birdsong symposium and new music festival, Berlin.
Seltsame Music, Festival, Klangforum Krems, Austria, Festival Experimentelle Musik Munich, and Festival of Exiles, Berlin

• “Discography” (2004)

Schools project with artists Hayley Newman & Matt Wand. Field recordings, record cutting and cover art with pupils aged 11–13 years. Ikon Gallery, Birmingham

• “Lac” (2004)

Collaboration with sound-artist and record producer Matt Wand (Hot Air). Record cutting and Phonograph recordings of electronic music, Futursonic Festival, Manchester

• Recording Angels: “Mechanical Landscape with Bird” (2004)

for 8 singing canaries, Serinette (bird-organ), 2 Phonographs and a rotating string quartet with horned instruments.
Commissioned by Maerz Musik - Festival für aktuelle Musik, Sophiensæle, Berlin

• “Portrait in Shellac” (2001–2004) - Solos for Stroh violin, 3 Gramophones, Phonograph, self-recorded acetate records and wax cylinders, sound-effects records.

Festival Experimentelle Musik, Munich

• Recording Angels- “Quattro Ex Machina Part 1” (2002) and Part 3 (2003)

For flute, trombone, 2 Stroh violins and 4 Gramophones with self recorded acetate discs.

• Phonograph Arcade (2003)

Installation work with self-recorded Wax cylinders and Phonograph with attached earpieces.
Outer Ear Festival of Sound, Chicago

• “Fürstinnen” (2003)

Theatre music and Gramophone/horn installation for Female Line.
Sophiensæle, Berlin

• “Der Ring der Nibelungen” (2003)

Richard Wagner - Historic recordings on 78rpm and wax cylinders. Concert series with original archive recordings, historic Gramophones and Phonographs.
Deutsche Musik-Archiv and Staatsbankberlin, Berlin

• Claus van Bebber and Aleks Kolkowski - Turntable concerts with vinyl and shellac (2003)

Electric and acoustic reproduction.
Podewil and Staatsbankberlin, Berlin

• Recording Angels - “Voices and Etchings” (2003 )

Concert and live Phonograph recordings with Anna Clementi and Phil Minton - vocals.
Quattro Ex Machina Part 2 for 4 singers, acetate disc recordings.
Staatsbankberlin, Berlin, Seltsame Musik Festival, Munich and Kontraste, Krems/Austria

• Wireless - “Music for a Room” (2003)

A musical séance for Stroh violin, violinophone, tuba, Gramophones and Phonographs.
Konzerthaus Berlin