To kick off this year's blurred edges Festival will host a packed program – including performances by two electronic music legends from Japan, Nakamura and Sachiko M, with Sachiko M making her Hamburg debut. The Cologne-based ensemble hand werk will perform pieces by up-and-coming composers, and members of the Hamburg scene will also contribute improvisational sets.
Programm
- Toshimaru Nakamura (jp): no input, electronics
- Ensemble hand werk: works by Sam Pluta, Jessi Marino, Luxa Mart*in Schüttler and Sarah Nemtsov
- Sachiko M (jp): sine waves
- Dong Zhou + Elena Khurgina: found violin, misc, electronics, harpsicord
- Janis Binder + Felix Mayer: Motorized Zither Objects, Corpus based synthesis, Lyra-8, Loop based live coding
- DJ: Nika Son
Das Konzert ist Teil von blurred edges–Festival für aktuelle Musik in Hamburg, 29.5.2026 bis 28.6.2026. blurred edges 2026 wird gefördert von der Behörde für Kultur und Medien der Freien und Hansestadt Hamburg, dem Musikfonds e.V. mit Projektmitteln des Beauftragten der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien, der ZEIT STIFTUNG BUCERIUS, der Hamburgischen Kulturstiftung, der Claussen-Simon-Stiftung und der Gesellschaft zur Verwertung von Leistungsschutzrechten (GVL).
🎟️ blurred edges Festival-Ticketinhab*innen und VAMH-Mitglieder benötigen kein Einzelticket, alle anderen können im Stubnitz-Ticketshop oder an der Abendkasse zugreifen.
Toshimaru Nakamura (jp), no-input mixing board player
Toshimaru Nakamura's instrument is the no-input mixing board, which describes a way of using a standard mixing board as an electronic music instrument, producing sound without any external audio input. The use of the mixing board in this manner is not only innovative in the the sounds it can create but, more importantly, in the approach this method of working with the mixer demands. The unpredictability of the instrument requires an attitude of obedience and resignation to the system and the sounds it produces, bringing a high level of indeterminacy and surprise to the music. Nakamura pioneered this approach to the use of the mixing board in the mid-1990's and has since then appeared on over one hundred audio publications, including nine solo CD's.
He has performed throughout Europe, North America, Argentina, New Zealand, Australia, Korea, China, Singapore and Malaysia, performing and recording both as a soloist and in collaboration with numerous other musicians. As an active organizer of concerts in Tokyo, Nakamura has helped many musicians coming to Japan find places to perform, both with himself and with others. From 1998 to 2003 Nakamura and Tetuzi Akiyama ran the concert series Improvisation Series at Bar Aoyama and then later the Meeting at Off Site series of concerts. Both these concert series were crucially important in exposing a new manner to improvised music (referred to as Electro Acoustic Improvisation) to the Japanese public and to foreign musicians visiting Japan, making Tokyo one of the global hotspots for this new approach to music.
Sachiko M (jp), sine waves
Internationally acclaimed as an improvisational musician using electronic instruments that generate testtone (sine wave) signals, she was awarded the Golden Nica Award at Ars Electronica in Austria in 2003, and participated in composing a song for a play in a TV program in 2013, for which she was awarded the Best Composition Award at the 55th Japan Record Awards. As the project director of "Asian Sounds Research", she continued to explore finding a new style of expression between "music" and "art". Currently, she is releasing instalation sounds and new works on an irregular basis. Sound production for the 2025 Autumn/Winter image film of Japanese apparel brand DEPAREILLE.
Ensemble hand werk, Köln
plays compositions by Jessie Marino, Luxa M. Schüttler, Sam Pluta, Sarah Nemtsov. hand werk has been heard at renowned festivals such as the Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik, the Darmstädter Ferienkurse, the Festspiele Bayreuth, Ultraschall Berlin, the Ruhrtriennale, NOW! Festival, the Münchener Biennale, Acht Brücken in Cologne, Muzički Biennale Zagreb, Crossroads Salzburg, dem Transart Festival Bolzano, China Shanghai International Arts Festival, impuls Festival in Graz, Gaudeamus in Utrecht and Warsaw Autumn and has recorded several CDs and been featured on numerous radio broadcasts: Timothy McCormack: Apparatus / Myunghoon Park: Seeds (Wittener Tage Für Neue Kammermusik, Kulturforum Witten 2012), kurzwelle (ON – Neue Musik Köln, 2017), Lisa Streich: Pietà (Wergo, 2018) and Sergej Maingardt: Rush (Wergo, 2021) with SMOG. Their performances have taken the ensemble to the US, Australia, Israel, and many cities in Asia and Europe. Since its inception, hand werk has been working intensively on developing new concert experiences, such as their home concert series in Cologne: hwXXc_.
Felix Mayer + Janis Bilder
Motorisierte Zither, Objekte, Corpus based synthesis, Lyra-8, Loop based live coding, Pure Data, Max/MSP. Improset.
Dong Zhou + Elena Khurgina: Found Violin, misc, electronics, Cembalo
Impro-Set. Dong Zhou (no pronouns) is a composer-performer based in Hamburg. Zhou gained a B.A. in music engineering at the Shanghai Conservatory and an M.A. in multimedia composition at the Hamburg University of Music and Drama. Zhou won several prizes, including the first prize in the 2018 ICMC Hacker-N-Makerthon, the finalist of the 2019 Deutscher Musikwettbewerb, the Nota-n-ear Award 2022, and the shortlist of the 2025 Giga-Herz Pop Experimental Production Award. Zhou had works included in the ‘Sound of World’ Microsoft ringtones collection and was commissioned by festivals and institutions such as the Shanghai International Art Festival, ZKM Karlsruhe, Stimme X Festival, etc. Zhou is currently a doctoral candidate in ICAM of Leuphana University, a member of Stimme X e.V. Zeitgenössisches Musiktheater Norddeutschland, Hörbar e.V., and Deutscher Komponistenverband Hamburg.
Elena Khurgina is a harpsichordist whose work focuses on early and contemporary music, free improvisation, and interdisciplinary projects. In her artistic practice, sheexplores the expressive possibilities of historical instruments within contemporary contexts. Elena is the first prize winner (2023) and a jury member (2025) of the Prix Annelie de Man, a festival and competition for contemporary harpsichord music. In 2025/2026 she participates in the stART.up program of the Claussen-Simon Foundation. She regularly performs at international festivals including Internationales Bachfest Hamburg, blurred edges, The Art of Improvisation, Bach & now!, StimmeX, WePresent, Fringify, and Feminale Hamburg, among others. In addition, she develops innovativeharpsichord-focused educational projects for the Hamburg Open Online University and the Elbphilharmonie. Born in Kharkiv (Ukraine), Elena began her musical education at the Gnessin Academy of Music in Moscow. She later continued her studies in Hamburg, where she specialized in harpsichord and completed her Master’s degree at the Hamburg University of Music and Theatre, studying with Prof. Menno van Delft and Prof. Carsten Lohff. As part of the Erasmus program, she also studied Contemporary Harpsichord at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam with Prof. Goska Isphording.
Nika Son
Nika Son works as a musician, artist, film composer, curator and DJ after graduating in Fine Arts in Hamburg. In her compositions, video- and soundworks she examines multi-sensory perception, its bounderies and interaction, but also forms of manipulation and illusion. Weaving oneiric musique concrète with analog and digital synthesis, broken rhythms, voices and modulated tape, her work captures the fluid, ever-shifting nature of the night, making the familiar strange and the surreal strangely familiar. Sounds of various origin are translated into a very unusual musical language, as if one watches the audible. Her debut album To Eeyore was released in 2020 on Entr’acte/Stellage, her new album Aslope came out in 2024 on V I S, as well as the soundtrack DRIFT on Futura Resistenza. Alongside her solo concerts, she creates radio pieces, video and sound installations, and has collaborated for many years with various companions, in projects such as Cwelle or No Cue. In her work as a soundartist for experimental film, she is among other responsible for the score and sound design of Helena Wittmann's highly acclaimed films DRIFT and Human Flowers of Flesh. As well as Failed Emptiness, the latest feature by filmmaker and artist Mika Taanila. For over a decade she hosts regular art and music events at the Golden Pudel Club in Hamburg with various international guests. Since 2019, she co-curates the festival Papiripar together with Felix Kubin and Florian Bräunlich.
gefördert durch:
