To call Jaap Blonk (NL) a singer is not accurate, because the directness and agility of his vocal expression goes far beyond singing. His voice creaks and bubbles, whines and grunts. The idiosyncratic autodidact, musician, sound poet and vocal performer specialises in sound poetry and is characterised by his powerful stage presence and his unrestrained freedom to improvise. His studies in physics, mathematics and musicology, as well as various jobs in offices and other straight-line systems, reinforced his penchant for Dadaism.
Steffen Roth is a drummer who has been living in Leipzig for several years after studying in Dresden with Günter “Baby“ Sommer. The seemingly “infinitely“ repetitive as well as moments of chaos in music are among the most important textures for him and serve as door openers to a new state of concentration. His playing partners include musicians such as Bruno Angeloni, Ulrike Brand, Julia Kadel, Carl-Ludwig Hübsch, Alexander von Schlippenbach and Achim Tang. Since founding the quartet Social Structures, his playing space has expanded across the Atlantic to New York City. In 2018, the festival initiated by him and Künstlerstadt-Kalbe, the (((potentiale))), celebrated its premiere. With this, Roth created a new playground for the national and international contemporary music scene in the rural area of the former GDR.
Stephan Froleyks (D) works internationally as a composer, interpreter and inventor of novel instruments. He has received several scholarships and art awards; his compositions, installations, audio pieces, multimedia works and theatre music have been commissioned by WDR, Radio Bremen and Deutschlandradio, among others. Stephan Froleyks is professor for percussion and music of other cultures at the Musikhochschule in Münster and curator of music and sound art festivals.
