Tremble

Electric and acoustic guitarist Seth Josel — originally from New York, now residing in Berlin — is one of the leading instrumental pioneers of his generation. As a soloist, Josel has collaborated closely with such composers as Louis Andriessen, Gavin Bryars, Mauricio Kagel, Helmut Lachenmann, Tristan Murail and James Tenney.

Returning to Amsterdam for the first time in over a decade, Seth Josel brings a select group of works which illuminate some of his recent interests: expansive structures, just intonation, reconstruction, and performance art.

Catherine Lamb’s work for solo guitar and environmental chord entitled 'point/wave’, which Josel premiered in 2015, is notable for its arresting harmonies and beautiful textures, combining the natural harmonics of a just-intonation based scordatura with an undulating backdrop which responds to the live movements in the environment outside the performance space.

Counterpointing this strikingly sublime experience will be the first Dutch performance of the reconstruction of William Hellerman’s performance piece entitled ‘Tremble’, which maps the subtle timbral differences of the acoustic guitar’s geography in a visceral, physically demanding manner.

Hellerman (1939-2017) was a composer/performance artist/installation artist/guitarist in the downtown NYC scene of the 60s and 70s, someone greatly admired by his peers during the time, but who drifted into obscurity later on in his career. Its companion work, 'Tremble 2020', was conceived by Nic Collins as a kind of hommage to the original Tremble, which Hellerman himself performed in the 1970. True to form, Collins constructed a particularly charming DIY device used to elicit a compelling array of sounds from the the acoustic guitar, and as such complements and expands on some of the conceptual ideas presented in the Hellerman performance piece.

Programme:
Catherine Lamb - point/wave (2015)
William Hellermann - Tremble (1978), arr. by Seth Josel (2020)
Nicolas Collins - Tremble (2020)

Seth Josel (electric and acoustic guitar, electronics)