AMBO

AMBO is for us a vehicle for exploring; it is a search, something like an experiment; maybe it is the creation of a path. We explore the potential of our skills as pianists, movement artists, singers and composers, and we experiment with various other skills that we acquired during our studies in Vienna. We continuously search by formulating questions to help us understand our motivation: what is possible with our skills? what kinds of performances can we present? how can we create socially relevant interactions with our audience? Our aim is to let the format of a performance remain undecided and then shape the format when we have clarified our intentions. We hope to create contexts, and to not unthinkingly recreate concert formats of the past. We want to create an artistic path that is unique in some ways.

Aleksandr Okhotnikov and Hannes Taljaard met in the autumn of 2021 as students at the University of Music and performing Arts in Vienna. For two years one of us occasionally experienced the other perform as musician or movement artist. The first opportunity to cooperate in a project came in autumn of 2023 with the project ‘Ausgelöscht’: the preparation and presentation of two movement studies which were shaped by the collaborate music analytical actions of an ensemble of ten members. More projects followed in 2024, and this gave us the possibility to try out ideas and roles in various groups. During these projects we realised that our overlapping interests and our common training in Vienna contrasted well with our very different backgrounds, ideas and temperaments. The field of tension created by the overlaps and contrasts is one of the engines that drive our cooperation.

2024

Sing saam met my! (Sing with me!)

For this performance AMBO merged with allerdings to present dramatised versions of four songs composed by Hannes Taljaard. The cycle with the title Sing saam met My! (Sing with me!) has texts in Afrikaans, a Germanic language that developed in South Africa. With our performance we aimed to experiment with the artistic potential of our skills in a multicultural process. We specifically wanted to immerse our (mostly German speaking) audience into the world that the songs present, an audience who cannot rely on a printed translation. We realised that singing songs of which the words have been translated often diminishes the authenticity and power of the original artistic intention. And we also realised that singing the songs in their original language when this language is not understood by most or even all audience members, will most likely diminish the audience’s experience of the songs. So, the four of us came up with various solutions to the conundrum by experimenting with the tools of our trade: music, movement, objects and language. Our performance was the last work of a concert titled Moving Voices that took place on 19 November 2024 in the Neue Konzertsaal of the University for Music and performing Arts, Vienna. We plan to work on further versions of this performance, and hope that this work will become a part of our repertoire for several more years.

Arena Caliente

A composition by Aleksandr for two pianos were performed at a concert in the Haydnsaal of the University for Music and Performing Arts, Vienna. AMBO opened the concert with a flash, presenting ourselves as a ‘standard’ two piano duo. However, we hoped that the two different kinds of dances on which the composition is based, would hint – at least to those who knew who we were – at our other roles as movement artists. Judging by the reaction of the audience, an experience of music as movement was created. We plan to keep this composition in our repertoire as our ‘show stopper’.

NoWHere

Hannes is composing piano duets that explore the ways in which feelings can be understood as objects in time and/or in space, and how we can shape our own inner world by searching for different ways to relate to these feelings: after, alongside, in… It is written for this intimate ensemble of two musicians performing on the same instrument, so that this shaping and searching will also be the shared creation of meaning by the two artists and for the audience. In alignment with this aim, AMBO is rehearsing each of the compositions even while they are being composed.

Into piano improvisation – from movement, over interaction

AMBO presented a short workshop for pianists who were attending the International Artepiano Festival in Castelnuovo del Farfa in Italy. We experimented with some of the many ways into improvisation, and construed our workshop on the basis of our experiments. The way that we introduced in Castelnuevo took specific movements that form a foundation to help musicians learn rhythmic patterns, and that carry information about sound structures, for example information about categories of pitch collections, as well as phrases and melodic contours. The movements were embedded in various forms of social interaction and musical listening. We also took the manipulation of a divcerse collection of objects, combined with social interaction as the input for improvisations at the piano. This ensured that improvisation happened as an ensmble activity, together with other musicians, and contributed to creating a joyful, aesthetic experience and a rather stress free process.

Internationale Rhythmik Woche Wien

AMBO worked as assistants in Vienna for a Eurythmics practitioner from Stockholm, Eva Wedin, who presented four workshops (each lasting two hours) on her ways of teaching Eurythmics. As duo, we performed (piano duo and vocals) several compositions that formed part of the workshops, and participated in movement phases in order to facilitate interaction between participants and support Eva’s teaching.