The Lanzarote Visual Music Festival was established in 1989 and in 2023 celebrates its 18th edition. This outstanding event combines avant-garde music with different artistic forms of expression set in some of the most unique and breath-taking venues around Lanzarote, like the auditoriums at Jameos del Agua and Cueva de los Verdes.
The 2023 Festival will take place over the course of 8 days between the 10th and the 21st of October and it includes 6 concerts and 1 movie that will be shown twice.
Concerts cost €15, except for the one in Arrecife that costs €5, and the movie is free but booking is required – links provided below.
PROGRAMME:
MUSIC
UMA ELMO: JAKOB BRO, ARVE HENRIKSEN & JOEY BARON
11th October at 20h at Jameos del Agua
Tickets: €15 on https://www.ecoentradas.com/elegirsesion/1847
Uma Elmo is the new trio of Danish guitarist Jakob Bro, a project that emanates poetry, expressiveness and subtlety and which, against the usual speed of contemporary oblivion, defends the craftsmanship of the storyteller.
For this purpose, Bro is accompanied by one of the most original trumpets in jazz, whose zen expression and intoned timbre make it unmistakable: that of the Norwegian Arve Henriksen. They are joined by the American drummer Joey Baron, a renowned veteran, a regular on the jazz scene on both sides of the Atlantic.
Together they recreate Bro’s dreamlike universe, a dense weave of notes loaded with whispered, hypnotic melodies, where Bro’s luminous guitar transports us to a new place each time.
The recording of Uma Elmo was Bro’s fifth album as a leader for the prestigious ECM label, with which the Danish guitarist reaffirms the observations about his work in which there is no rush, but great depth.
Jakob Bro: Electric guitar
Arve Henriksen: Trumpet, vocals and electronics
Joey Baron: Drums
Ildefonso Aguilar: Visuals
DIEGO BARBER & GRAIG TABORN: TALES
14th October at 20h in Jameos del Agua
Tickets: €15 on https://www.ecoentradas.com/elegirsesion/1848
Although some years have passed since the publication of Tales, this work continues to be one of the main endorsements in the career of guitarist Diego Barber. Its publication, in 2014, marked the consolidation of the guitarist from Lanzarote as a renowned jazz musician, receiving praise from the specialised press and the most prominent critics of the jazz scene, naming the album as one of the best of that year.
Recognition by esteemed publications cannot be a coincidence. Being recognised by peers and experts is a true testimony to the talent of this local musician. And Tales is is the result of Diego Barber and pianist Graig Taborn working together, whose meeting produced something unique and inspiring for both, each with their own language, creating an epic dance of guitar and piano at the best of these two exceptional musicians who fuse beauty, melody and emotion to create a unique listening experience.
Now, with Diego as host and Graig as guest of honour, this surprisingly imaginative duo revisits this work to bring it to the stage in the impressive auditorium of the Jameos del Agua to let us be seduced by the measured nature of improvisation, precision, restraint and, at times, stoicism.
Diego Barber has released six albums and has collaborated with the likes of Mark Turner, Larry Grenadier, Jeff Ballard and Theo Bleckmann.
Graig Taborn has more than twenty-five years of experience in the jazz scene, improvisation, creative music and avant-garde contexts. He has released more than a dozen albums, most notably his work for the ECM label.
Diego Barber: Classical guitar
Graig Taborn: Piano and electronics
Ildefonso Aguilar: Visuals
AKANE & PURA MÁRQUEZ: NIGHT-TIME BIRDS
18th October at 20h in CIC EL Almacén in Arrecife
Tickets: €5 on https://www.ecoentradas.com/elegirsesion/1849
Solo project by Tenerife-born Carolina Machado, best known for her role as drummer and singer in the psychedelic space rock band Gaf y La Estrella de la Muerte. On her debut Night-Time Birds, released by Keroxen in 2023, Akane reimagines a fictional soundtrack to an unmade ‘road movie’, creating a very personal musical language composed of vintage pop songs, lush ambient landscapes and West Coast lo-fi ng electronics with a nod to David Lynch’s dreamlike imagery. In addition to her debut album, in 2023 Akane also participates in the annual compilation Radar Keroxen Vol.4 focused on the work of experimental artists from the outermost European regions and in which she represents the Canary Islands. Since the release of her debut Akane has already been played on several programs on RNE3, Italian Radio3 and British BBC Radio 6.
Carolina Machado: Synths and electronics
César Chinarro: Electric Guitar
Pura Márquez: Visuals
CHRISTINA VANTZOU, MICHAEL HARRISON AND JOHN ALSO BENNETT
19th October at 20h in Jameos del Agua
Tickets: €15 on https://www.ecoentradas.com/elegirsesion/1850
Christina Vantzou, Michael Harrison and John Also Bennett’s self-titled doble album, released on September 2022, will be presented live for the first time at our Festival. This work is a suite of raga-inspired compositions and improvisations that grew from a fertile collaboration centered around a deep listening, and resonant spaces.
Michael Harrison, a composer and pianist experienced in North Indian classical music, guided by conversations with Christina Vantzou, who provided structural frameworks for each piece and directed the sessions, motivated the compositions drew from Harrison’s daily raga practice, using its ancient forms as starting points from which the compositions could blossom and morph. A resonant backdrop of modular synthesizers played by John Also Bennett, who also contributed piano improvisations played on Harrison’s custom tuned, expanded the sessions into true collective praxis.
In a live setting, they will expand on the pieces and improvisations of the album, using structures developed during their collaborations to animate them into living, breathing compositions. Ideal performance environments would provide a space for deep listening and contemplation.
Christina Vantzou: Electronics
Michael Harrison: Piano
John Also Bennett: Electronics
Ildefonso Aguilar: Visuals
MOISÉS P. SÁNCHEZ: TRACTATUS
20th October at 20h in Jameos del Agua
Tickets: €15 on https://www.ecoentradas.com/elegirsesion/1851
Tractatus is a musical dissertation in which music and philosophy go hand in hand through a logical-compositional construction of the score, the use of prepared and electro-acoustic piano, and musical references to the concepts that have made Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus Philosophicus one of the most influential books of 20th century thought.
Wittgenstein claims that, through language, we give form to our thoughts and that these are, after all, a logical representation of what we are able to express through it. Extrapolating this conception to musical composition and the creation of a piece to approach such a complex work musically is quite a challenge.
And this was precisely the starting point for Moisés P. Sánchez to undertake a composition that reflects this connection. In Tractatus,, the musician from Madrid focuses on all these concepts in order to transmit, through the piano, the solitary process of the philosopher, the logical and intuitive creation of his thought through different compositional languages: classical, jazz, electronic, dodecaphonic, free improvisation,… embodied in seven pieces related to concepts enunciated by Wittgenstein in his treatise, musically reflecting each of them with a modern, contemporary and unambiguous language.
Moisés P. Sánchez is a composer, music producer, pianist, improviser and arranger. Recognised as one of the main values of the Spanish and European music scene, his creations transcend the usual frontiers between genres and are surprising both for the torrent of resources he employs and for their fascinating vitality and originality.
Moisés P. Sánchez: Piano, synthesizers and electronics
Ildefonso Aguilar: Visuals
DOBRAWA CZOCHER, DREAMSCAPES
21st October at 20h in Cueva de los Verdes
Tickets: €15 on https://www.ecoentradas.com/elegirsesion/1852
Dreams have long fascinated artists and inspired their creative pursuits. How these fictions of the unconscious mind can feel both phantasmagorical and real, or how they’re able to twist, bend and expand time itself are questions that have served as the starting point for Dobrawa Czocher’s debut album, fittingly titled DREAMSCAPES (Modern Recordings, 2023). For it, the Polish cellist and composer takes listeners on a journey through unconsciousness exploring the magic and meaning of unconscious states.
DREAMSCAPES open up wide and spacious sounds that allude to the act of falling asleep and entering the world of dreams in all its limitless wonder and mystery. The music gently lures listeners into this alternate universe, with repetitive motifs, improvisational arpeggios, mysterious basslines and glissandos painting increasingly fantastical landscapes to goes beyond visuals to touch and ponder on deep feelings.
In addition to creating rich atmospheres, colours and textures, DREAMSCAPES is also a multi-layered and complex work, offering a kaleidoscopic vision of dynamic musical motifs that produce, at times, a dramatic and disconcerting effect, and at others, relief and lyricism. Dobrawa’s cello has a clear voice that, though ephemeral and fugitive, hints at the veracity that dreams can provide, immersing listeners in a deep trance.
At the age of 30, Czocher already has an accomplished career in music. After graduating from the Chopin University of Music in Warsaw and the Hochschule für Musik in Detmold, she became a member of the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie and later the principal cellist of the Neue Philharmonie in Berlin as well as the soloist at Szczecin Philharmonic. . It was together with her friend and pianist Hania Rani that Czocher first ventured into composition in the project “Biała flaga”. This was followed by “Inner Symphonies”, published by Deutsche Grammophon, and more recently, DREAMSCAPES, with which Czocher shows how comfortable she feels oscillating between classical and contemporary music.
Dobrawa Czocher: Cello and electronics
Ildefonso Aguilar: Visuals
CINEMA:
ÓLAFUR ARNALDS – ISLAND SONGS
10th & 17th October at 20h in CIC El Almacén in Arrecife
Tickets: Free entrance but booking required on https://www.ecoentradas.com/elegirsesion/1846
Island Songs is an audio-visual portrait of Ólafur Arnalds’ home country of Iceland. At its heart this project explores the people, places and music that that are unique to this island and influence Ólafur as an artist. Over the course of seven weeks, he travels to seven very different locations in Iceland – one per week – to record a series of new compositions. In each location Arnalds will be collaborating with artists local to the town to create and perform a new song.
More information, both about the history of this unusual festival and the artists’ work, can be found here: https://festivaldemusicavisualdelanzarote.com/en/.
