Liz Allbee @ museruole: the received physicality of sound

She will open the museruole – women in experimental music festival on Friday, 30 May 2014, H 21 at the Museion in Bolzano. The festival brings a great composer and performer with trumpet, electronics and voice to this town: The work of Liz Allbee from Vermont, residing in Berlin, encompasses improvisation, electro-acoustic composition, and instrument building, primarily focusing on issues of extension and embodiment. We had a short chat by e-mail with the extraordinary composer, improviser, performer and objectician.Liz Allbee, how did you arrive to experimental music? Do you remember the moment when you left the classical music?

I never left classical because I don’t come from classical music. I trumpet played in the school band as a kid. In 1996 in San Francisco I saw trumpeter Leo Smith play solo, and shortly after that I saw Anthony Braxton’s 12tet. So I picked up the trumpet again and started to listen to improvised music, experimental music, and also started to play with people. About a year later I went to my first San Francisco/Oakland noise show. Then I started also to work with electronics, performance etc.What does physical sound experience mean for you? What is important while you are performing? 

I’m not at all interested in thinking about or being conscious of how I’m moving when I play trumpet. However, I love the received physicality of sound. And movement does play a part in how I plan my sets Ie: some of the gestures of my sounds.

Where do your influences come from? – Where do you take inspiration?

I like sci-fi! And I like animal groans!