News

21
Jan
2020

New Exhibition Space in Berlin Charlottenburg

Bublitz. Thesaurós. Uhlandstraße.

Dear friends,

we are pleased to announce the opening of our new exhibition location in Berlin. Please feel warmly invited to its opening on February 16, 2020.

The exhibition space Thesaurós. Uhlandstraße. will be the junction between the work of the artist group Thesaurós and the narrative interest of the curator JMH Schindele.

In the semi-public space, visitors are invited to view art and cultural history exhibitions. These exhibitions are accompanied by conversations with scholars and researchers, literary and lyrical antics, and other events that promote sociability and serendipity.

Bublitz will tell here coherent and evolving stories that result from the work of the Thesaurós group in dialogue with cultural-historical objects and works by other artists. Their focal point is the examination of history and the presence of different mythopoetic artistic processes.

The premises of Thesaurós. Uhlandstraße. are architecturally connected to the Chinese tea house Jiang. The conversation program is designed in collaboration with the philosopher Reinhard Knodt.

Michal Martychowiec – All is history: blue neon lettering “All is history” on a dark wall

The artwork All is history by Michal Martychowiec can be read as a preamble for the exhibitions of 2020.
If you venture further, you might see a sparkling guiding star or as a simple,
yet fertile imagination about the human condition.

OPENING HOURS

BUBLITZ. THESAURÓS. UHLANDSTRAßE.

Uhlandstraße 147
10719 Berlin

 

Opening Reception: February 16th, 2020, 4:00 p.m.

Opening times: Tuesday & Saturday 3:00 pm – 6:00 pm.
Personal viewings and group visits for up to five people by appointment.

Admission & guided tour free of charge.

Posted by Joseph in News
20
Dec
2019

New Music for the old Ceremony

Elshan Ghasimi - Elies Miniatures I & II

 

 

Dear friends,

In the summer of last year, Elshan Ghasimi, Michal Martychowiec and JMH Schindele began following the footsteps of the mathematician, biochemist, mystic and poet El Arbi Bouqdib, who died in 2016. With the help of the family, and in particular his youngest son and estate administrator Joseph Bouqdib the El Arbi Bouqdib Archive was founded.

The purpose of this archive is to trace the life of this extraordinary free spirit, based on the approximately 20,000 documents and items left behind, to construct a poetic work of remembrance.

Initial archival-artistic work has brought the first treasures to light. The virtuoso and composer Elshan Ghasimi gained inspiration from individual objects and has written music and songs based on them. We are happy to announce the publication of two live albums Elies Miniatures I – Ein Garten singender Dinge and EM II – Archivblumen, for which purpose the music label Bublitz Music was recently founded. In the future, Bublitz Music will also focus on the other classical musics – an evocative term invoked by the British musicologist and critic Michael Church.

Elies Miniatures, performance: a projection above an object in a darkened room, audience in front

A short passage from the press release:

“What does a magnetic field generator sound like? What does the last cigarette lighter say? Whose hands are there, coming towards us, and what is the secret behind the star chart?

Elshan Ghasimi’s concept album Elies Miniatures I – Ein Garten singender Dinge combines classical Persian music with the demands of contemporary conceptual art and the processing of an archive.

With the utmost sensitivity in musical expression, the world-class soloist leads us into a new musical universe on the tar. As a composer, she interlaces different modal scales of the Radīf*, combines them with influences and elements of minimal music and interweaves poetry by Omar Chayyām, Hossein Gol-e-Golab, Hatef Esfahani and her own texts. On this album, Ghasimi appears in various roles as composer, soloist, singer and reciter.”

As album, concert and exhibition cycle, Elies Miniatures is an ongoing narrative as well as a novel form of merging music, concert, visual art, exhibition and biographical narration. If you are interested in deeper diving into the conceptual and artistic framework of this collaborative work of Elshan Ghasimi, Michal Martychowiec and JHM Schindele visit the cycle's website.

Read more.

 

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You can find the albums on all major streaming platforms.
A limited edition on vinyl is being prepared for production.

Black card reading “recorded 10 6 2018 · 26 9 1439 · 20 3 1397 in Bremen”
Elshan Ghasimi playing the tar with lowered gaze, black and white
Posted by Joseph in News
10
Nov
2018

Elshan Ghasimi – Excerpts of the Radīf I – V | First Introduction

Dear readers,

Excerpts of the Radīf is the programmatic title of Elshan Ghasimi’s new concert series. It is a journey and invitation to the Classical Persian Canon. Sometimes one only realizes afterwards how fortunate one is.

We can report on a few of these fortunate cases. An example is the encounter and work with the Tar virtuoso and composer Elshan Ghasimi in 2015. The only female master of this instrument worldwide.

And fortunately, in retrospective, stories are curiously written: So, at the same moment we launched the exhibition cycle Mnemosyne on European identity, our range of topics took a giant leap: Through Ghasimi, the Persian classical culture moved into focus, as the Arabic tradition came into it through the estate of El Arbi Bouqdib.

But how do you create enthusiasm and intelligently approach a foreign civilization and world culture? How can this happen beyond exoticism and terms like ‘world music’, beyond repetition and standard vocabulary? The leveling down global pop culture is certainly not a lasting concept to uncover a vibrating and yet hidden classical tradition. So we had to go and find other ways.

From these thoughts and in conversation with Ghasimi arose the idea to the series Excerpts of the Radīf: A series of introduction; theoretical, yet flamboyant, complex yet with open arms for open ears and minds. An invitation to explore an unknown and arcane but promising and harmonious Jadeworld.

Premiere and opening will take place on November 15th at 8pm in Berlin.

Literaturhaus Lettrétage, Mehringdamm 61.

–

Especially in the name of Elshan Ghasimi,
yours sincerely,

 

JMH Schindele
Artistic Director | Bublitz

 

 

… so we came to new formats of media and time convergence like Elies Miniatures. An exemplary centaur of exhibition, concert, archive work and ritualized memory. The first major production of Bublitz Thesaurós with Elshan Ghasimi.

About the Radīf

A Radīf (series, sequence, ranking) is a collection of hundreds, if one counts the Radīfs of differentmasters (Ostād), thousands of melodious figures. So-called Guschehs. These melodies are organized within twelve tonal systems called Dastgāh and Awaz.

The master improvises on the basis of these melodies. These improvisations, not unlike jazz, are the highest form of performing and practicing this art.

In 2009 the Radīf has been declared World Heritage by the UNESCO. But history as we know only comes into individual existance through the living tradition, through the individual and challenging process of update and appropriation.

Ghasimi will present two different tonal systems (Dastgāh and Awaz) in each concert of the five-parted series. Solo Tar or Setar.

Posted by Joseph in News
05
Oct
2018

Silk roads, silk voices, steel strings.

Dear friends,

We are pleased to invite you to the first two public Konzert-Lesungen by the poet Inge Buck and Elshan Ghasimi.

Two rhetoric, two interlocutors, two generations, two classical traditions interwoven in some other you.

The Konzert-Lesungen will take place on the 30th of August in Bremen, in the book and art shop Franz Leuwer, and on the 3rd of September in Berlin, in the Literature House Lettrétage.

Zwei Minuten & Frühlingsvogel

In these links you will find two poems and compositions.

Zwei Minuten
Frühlingsvogel

Poem and voice: Inge Buck.
Composition and interpretation for Persian long-necked lute Tar: Elshan Ghasimi.

 

 

Portrait of Inge Buck at a table, photo Julia Baier

© Photo Inge Buck: Julia Baier

 

 

Banner “fresh::sounds Seidenstraße #4” with colourful wavy lines on a black ground

"... Beauty poured into sounds ... A soothing evening full of unexpected moments of happiness."

Hamburger Abendblatt on last year's Silkroad Festival

 

We would also like to draw your attention to the Silk Road Festival on the 8th of September in Hamburg. Elshan Ghasimi will be there, along with other artists from the new and old Silk Road.

Concerts, new atmospheres and other syntheses can be found from 8 pm in the resonanzraum.

 

In the name of the Bublitz network,

JMH Schindele

 

 

Elshan Ghasimi in black playing the tar in a church interior

© Photo Elshan Ghasimi: Bublitz gGmbH

Posted by Joseph in News
09
Aug
2018

Was bleibt | Inge Buck and Elshan Ghasimi

Dear Sir or Madam,

We are extremely pleased to introduce you to a new collaboration, a new flower of joint work. The collaboration of Thesaurós artist and composer Elshan Ghasimi with the poet and author Inge Buck.

Poetry & Music. Concert & Reading. Two rhetorics, two interlocutors, two classical traditions face to face.

Buck's poetry, near the ideal of elegiac presentness, realizes the tragedy of the human-bound. However, sometimes cheerful, it never leaves the paved and hard ground of realism; it slips into the comic or even the cynical.

Please find a sample under the following link or in the appendix: Poem and composition for the Persian long-necked lute Tar.

Zwei Minuten.

 

 

Portrait of Inge Buck at a table, photo Julia Baier

© Photo Inge Buck: Julia Baier

 

 

The first two concert-readings will take place on 30th August in Bremen, in the book and art gallery Franz Leuwer and on 3rd September in Berlin, in the Literature House Lettrétage.

Inge Buck wrote the following introduction to the concert readings:

“Moved and inspired by the volume of poems Unter dem Schnee [“Under the Snow”]by the poet Inge Buck, with collages by Monica Schefold, translated into Persian by Madjid Mohit, the Persian musician and composer Elshan Ghasimi has created corresponding compositions. A poetic dialogue between poetry and music, Orient and Occident, between Inge Buck’s poems and Elshan Ghasimi’s musical interpretations: “The melodies come to me, when I read the poems.”

The gap between the cultures is bridged. In the dialogue and stillness between Persian music and German text, worlds evolve from words and tones: about urban landscapes and nature, seasons and lifetime, forgetting and remembering, about war, exile and the language of books.

Elshan Ghasimi and Inge Buck, two artists of different cultures, languages and generations, meet in their interaction: the texts open themselves to the music, the music to the texts.“

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The reading and concert will be framed by an introduction by JMH Schindele and a concluding talk with the artists. In Bremen we also have the opportunity to welcome the publisher of the Sujet publishing house Madjid Mohit.

Mohit was honored in 2015 for his enduring work and merit with the Hermann Kesten Prize of the Pen Center Germany. In his capacity as a translator and adapter from German into Persian, he is the facilitator of the collaboration of Buck and Ghasimi.

Please, feel warmly invited and welcomed!

On behalf of the artists and the Bublitz network,

JMH Schindele

 

Posted by Joseph in News
18
Jun
2018

Zarathustra | Elshan Ghasimi and Neda Ahmadi at the Klangteppich-Festival Berlin

Poster “Festival für Musik der iranischen Diaspora, 22–23 June, Salon am Moritzplatz”

Dear friends of Classical Persian music and culture,

We are pleased to announce a special event this Friday in Berlin. For the first time Elshan Ghasmi appears in a duo with the experimental Animator Neda Ahmadi. The whole thing then immediately gains an epic dimension: The two artists made the central creation myth of the ancient Persian religion of Zarathustra to their subject and task: compositions in sand, sound and space for eye, ear and intellect.

The visual concert will take place this Friday, June 22, at 9pm at the Klangteppisch-Festival for Music of the Iranian Diaspora. Organized by journalist Franziska Buhre and musician and musicologist Ali Choolae. The festival brings together an extraordinary group of artists of far-reaching musical and artistic color. In total, there are eight events starting on Friday and Saturday both at 6pm at the Salon am Moritzplatz.

Please find further information here

The official text of the festival:

„The festival presents contemporary music creations by Berlin-based musicians from Iran in new artistic encounters. Persian instruments are to be discovered in new sound environments, the voice is heard in stories and singing in several languages. The variety of remembered and anticipated sounds unfolds into a magnificent fabric that the musicians and listeners tie together.

In the first festival edition, the tar can be experienced as a solo instrument, as a partner of live visuals and as a companion of cello, clarinet, ney and percussion. Kamancheh and tabla will explore the paths of the silk road, the ornamentation of classical Persian song oscillates in digital sound synthesis, tales in Azerbaijani and Turkish enter into a dialogue with contemporary interpretations of Persian poetry. The rhythms of tonbak and daf will eventually resonate in electronic sound layers.“

So again and with appropriate emphasis: A warm invitation to the festival this Friday and Saturday, from 6pm onwards at the Salon am Moritzplatz. As little aperçu of activation, the trailer of the first appearance of the ensemble 'Das Auge des Divans' (Gerhardt / Ghasimi) from the beginning of the year. We are looking forward to seeing you there.

Elshan Ghasimi and the entire Bublitz-Network

 

Posted by Joseph in News