Ancient gravestones


Plows dragging through thick soil


Clouds of dust


Love, War, Death, Work, Dance


Dreams, Whimsy and Prayers


From Thrace to New Orleans


Evros to Mississippi.

CMYK



CMYK explores structured improvisations and new compositions based on folk music from the musicians' cultures of origin: Turkey, Greece, USA/Jewish, and the Netherlands. The name CMYK is taken from the abbreviation for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Keystone black, the 4 process colors that combine in varying proportions to produce the full color spectrum. Our music combines like a kaleidoscope of colors, being informed by our experiences of often crossing borders, speaking several languages and living in many places.

 

Two clarinetists and two percussionists: creating contemporary responses to ancient reed and drum formulas. Song forms, microtonal, modal and atonal pitch systems, extended techniques, grooves and mixed meters may all find their way being woven into our tales.

 

A collaboration: in which musicians from a classical background (Carmichael and Kourtparasidou) and musicians from an improvising and traditional background (Büyükberber and van Hulzen) meet on creative ground. Contemporary music is our nexus, having all studied and worked in contemporary music scene of Amsterdam.

 

Our aim is to entertain audiences with a colorful, emotional and daring pallet that is both simple and sophisticated, and filled with passion, intellect and sensitivity.

 


laura carmichael and oğuz büyükberber


clarinet and bass clarinet


margarita kourtparasidou and robbert van hulzen


percussion




Laura Carmichael USA/NL - biography

Laura has been based in Amsterdam since 1999, when she came to study bass clarinet with Harry Sparnaay at the Amsterdam Conservatory. Classically trained, she has performed with orchestras such as the San Francisco Symphony and Opera Spanga, with string quartets such as Kairos and Del Sol, and was on the California Arts Council Roster as a soloist. However, her musical passions have always gravitated toward the experimental and she is a devoted advocate of contemporary music. She has commissioned and performed numerous works, often with electronics. From her years as a student at the University of Michigan School of Music and living in the San Francisco Bay Area to present, she has worked with composers and improvisers, and collaborated with artists such as Tolga Tüzün, Kurt Rohde, Ronald Bruce Smith, Anne Laberge, Julio Estrada, Chen Yi, Michael Gordon, Ken Ueno, Roderik de Man,Theo Loevendie, Anat Spiegel, Pauline Oliveros, Toshio Hosokawa, Beat Furrer, John Schott's Diaglossia, Steve Horowitz' Mousetrap, Willy Winant, Gino Robair, Jenny Scheinman, Dan Plonsey, Roberta Pickett, Carla Kihlstedt, Scott Hill, Ben Goldberg, Trevor Dunn, Matt Brubeck, and Steve Adams, among others.


In the Netherlands she has performed with Ensemble MAE (Maarten Altena Ensemble), the Barton Workshop, the Chrisztina de Chatel Dance Company, and with Naomi Sato as Duo X. She has also performed solo and chamber music recitals at venues including Merkin Hall (New York), Maerz Musik (Berlin Festspele), Esti Concerts (Tallinn, Estonia), the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Rotterdam Opera Dagen, the American Academy (Rome), Club Super Deluxe (Tokyo), Musique Démesurées (Clermont-Ferrand, France), University of Southampton (UK), Campus Musick (Klagenfurt, Austria), and numerous American universities.


www.lauracarmichael.com

Oğuz Büyükberber TUR - biography

Oğuz Büyükberber is a clarinetist who is mainly known for his unique language of improvisation on the bass clarinet, which usescontemporary music, Turkish music, and jazz idioms. After receiving his BA in visual arts from Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts in Istanbul, he studied at Amsterdam Conservatory where he received his BA and master’s degrees. He studied with Harry Sparnaay, Ferdinand Powel, Arnold Dooyeweerd, John Ruocco and audited Theo Loevendie’s composition classes. He has founded or co-founded many groups and projects, performed in well-respected festivals all over Europe such as Northsea Jazz Festival, Parliament Jazz festival, Transmediale, London Jazz Festival, Talos Jazz, Numusic and Traumzeit to name a few. He has recorded four solo albums, participated in over 25 albums including two releases from Blue Note, and collaborated with world famous musicians such as Lawrence Butch Morris, Craig Harris, Michael Moore and many others. Büyükberber continues to infuse creativity into all the areas of his musical activity, incorporating his own visual art and video into musical performances, and original compositions


www.oguzbuyukberber.net

Robbert van Hulzen NL - biography

Robbert’s fascination with colour extends from his hat collection to his work with sound, moving between improvised, contemporary composed, Indian and Indonesian, and electronic music. He plays in the jazz band Beautiful Brown Eyes, world collision rock group Om Viloma with Greek/Bulgarian and (South) Indian musicians, and abstract folk duo Rara Avis with recorder player Terri Hron (cd One Fell Swoop on Karnatic Lab Records, 2008), dancer/choreographer Michael Jahoda, composer/producer Nitin Sawhney, contemporary gamelan ensemble Gending, improvised dance & music groups Rosie Wooff and Magpie, and composer Merlijn Twaalfhoven, among others. In his work with artists from other disciplines, including theatre group De Maan and film maker Dave Zijlstra, he often mixes his percussion with homemade electronics, to either produce the music live or create soundtracks or (interactive) installations.Van Hulzen studied South Indian rhythm in Bangalore with MT Rajakesari and BC Manjunath and with Rafael Reina in Amsterdam, drums with Steve Clover, and North Indian rhythm with Suresh Talwalkar. He holds MA degrees from the University of Amsterdam (part of his time there was spent at SOAS, London, England) and the Amsterdam Conservatory.

http://nocount.org