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Anne La Berge

La Berge is a precursor of some of the important things contemporary composition has now come to mean.

The Wire

Anne La Berge’s passion for the extremes in both composed and improvised music has led her to storytelling and sound art as her sources of musical inspiration. Her music gathers the elements on which her reputation is based: ferocious and far-reaching virtuosity, microtonal textures and melodies, and her unique array of percussive flute techniques, all combined with interactive electronic processing and text.

She performs regularly as a soloist, with the ensemble MAZE and with her husband David Dramm. She is a founding artist of Splendor Amsterdam, a collective of musicians who have transformed an old bathhouse in Amsterdam into a cultural mecca, where she rehearses her own projects and shares small scale concerts with international guests.

In 1999, together Steve Heather and Cor Fuhler, she founded Kraakgeluiden, a improvisation series based in Amsterdam, exploring combinations of acoustic and electronic instruments using real-time interactive performance systems. Many of the resulting musical collaborations have have taken on a life beyond the Kraakgeluiden series, which ceased in 2006. La Berge’s own music has evolved in parallel, and the flute has become only one element in a sound world that includes computer samples, the use of spoken text and electronic processing.

She works regularly as an improvisation and live electronics coach worldwide in the context of residencies and private coaching.

She can be heard on the Largo, Artifact, Etcetera, Hat Art, Frog Peak, Einstein, X-OR, Unsounds, Canal Street, Rambo, esc.rec., Intackt, Data, verz, Relative Pitch and Splendor Records labels which include recordings with Ensemble Modern, United Noise Toys, Fonville/La Berge, Rasp/Hasp, Bievre/La Berge, Apricot My Lady, Big Zoom, Corkestra, La Berge/Williamson, MAZE, Phil Maguire, Henneman/Branch/La Berge and the family Dramm La Berge La Berge Dramm.

Her music is published by Frog Peak Music, Alry Publications, Donemus and many of her Max patch based compositions are available as Apps from her privately. She is the Managing Director of the Volsap Foundation that produces innovative music projects.

 

This page was last updated in July 2023.