Broken Ghost Consort
Interweaving live performance and immersive electro-acoustic sound environments, Broken Ghost Consort performs works that live in a hybrid world of composition, free improvisation, and sound installation. Foundational to the group is the use of “reembodied sound” techniques, in which gongs, cymbals, and other resonant instruments are activated using small transducers attached to their surfaces and controlled via computer, causing them to sound autonomously. Alongside these “ghost instruments,” live performers interact with written, structured, and spontaneously improvised materials in an evolving series of works that explore the nature of sound, performance, materiality, and space.
Founded in 2016 by New York based pianist and composer Matthew Goodheart, the core is an international trio featuring Köln based clarinetist/saxophonist Georg Wissel and bassist George Cremaschi from Prague. The group has performed internationally, most recently at the New York based Infrequent Seams Fest II, where their piece Tryptich featured a set of telematic improvisations set to abstract video. The summer of 2021 also saw the release of Presences: suite for five performers and nine instruments, a 50 minute collaborative composition with guests Matthias Muche on trombone and tubist Melvyn Poore. Jazzwise has described the album as “an exacting and fascinating meeting of art, music and science.”
Selected Works:
Tips, Ticks and Pricks (5min), telematic improvisation and video (middle movement of Triptych)
Bracken Tongue’s Wept (excerpt)
(3min 16sec) for trio with computer controlled cymbals and viola
Refraction Interlude: clarinet
(6min 37sec), for interactive metal percussion and clarinet, from Presences.
Broken Ghost Consort Plus, performing Presences in Münster, Summer 2019