I was very happy to be invited to the STEIM (the studio for electro-instrumental music) orientation workshop #106 in Amsterdam. Additional to the great lectures and demonstrations by the artist and STEIM staff it was especially fruitful to meet and improvise with the other course participants (Erik Spanger, Matt Wakefield and Abdullah Benabdallah). Exchanging experiences, opinions and of course jamming together added a nice “active” component to the theoretical parts of the workshop. Especially the common improvisation on Friday afternoon was one of my STEIM-time highlights. Feel free to have a look…

Structet is a fluctuating formation constisting of 52 visual and sonic improvisers from the ArtScience Interfaculty and other departments of the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague. Sctructet adapts itself to the building or spatial structure where it performs – with a preference for the vertical dimension.

I was very happy to join this group with my computer for the sequel to their performance at TodaysArt in 2006 and I was especially interested in developing an audiovisual improvisation based on research into a specific location. Our performance took place in the Atrium of the The Hague Town Hall and was inspired by a study of the proportions, scale, color, history and function of the location of the building by Richard Meier. On location the musicians on laptops and custom built instruments formed an electronic orchestra that performed on seven floors of the building. The result could be described as an audiovisual, spectacular, architectonic vertical matrix of improvised electronic music and projections. Please, have a look…

On March 31st 2010 I performed at the Epicentrum/Stichting Centrum in The Hague with the Ensemble RecPlay. Recplay is a live electronica and mechanica improvisation group initiated by Robert Pravda consisting of a constantly renewing group of ArtScience students. This results in many performances in which all kinds of objects are converted into electro-acoustic musical instruments, ranging from “Duchamp-like readymades” to personal software instruments. I joined this group in 2009 and the performance at Epicentrum was my personal highlight of the RecPlay experience so far. Although enjoying playing the laptop in that group I decided to go back to my roots as a saxophone player for this performance. That was a huge challenge as it is really difficult to fit in with a large group of computer musicians when you play the only acoustic instrument – personally, I think it was a good decision and it really worked out great, so please: enjoy.

The collective RecPlay has been initiated  2001 in the Royal Academy of Visual Arts in The Hague by the Interfaculty ArtScience / Image And Sound students. The group is currently centered around Robert Pravda and Kasper van der Horst. I joined last year and recently we started moving around within the Royal Academy of [...]

First encounter in this formation (blind date) : Angelika Sheridan, flute/bass flute/voice; Ulrike Stortz, violin/voice; Scott Roller, cello; John Hollenbeck, drums/ percussion. Closing concert of the KLANGBILDUNG festival in the Exploratorium in Berlin-Kreuzberg.
Pieces free-improvised in this order. In August 2009 this combination tracked in Colgne for a CD which is currently being prepared… Scott played [...]

Improvisations 2008 is a selection of different pieces – all recorded in 2008 – which originated either in the course of Hanna Schraffenberger’s Karl-Steinbuch-Scholarship “Interactive real-time applications for free improvised music” or her bachelor thesis on “Human-Computer Interaction in Free Improvised Music”. Besides the acoustic sounds of the cello/piano (Scott Roller) and the violine/voice (Ulrike Stortz) electronic sounds [...]

Seven by Seven
Ulrike Stortz, violin/voice; Scott Roller, cello/voice; David Anderson, grand piano/voice;
These tracks were made on 12 August 2008 in an afternoon recording session in the O’Donnell Performance Hall, Meadows School of the Arts, Southern Methodist University, Dallas Texas USA. David and Scott had played together for several years (1980-83 in Denton/Dallas) in the [...]

Open_Sounds have played together in this and other combinations since October 2004 when they met on an improvisation course for young composers led by Scott Roller and Ulrike Stortz. They contributed in a very real sense to Stortz/Roller’s founding Open_Music, a non-profit organisation based in Stuttgart, Germany which has been very active and successful in working with young people of diverse musical backgrounds since 2005. The following [...]

Stuttgart Nachts (Stuttgart at Night)
Music improvised live by the Helios String Quartet on the 21st of October 2006 in the Stuttgart Wagenhallen to the 90-minute (otherwise silent) film by Fried Dähn
The Helios String Quartet in this recording is made up of:  Felix Borell – Violin / Ulrike Stortz – Violin / Gareth Lubbe – Viola, [...]

BL Lacerta Improvisation Quartet in the formation active  between 1980 and 1983: Robert Price, clarinet & other; Leslie Gay, tuba & other; Scott Roller, cello & other; David Anderson, percussion, analog electronics & other.
These recordings are a sampler of recordings made in November 1981 at the beginning of an exciting two-year residency awarded by Chamber [...]