Authors:

The composer, poet and drummer Charles Amirkhanian is one of the most important American exponents of text-sound compositions. In his works, which play with cut-up technique in the mode of William Burroughs, sampled acoustic environmental impressions are fused with traditional musical elements and language material. In the poesiefestival berlin 2004 he presents his best known pieces, in which linguistic elements are applied to rhythmic patterns, and so are comparable to the sound of percussion.

Fatima Miranda, the “Pop-Diva” of voice-artists, shows in her programme “Solo Voice” her phenomenal repertoire of vocal techniques and acting media, which make her performances truly unique. Miranda uses her voice not only to speak and sing, but also as a bodily percussion and wind instrument. In her multimedia works of total-art , in which music and video, gesture and mimicry, light, costume and masks are brought together, she succeeds in opening people up to new experiences and touching what is deepest within them.

Play it loud! The lyricist, audio-, video- and performance-poet Christian Ide Hintze plumbs the soundscape of language. He samples and concocts sound loops composed of letters; these short text sequences establishing a penetrative connection with the listener. Some remain humourously just under the border of sense, but many find in their sound and picture worlds a direct and powerful expressiveness. Hintze is the founder and director of the Vienna School of Poetry, in which since 1992 such varied greats as Gerhard Rühm, Allen Ginsberg, Nick Cave and Blixa Bargeld have taught.