Labor Neunzehn is pleased to invite you to a concert with Ensemble Mosaik, presenting music by Michael Pelzel, Milica Djordjevic, and Rebecca Saunders, and featuring Matthias Koole in an improvisational performance.
Wednesday, September 24th, 2025
20:00 DOORS 20:30 EVENT STARTS
Location: SOWIESO (https://www.sowiesoberlin.com)
Weisestr. 24
12049 Berlin, Neukölln
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PROGRAM Part 1
ensemble mosaik
Michael Pelzel »chant fractal« 2009
Milica Djordjevic »how to evade?« 2011
Rebecca Saunders »to and fro« 2010
Simon Strasser | Oboe
Chatschatur Kanajan | Violine
PROGRAM Part 2
Solo Matthias Koole | Acoustic steel string guitar – no input mixer
BIO SIMON STRASSER
Simon Strasser, born in 1973 in Stuttgart, has been a member of ensemble mosaik since 1999. He studied oboe with Prof. Jochen Müller-Brincken at the Hochschule für Musik in Würzburg, with Prof. Ricardo Rodrigues at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler in Berlin, and with Prof. Burkhard Glaetzner at the Universität der Künste in Berlin. From 1997 to 2000 he was a member of the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie, where he was also active on the orchestra’s board.
Strasser’s fascination with the unheard and the unusual has led him beyond contemporary music into music theater – he has appeared in productions of the Andreas Bode Company and at the Neuköllner Oper. In the Berlin Oboe Quartet, he devotes himself to the baritone oboe, a rarely played instrument in an uncommon chamber music formation. A long-standing and intensive collaboration connects him with pianist Franck-Thomas Link of the Kammerkunstverein Hamburg.
He has also performed with Ensemble Resonanz Hamburg and ensemble courage Dresden, and played under Pierre Boulez with the Ensemble Modern Orchestra. With ensemble mosaik, Simon Strasser has appeared at many of the most important international festivals for contemporary music and has contributed to numerous radio broadcasts and CD productions.
BIO CHATSCHATUR KANAJAN
Chatschatur Kanajan, born in 1971 in Moscow, has been a member of ensemble mosaik since 1998. He studied violin in Moscow, Dresden, and Berlin, with teachers including Marina Jaschwili and Ilan Gronich. He went on to study conducting and composition with Friedrich Goldmann at the Universität der Künste in Berlin. Kanajan was a fellow at the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart and the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, and he received the 1st Prize for Interpretation at the Hanns Eisler Prize for Composition and Interpretation.
From 1997 to 2007 he was a member of the Kairos Quartet; since then, he has been a regular guest with musikFabrik, the Neuen Ensemble, and Ensemble Insomnio (NL). In 2002 Kanajan made his debut as an opera conductor with Flut by Boris Blacher at the Stadtbad Prenzlauer Berg in Berlin. In 2006 and 2010 he took on the musical direction and conducting of the hip hop operas Così fan tutte at the Komische Oper Berlin and Der Rap des Nibelungen at Theater Freiburg. Since 2008 he has been conductor of the european music project.
As a composer, he has received commissions from the Berlin Senate and the Ultraschall Berlin festival and created works, performances, and installations for ensemble mosaik and the Kairos Quartet, including Edles Tropfen in Kernspaltung (2003), 16-Zylinder (2004), super strings (2004), Abbatte Gattonis Erben (with Janine Wildhage, 2005), and Die Glasglocke (2007/09).
With ensemble mosaik, Kanajan has appeared at many of the most important international festivals for contemporary music and has contributed to numerous radio broadcasts and CD productions.
BIO MATTHIAS KOOLE
The practice of brazilian guitarist Matthias Francisco Koole navigates between several forms of collaboration in improvisation, written music, and multidisciplinary projects.
Matthias Francisco is part of different groups, covering a wide range of musical styles and practices: ICNISP – Institute for Certified Nomadic Illicit Sonic Practices with Marina Cyrino, the new music guitar duo Oh Mensch with Kobe Van Cauwenberghe, the experimental music trio Infinito Menos, with Mário Del Nunzio and Henrique Iwao, the no wave duo Matter Kori with Teresa Riemann, and Hiccup, a quartet with JD Zazie, Tony Elieh and Marina Cyrino described as “tropicalist abstract glitch electronic radical impro” by Mat Pogo.
Matthias Francisco is a member of the Brazilian experimental music label/production house Seminal Records with Henrique Iwao, Sanannda Acácia, J.P.-Caron, Cássia Siqueira and Marina Cyrino. As part of the label, he organised and curated the Belo Horizonte the improvisation series QI – Quartas de Improviso. Quartas de Improviso with Henrique Iwao from 2013 to 2022. QI is still active without Matthias and is the longest running experimental music series in Belo Horizonte. In the same city, he also curated the festival Số(m) – encontro internacional de arte sonora in 2016 as concerts that are not necessarily part of a series or festival. Now in Berlin, he is still involved in curating albums and organising the Terminal series with Marina Cyrino.
In the past, he was a founding member of the guitar quartet ZWERM. He played or plays, as a freelance musician, in ensembles such as Ictus, Champ d’Action, United Instruments of Lucilin, Brussels Philharmonic, BIT20 Ensemble, Opera Lab Berlin…
Recordings include Calisthenics by ICNISP solo improvisation cd 34:46 released by Seminal Records, Quem Indica with Henrique Iwao , Natacha Maurer and Ariane Stolfi and Disputa e Guerra no Terreiro de Roça de Casa de Avó with Scarassatti, Henrique Iwao and Marina Cyrino released by OEM Records.
Matthias was awarded a Stipendienpreis at the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik in Darmstadt (2010) and was resident at Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart (2013-2015). He studied guitar in Ghent, Belgium, with Tom Pauwels and obtained his PhD at Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG) in Belo Horizonte, Brazil with percussionist Fernando Rocha and ethnomusicologist Lúcia Campos as advisors.
In 2021 Matthias was a fellow at Labor Neunzehn, Berlin in the context Weltoffenes Berlin Program of the Senate of Berlin.
Matthias Francisco lives and works in Berlin.
LINKS
Cluster is a new-music series devoted to the investigation of sound and notation, which provides musicians and composers with an exchange area in Berlin, at the crossroad of compositional and performance practices.
This concert is part of Monat der zeitgenössischen Musik #9 (The Month of Contemporary Music).
The Month of Contemporary Music is a collaborative project: it is the artists, ensembles, and organizers who shape the festival program through their own events. The collectively developed program leaves no doubt about the vitality and diversity of a scene that is internationally influential. In light of the severe budget cuts that are increasingly depriving the city’s cultural life of air to breathe, the festival sends a clear message: Berlin’s independent scene is indispensable.
img. ensemble mosaik © Anja Weber
