Among Echoes

for voice, clavichord and electronics

Kristia Michael (voice/composition) and Alex Mastichiadis (historical keyboard instruments/electronics) began their collaboration in 2022 with shared ideas regarding the experience of sound and the spirituality of music.

Envisioning a new approach to vocal and instrumental music, they collaborate by composing music, commissioning works from other composers, and simultaneously performing early music with new points of reference in terms of aesthetics. Among Echoes explores the rare combination of voice, clavichord, and electronics within the avant-garde and experimental music scene.

16 December 2024 — Splendor, Amsterdam

13 July 2025 — Private concert, Andros

27 August 2025 — Andros North Culture Festival, Andros

7 February 2026 — Echonance Festival (Amsterdam)

17 February 2026 — Theocharakis Foundation for the Fine Arts & Music (Athens)

Among Echoes merges the intimacy of the human voice with the atmospheric sounds of the clavichord and electronics. Vocalist Kristia Michael and early keyboard player Alex Mastichiadis combine renaissance and new music by both emerging and renowned composers and sound artists, aiming to create a dreamy and mystifying state of resonances.

Since the late Middle Ages, the soft, expressive sound of the clavichord made it ideal for private practice and intimate performances, allowing musicians to explore nuanced dynamics, unlike other early keyboard instruments. This sense of intimacy inspires this innovative blend and envisions a collective artistic and spiritual exploration. ‘Among Echoes’ focuses on the communion of emotional states and the creation of meditative worlds, while pushing the boundaries of extended techniques on the voice and clavichord.

Commissioned works and new arrangements bring fresh elements to contemporary acousmatic creation, expanding the creative potential of historical instruments. By combining voice and clavichord in the field of new and experimental music, this project enriches the palette of new music and brings a new space for inspiration and experimentation.

Repertoire

Johann Jacob Froberger (1616-1667): Meditation, Memento Mori Sibylla, FWV 658

Luzzascho Luzzaschi (1545 – 1607): Se parti, io moro, Madrigal for 5 voices, arranged by Alex Mastichiadis

Jacopo Peri (1561 – 1633): Tu dormi

Yannis Kyriakides: Songs for Ayelet | Spring, Warmth, Transmigration Solo

Alex Mastichiadis: Interlude I

Aspasia Nasopoulou: Utopia

Morton Feldman (1926 – 1987): Only

Alex Mastichiadis: Interlude II

Yannis Kyriakides: Songs for Ayelet | Fire of myself

Nirantar Yakthumba: बगलामुखी (Bagalāmukhi) {x | x⁴ – 5ⁿ = 0} *PREMIERE

Kristia Michael: Remember Thee (Δώρια) *PREMIERE

Jacopo Peri (1561 – 1633): Tu dormi

You sleep, and sweet sleep caresses you with its wings,

Airy wind, no shadow moves the silent trees.

I, who have no rest, except when I pour streams and rivers from my eyes,

I go out alone to the night sky that brings me joy.

You do not look at the splendor of the silver rays

and remain deaf to the pain that torments me;

I feel and see every hour the breeze and the dawn.

Yannis Kyriakides: Songs for Ayelet | Spring, Warmth

Nirantar Yakthumba: बगलामुखी (Bagalāmukhi) {x | x⁴ – 5ⁿ = 0}

This work originates from Nirantar’s explorations and analyses of the extraordinary range of tonal structures in the systems of North Indian ragas, Arabic maqamat, and the European quarter-comma meantone system. In Bagalāmukhi, Nirantar constructs a series of 42 tonalities in extended quarter-comma meantone that goes beyond traditional conventions of cultural practices around meantone tuning. If we think of meantone as an alphabet, what other languages can we speak with it?

In the process of finding these new ways of organizing musical practice, we experiment with making melodic fragments and ornamentations for each tonality that express how their tones are connected and how one may improvise within them. In order to perform this work, we must explore and learn these new tonalities at a deep level and make meaning with them in relation to our previous musical experiences.

Premiere on 16.12.2024, in Splendor (Amsterdam)

Nirantar Yakthumba: बगलामुखी (Bagalāmukhi) {x | x⁴ – 5ⁿ = 0}

The 3*1 Suite is inspired by three Rubaiyats poem of the Persian mathematician and philosopher Omar Khayyám (1048-1131).

“Related to my compositional intention to research the miniature form, the Rubaiyats, a 4-line form poetry equally to Greek and Roman epigrams and to Japanese Haikus, immediately captured my interest; bringing the theme in the first line, developing it in the second, making a climax in the third and concluding dramatically in the fourth, or finishing alternatively with something as surprise, gave me great handles for my compositional choices. Those subtle in from and language poems fitted very well with the character of a historical keyboard such as the clavichord.” – Aspasia Nasopoulou

Alex Mastichiadis: Interlude I

for clavichord and electronics

Watch our debut concert in Splendor (Amsterdam) on December 16th, 2024!