Alex Nowitz

voice, sound, music, composition, improvisation, gesture-controlled live electronics
Germany °1968
research interests: contemporary vocal performance art, voice, extended practice, improvisation and real-time composition, voice and live electronics, composition, composer-performer, politics of voice, philosophy of voice
en

Alex Nowitz (PhD) is both a vocal performance artist and composer of vocal, instrumental and electroacoustic music including works for chamber music ensembles, music theatre as well as music for opera, dance and spoken theatre. As performer Alex presents a wide range of vocal expressions encompassing the countertenor voice, throat singing and whistling practices as well as a multitude of extended vocal techniques. 
During the 1990s, in both Germany (LMU Munich, TU Berlin, University of Potsdam) and the USA (SUNY Potsdam), Alex studied the classical tenor voice, piano, music theory, composition, jazz and music education. Throughout this time he also performed with ensembles engaging in experimental punk rock and improvised music. He interprets new music scores, appears in theatre plays and, what's more, he presents solo vocal performances at new music festivals and theatre houses on the international stage (Europe, USA, Korea). As composer Alex received numerous grants and residencies in Canada, France and Germany, composed two operas (Die Bestmannoper; Traumnovelle), multidisciplinary installation concerts (Wolfsgeheul; Moving Tongues: Playing Space) and chamber music pieces with and without the voice. Regarding spoken theatre, Alex collaborated, among others, with German director Thomas Ostermeier at the Schaubuehne Berlin: The City, The Cut, Ein Sommernachtstraum. In regards to dance he joined forces with Toronto-based choreographer Marie-Josée Chartier and Berlin-based choreographer-dancers, such as Susanne Martin or Florencia Lamarca. From 2007 on, artist-in-residence at STEIM in Amsterdam, he developed two gesture-sensitive, electronic instruments each of which he uses as an extension of the voice, most notably the strophonion, a custom, wireless, digital musical instrument applying two hand controllers. In February 2019, defending the artistic research project Monsters I Love: On Multivocal Arts he received the Doctoral Degree in Fine Arts in Performative and Mediated Practices with Specialisation in Opera from the Stockholm University of the Arts.

https://nowitz.de/
https://vimeo.com/alexnowitz
https://soundcloud.com/alexnowitz

research

research expositions

  • Monsters I Love: On Multivocal Arts (2019) author(s): Alex Nowitz published in: Stockholm University of the Arts (SKH)
    Proposing a ‘multivocal practice’ in the vocal arts, this exposition (documented artistic research project) embodies an inclusive approach to four core categories for the contemporary performance voice: the singing, speaking, extended and disembodied voice. The culmination of a four-year PhD project in Artistic Practices (Performative and Mediated Practices, with specialisations in choreography/film and media/opera /performing arts), it documents artistic research sub-projects through the presentation of multimedia material, interweaving performance recordings with reflective and contextualising texts. Multivocality addresses various models of virtuosity, all of which are informed by a multi-faceted artistic knowledge, whether experimental or experiential, technical or technological, improvisational or compositional. Contemporary vocal performance practices are loaded by questions pertaining to detecting and solving technical issues that span the vocal domains. Through a range of artistic practices—vocal, oral, bodily and technology-related—the research project unfolds what is conceived as a bountiful ‘vocal imaginary’. When voice and body meet technology-related practices that aim at the expansion of the vocal realm by using custom and gesture-controlled live electronics, a performance æsthetics of the in-between emerges. This is explored via the ‘strophonion’, formerly built at STEIM in Amsterdam and, during the course of the PhD, further developed by Berlin-based software programmer Sukandar Kartadinata who created an intricate configuration on the basis of the audio processing application Max/MSP. Through the formulation and performance of ‘The Manifesto for the Multivocal Voice’—a ‘discursive solo performance act’ that aims to provide insights into principles and premises, and to develop the discourse on the politics of today’s performance voice—the exposition attempts to establish a potential theoretical and philosophical grounding for multivocality. Its second major concern relates to the poetics of the voice, investigating the thresholds of highly individualised vocal practices by asking: what are the boundaries of the contemporary performance voice? The exposition (on the Research Catalogue) comprises video and audio documentation of public live performances, lectures and artists’ talks as well as studio productions and rehearsals. The user is invited to study scores and various texts, such as poems, extended programme notes, translations, performance instructions, comments and other reflections. The collection of essays and articles that guide the user through the edifice of ideas that the artistic research project has unveiled remains central to the endeavour.
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  • Errata—'Monsters I Love: On multivocal arts' (last edited: 2019) author(s): Alex Nowitz This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
    The PDF file contains a list of major errors as found in the documented artistic research project 'Monsters I Love: On multivocal arts' published in Stockholm University of the Arts, 3 (2019).
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