German electronic musician Thomas Lehn (right)performs with expat Kiwi David Watson at Auckland's Starkwhite on Saturday 17 January (Also, The Physics Room, Christchurch 20th January, 8pm). This is a rare opportunity to hear cutting-edge genre-hopping boundary-riding work by two key figures from the international new music scene. German electronic musician Thomas Lehn (right)performs with expat Kiwi David Watson at Auckland's Starkwhite on Saturday 17 January (Also, The Physics Room, Christchurch 20th January, 8pm). This is a rare opportunity to hear cutting-edge genre-hopping boundary-riding work by two key figures from the international new music scene.Based in Cologne, Thomas Lehn is rooted in a broad spectrum of musics. He is best known as a pianist, interpreting and improvising in classical, contemporary and jazz musics since the early 1980s. However over the last decade Lehn has also become famed as a live electronics performer. He has developed his own language, a unique palette of phat and chunky sounds, using classic 1960s analogue synthesizers. These historic instruments allow Lehn to modify electronic sounds directly, controlling multiple parameters simultaneously, allowing him to improvise with other musicians. A member of various ensembles, Lehn has repeatedly collaborated with the likes of John Butcher , Gunter Christmann , Jim Denley, Axel Dorner , Christian Fennesz, Wolfgang Fuchs, Gerry Hemingway, Erhard Hirt , Paul Lovens, Paul Lytton, Radu Malfatti, Torsten Muller, Evan Parker and Keith Rowe.

www.thomasslehn.de

Lehn will perform with expatriate New-York-based guitarist and bagpiper David Watson. Watson has performed and recorded with Sonic Youth's Lee Renaldo and Thurston Moore, his own group Endgame (which includes Philip Glass's percussionists Jim Pugliese and Christine Bard), John Zorn, Ikue Mori, Shelley Hirsch, Mark Stewart (from Paul Simon's and Steve Riech's ensembles), John Cage collaborator Chris Mann, and Christian Marclay. He has worked on experimental film soundtracks, including Mathew Barney's Cremaster 3. Playing bagpipes since the mid-1980s, Watson set out to take this typecast instrument beyond conventional boundaries. John Zorn called his bagpipe album Skirl "the great bagpipe record from the downtown scene."

Starkwhite is a contemporary artspace with an interest in new music. The Lehn and Watson concert complements the STARKAUDIO series (two down, two to go) curated by Sean Kerr and featuring performers such as Rosy Parlane, Sean Kerr, Whitebass and Eso Steel (STARKAUDIO 1), and Golden Axe, the Gladeyes and Matt Brennan (STARKAUDIO 2).

Lehn and Watson's New Zealand tour has been supported by the Goethe Institut.

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Thomas Lehn and David Watson
Starkwhite,
510 Karangahape Road,
Auckland.

Saturday 17 January, 8.00pm, $10 at the door

To reserve seats email john.sw@ihug.co.nz

For further information contact John McCormack at Starkwhite: 9 3070704