Enlarge Your Sax

The Brazilian saxophone player Bittencourt presents compositions for solo saxophone (soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone) and electronics each of which is characterized by a different configuration and a different kind of musical interaction. “Enlarge Your Sax” is the result of his extensive and elaborate collaboration with seven composers (Juan Camilo Hernández Sánchez, Agostino Di Scipio, Bernd Schultheis, Tom Mays, Phivos-Angelos Kollias, Paulo Ferreira Lopes, Arturo Fuentes) which began during Bittencourt's stays at the Institute for Music and Acoustics of the ZKM | Centre for Art and Media in Karlsruhe.

Bittencourt who has intensively dealt with participatory music performance develops a dynamic, creative communication process which takes place on several levels: Musicians and composers jointly work on the music performance, explore the possibilities of interaction with the electronic systems and thus increase the variety of sounds.

This multiple tonal aesthetics centres on the classic tape setup, live electronics, deferred processing, or systematic approaches. These are controlled by extended playing techniques which correspond to the respective compositional approach. This includes, for example, feedback loops, gestures, ambient noise, or multimedia content. Even the sound material of the saxophone has been processed in various ways: as control data, as source and layering material, electronically amplified, recorded or processed.