Fred Frith 75 - Festival

Tag 2: Fred Frith & Paula Sanchez | Large Ensemble: Frith/Hodgkinson/Anker/Fluke-Mogul/Sanchez/Silva

The multi-instrumentalist, composer and improviser Fred Frith celebrates his 75th birthday in 2024. Reason enough for us to invite him to a residency in Cologne, the focus of which is the "Fred Frith 75" festival. For the two concert evenings on October 15 and 16, Fred Frith has put together a special program of mostly exclusive projects with (inter)national new and old companions, from intimate duo line-ups to large ensembles.
On the day before, Monday, October 14, Fred Frith will give an insight into his work in a moderated artist talk. This will be followed by a screening of the award-winning film "Step across the border".

Monday, October 14 (admission free)
Fred Frith: artist talk
afterwards: 'Step across the border' (film screening)

Tuesday, October 15
20:00 Trio: Fred Frith w/ Tim Hodgkinson & Paul Lytton
20:50 Quartet: Fred Frith w/ Gabby Fluke-Mogul, Mariá Portugal & Susana Santos Silva
21:45 Life Only: Fred Frith w/ Dimos Vryzas & Diego Aguirre DAZ

Wednesday, October 16
20:00 Duo: Fred Frith w/ Paula Sanchez
21:00 Large Ensemble: Fred Frith w/ Tim Hodgkinson, Lotte Anker, Gabby Fluke-Mogul, Paula Sanchez & Susana Santos Silva

Fred Frith is internationally renowned as a pioneer of the electric guitar and as an improviser, songwriter and composer for film, dance and theater. Over the course of his long career, Fred Frith has repeatedly performed with various projects in the Stadtgarten, most recently in 2023 as a duo with Susana Silva Santos. He is therefore one of the artists with a long association with the venue.

Frith has been making noise of one kind or another for more than 50 years, starting with the rock collective Henry Cow, which he co-founded with Tim Hodgkinson in 1968. Best known as a pioneering electric guitarist, improviser and song-writer, his compositions have been performed by ensembles ranging from Arditti Quartet and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra to Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Ground Zero and the Glasgow Improvisers’ Orchestra. Through bands like Art Bears, Massacre, Skeleton Crew, the Fred Frith Guitar Quartet, Cosa Brava and the FF Trio he has stayed close to his roots in rock and folk music while branching out in many other directions.

Film music credits include the acclaimed documentaries Rivers and Tides, Touch the Sound and Leaning into the Wind, directed by Thomas Riedelsheimer, The Tango Lesson, Yes and The Party by Sally Potter, Werner Penzel’s Zen for Nothing, Peter Mettler’s Gods, Gambling and LSD, and the award-winning (and Oscar-nominated) Last Day of Freedom, by Nomi Talisman and Dee Hibbert-Jones.

Fred has performed works by and sometimes alongside composers John Luther Adams, Gavin Bryars, Sylvie Courvoisier, Alvin Curran, George Lewis, Annea Lockwood, René Lussier, Jose Maceda, Meredith Monk, Terry Riley, and Christian Wolff; improvised with Laurie Anderson, Lotte Anker, Derek Bailey, Alvin Curran, Camille Émaille, gabby fluke-mogul, Joëlle Léandre, Ikue Mori, Butch Morris, Pauline Oliveros, Evan Parker, Zeena Parkins and Camel
Zekri, to name a few, and recorded on albums by, for example, Brian Eno, The Residents, Robert Wyatt, The Swans, Violent Femmes, Material, Negativland, John Zorn, Matthew and the Unfortunates, and Half Japanese.

The recipient of Italy’s Demetrio Stratos Prize for his life’s work in experimental music and an honorary doctorate from the University of Huddersfield in his home county of Yorkshire, Fred taught for twenty years in the legendary epicenter of American experimental music, Mills College in Oakland, California; as well as co-directing (with Alfred Zimmerlin) the improvisation master’s program at the Musik Akademie in Basel, Switzerland. He is currently visiting faculty at the Universidad Austral in Valdivia, Chile, where he collaborated on the creation and development of the new School of Music and Sound Art.

Fred is the subject of Nicolas Humbert and Werner Penzel’s much loved Step Across the Border, cited by Cahiers du Cinéma as one of the 20th century’s hundred most influential films.

Fred Frith 75 - artist talk & film "Step Across the Border"

Fred Frith 75 - Festival Day 1