SOMAPHON Concert Night
IN-BETWEEN: Modern Traditions
Tam Thi Pham
Infinite Line
The SOMAPHON concert evening "IN-BETWEEN: Modern Traditions" opens at SENDEHALLE with Tham Thi Pham's "Infinite Line". The performance merges composition and improvisation to explore the sonic possibilities of the đàn bầu. Extended performance techniques shift the traditional voice of the instrument into a wide field of textures, timbres and sonorities. Bowing is the primary method of sound production, enabling a movement from monophonic to multiphonic sound.
The work treats the acoustic material as continuously changeable. Live electronic processing shapes it in real time, creating an evolving dialogue between performer, instrument and technology. As bowing draws out different resonances and tonal layers, the đàn bầu is heard in relation to both its traditional voice and the expanded conditions of the performance.
Radio Hito
"L'USE E GLI ATTRIBUTI DEL CUORE" TOUR 2026
Radio Hito follows with "L'USE E GLI ATTRIBUTI DEL CUORE", which transposes poetry by Claude Royet-Journoud into Italian and sets it against stripped-back art songs. The work is described as a transformative translation: a ten-sequence song cycle for soundfonts and voice, joined by an Italian libretto. Its forms remain spare, yet its material opens a space of persistent, shimmering and enigmatic sound.
Zen My Nguyen has spent the last two years adapting Royet-Journoud's 2021 poem L'usage et les attributs du cœur. The song cycle and libretto evolved through around 80 concerts, from Galicia to Kazakhstan, before finding a recorded form. The project works through economy of performance, simple words, forms and contexts, allowing others' words to take on a contemplatively personal rendition.
Radio Hito's compositions are stripped down to bare elements while retaining a solemn intensity. Their work brings voice and soundfonts into a poetic practice that finds possibility in simplicity, clarity and the resonance of translated language.
Phuong-Dan
Phuong-Dan closes "IN-BETWEEN: Modern Traditions" with a practice spanning curating, cultural organising, DJing and production. In 2021 he founded dispari, a label and platform for sonic publishing and collaboration that has been presented at venues including Kunsthalle Münster, Kunstverein München and Meakusma Festival. Since 2006, he has also hosted Gatto Musculoso, his own club series at Golden Pudel Club in Hamburg.
His DJ sets are described as hypnotic blends of rhythm and atmosphere, marked by confident shifts in mood and a defiant openness. His sound has been heard in clubs including Salon des Amateurs, De School, Robert Johnson and Berghain Säule, and at festivals and institutions from Berlin Atonal and Dekmantel to Gropius Bau and c/o Berlin.
