angelica castello and urkuma / recorders, electronics, trash, mixing desks, noise

AndromedaLive (*Urkuma) .all The Chaos We Can Leave Behind

chesterfield (+Burkhard Stangl) > GOLD (2011)

andromeda: black sea and the dead innocent rebirth (+ Urkuma)

sonic blue
It was clear from the start of the compositional process in February 2013 that “sonic blue” would be an essential piece in Angélica Castelló’s oeuvre. The 42-year-old composer, flutist and electronic sound designer from Mexico, who has been living in Vienna for several years now, embarked on an unusual journey with musikprotokoll co-curator Susanna Niedermayr. On the Lofoten archipelago, an island chain along Norway’s northern coastline, they met the biologist and bioacoustics researcher Heike Vester, who founded the organization Ocean Sounds in a fishing village named Henningsvær in 2005. Vester led Castelló and Niedermayr to the whales found in the waters around the Lofoten islands. The field recordings and sounds they collected on these boat trips provide the acoustic framework for “sonic blue”.
Under the Banner of Environmental Protection
Ocean Sounds is dedicated to the research of marine mammals and the protection of the marine environment. At the mouth of Vestfjord the oil industry continues to expand. During seismic surveys undertaken to find new oil and gas fields, underwater detonations of compressed air create shockwaves. The vibrations that are reflected back provide information to map the location, density, shape and composition of the rock layers, but they are also a massive intervention in the natural soundworld of aquatic life.
Deep in Many Respects
With “sonic blue”, the musician creates her own imaginary underwater world that immerses the audience into the great sea of sound produced by her subgreatbass recorder, Castelló’s main instrument. The composition process of this piece is an examination of the profound in yet another respect, for to Angélica Castelló the sea also symbolizes the subconscious.
Susanna Niedermayr created a feature for “Hörbilder”, a series on the cultural radio station Ö1 which is run by the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation. The feature documents the unusual compositional process behind the piece that was premiered at the “ORF musikprotokoll festival im steirischen herbst” on October 6.
In 2014, “Sonic Blue” won the Outstanding Artist Award – Interdisciplinarity from the Austrian Federal Ministry for the Arts and Culture
sonic blue was commissioned by „ORF musikprotokoll im steirischern herbst“ as a part of „Networking Tomorrow‘s Art for An Unknown Future“, a project by the festival network ECAS/ICAS (European and International Cities of Advanced Sound), working period 3 „Ubiquitous Art and Music. Art, Sound and the Everyday.“
more at  http://sonicblue.klingt.org

sonic blue (excerpt-pacífico)

Cuacochi I (2016) 
For 9 players or 9 groups of players of any wind instruments 
plus at least 9 radios and 3 tubular bells
commissioned by DAR and AIR Krems for The Representative Wind Orchestra of the Lithuanian Ministry of the Interior
Premiere on August 26 2016 in Vilnius

Die Pappel wiegt das Nest
Der Wind wiegt den Baum
Das Schicksal den Rest
 
The Tree weights the nest 
The wind weights the tree 
and fate the rest 
(Burkhard Stangl)

---

Cuacochi in Nahuatl language  means “to sleep in a tree”. 
As a wind player myself I have always been particularly fascinated by the sound of the air through my instruments. As a performer and improviser I have developed a big palette of wind sounds, mixing them with related sounds such as static radio noise and white noise. 
With “Cuacochi” I wanted to explore these sounds further, using air and white noise as basically the only auditive material and developing a graphic notation for this specific material, the score being inspired by the colours and shapes of trees moving with the wind.

Cuacochi 2016

http://www.vsinterpretation.org/en/2016/angelica-castelo-jerome-noetinger

Angélica Casteló & Jérôme Noetinger
28. 4.2016 
Live at vs. interpretation festival in Prag
Photograph by Dita Havránková.

Castello / Noetinger LIVE in Prag 2016 Excerpt

www.vsinterpretation.org/en/2016/ange…me-noetinger

Angélica Castelló & Jérôme Noetinger
28. 4.2016
Live at vs. interpretation festival in Prag
Photograph by Dita Havránková.

Castello / Noetinger LIVE in Prag 2016 Excerpt2

Steel Girls
Operation Extreme Gardening - radical unknown statements (2017)
Angélica Castelló, Metal, Tapes, Electronic, Paetzold Tobias Leibetseder, Metal, Electronic
Astrid Schwarz, Metal, Electronic, max/msp

Steel Girls / Operation Extreme Gardening - radical unknown statements (2017) excerpt

Low Frequency Orchestra 
at the Showroom of Contemporary Sound, Zagreb, on May 8th 2014 
Angélica Castelló – recorders, devices
Maja Osojnik – recorders, voice, electronics
Matija Schellander – double bass
Thomas Grill – digital sounds

LFO_LIZ_4

LA SONRISA DE TAMINA (2015) 
(Excerpt)

For violin, viola, violoncello, double bass and surprises
La sonrisa de Tamina plays with the idea of surprise; It is a piece about smiling (less than about laughter), the poeticism of the moment, the unexpected and the fragility of spontaneity. Like a joke that you can only understand alone... an "inside joke" with yourself.

The composition has five short parts / miniatures:
In each "movement" in the score, a voice or a part remains empty and till the concert, the ensemble and the person with the “empty part” will not know until then, what she or he will do or play... On the evening of the performance the ensemble become boxes, envelopes or bags, with instructions and objects... and they are to be open as a part of the performance... tension or disappointment ... improvisation or composition ... everything is thereby.

La sonrisa de Tamina is a composition commissioned by Styriarte - The Styrian Festival
Annelie Gahl (Violin) 
Rafal Zalech (Viola)
Andreas Lindenbaum (Violoncello )
Michael Seifried (Kontrabass)

La Sonrisa De Tamina

NYX live at  Artacts Festival 2018 in St Johann Austria (excerpts)
Isabelle Duthoit – clarinet, voice
Sophie Agnel – piano
Angélica Castelló – paetzold, tapes, electronics
“We are unsure whether the music of the trio that will perform in the second part of the evening “comes from heaven or hell,” writes the ArtActs Festival. Agnel tickles the ivory, dives deep into the piano’s gut and finally offers us a special voyage to space. Duthoit first screams, cries, gargles and curses, then grabs her clarinet only to wring and stretch it, producing sounds which, eyes closed, we cannot discern from her own voice. And finally comes Castelló, an amazing sound designer, adding electroacoustic pearls to this masterful ménage à trois. Witchcraft!” (Miha Zadnikar)

Live sound and recording: Charles Wienand, Markus Massinger
Mix: Charles Wienand
Remix: Angélica Castelló

NYX live at  Artacts Festival 2018 in St Johann Austria (excerpts)

Solo at Comité de Asuntos Intangibles · Morelia
thanks to Gudinni Cortina, Juan Sebastián Lach Lau, Inés Da Luz and
foro cultural de austria en méxico - österreichisches kulturforum in mexiko

Solo at Comité de Asuntos Intangibles · Morelia

Composer, Sound Artist
Her sound work and compositions concentrates on fragility, dreamworld and the subconscious. Performs continuously solo or in cooperations everywhere between Mexico City and Vienna. Numerous compositions for ensembles, radio works as well as installations that operate at the interface of music, performance and visual arts. Several releases on labels like Interstellar records, Mikroton recordings, Monotype records, Mosz etc.

Popular tracks by Angélica Castelló