Kiezsalon opening w/ Antonina Nowacka, Blue Lake and C. Lavender at Zionskirche | Friday, 03.05.2024

In the organizer's words:

For the 2024 season opening, our Kiezsalon returns to the Zionskirche for a full weekend program. Friday features meditative moments with Denmark-based zitherist Blue Lake, experimental vocalist Antonina Nowacka from Poland and sound healer C. Lavender from the USA, all making their Berlin debuts. Saturday continues with Joe Rainey, Ka Baird and Zoh Amba.

Polish singer Antonina Nowacka has a penchant for crafting dreamy, minimalist soundscapes by combining trans-cultural, acrobatic vocal techniques with experimentation in sound synthesis. After studying at the Academy of Fine Arts, Warsaw, she released Lamunan in 2020, her solo debut conceived in the caves of Indonesia. Unsound commissioned her and Sofie Birch to create the collaborative album Languoria, issued in 2022.

In describing her "distinctive voice and way of singing", The Quietus has stated: "She opens a small portal to a world not quite the same as this one."

Behind Blue Lake is Copenhagen-based Jason Dungan, whose instruments of choice include a self-built, 48-string zither, clarinet, organ and drum machines. His 2022 album, Stikling, was nominated as 'Jazz Album of the Year' by the Danish Music Awards, but his instrumentals are also influenced by drone and ambient as well as Americana, echoing his Texan roots.

In 2023, Tonal Union issued Sun Arcs, marked by its meditative layering that got named 'Best New Music' by Pitchfork, who praised its picturesque tracks that invoke an "intimate view, one that can feel both magical in its simplicity and all the more compelling for what's just out of frame."

C. Lavender is an interdisciplinary sound artist, healing practitioner and educator who creates immersive aural landscapes that she describes as "intensely physical, emotional, and ultimately cathartic".

Following recordings on the likes of Editions Mego and RVNG Intl., her third full-length album will arrive this year via iDeal Recordings: Rupture in the Eternal Realm is a musical response to her Tibetan Buddhist meditation practice centred in detachment from one's body. The New York resident has also authored the book Transcendent Waves: How Listening Shapes Our Creative Lives and has appeared at museums such as the MoMA, the Whitney and the Guggenheim.

The Zionskirche, inaugurated in 1873 and renovated just last year, was built in a neo-Romanesque style on a 52-metre-high vineyard at one of the highest altitudes in Berlin. Its 67-metre tower offers a panoramic view of the city, and its gardens are ideal for lingering before and after the concert with a glass of wine - especially on a warm spring evening.