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Magda Mayas

Magda Mayas, born 1979, is a pianist and composer performer living in Berlin. Over the past 20 years she developed a vocabulary utilizing both the inside as well as the exterior parts of the piano, using amplification, preparations and objects that become extensions of the instrument itself. Mayas has developed a set of techniques that draw on the history of prepared and inside piano vocabulary, but are highly individualized and expand the language for internal piano music making.

She holds a PhD in Music Performance and Interpretation from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Since 2019, she is the program coordinator and teaches improvisation at Luzern University of applied Sciences and Arts.

Mayas performs internationally solo and in collaboration with a large number of musicians and composers. Current projects are Spill a duo with drummer Tony Buck, a duo with Christine Abdelnour (sax) Jane in Ether with Biliana Voutchkova (vl) und Miako Klein (recorders) and the Splitter Orchester Berlin.

She has performed and toured in Europe, the USA, Australia, Mexico and Lebanon and collaborated with many leading figures in improvisation and composers such as Marilyn Mazur, John Butcher, George Lewis, Andy Moor, Nate Wooley, Peter Evans, Eddie Prévost, Phill Niblock, David Sylvian, Zeena Parkins, Fred Frith, Hamid Drake, Joelle Leandre, Paul Lovens, Ikue Mori, Ken Vandermark, Okkyung Lee, Nic Collins, Elliot Sharp and Maja Ratkje.

Festivals and exhibitions include Maerz Musik (2012,2015), Documenta (2012), the Berlin Biennale (2014) or Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (2015). She was awarded a residency at Villa Aurora, Los Angeles in 2016 and at the Montalvo Arts Centre, USA in 2017 and 2019 and co curated the festival “Music Unlimited” in Wels, Austria, in 2019. She has been producing radio pieces for ABC Australia and Deutschlandradio Kultur and released over 30 CDS to date.


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4
Album Review

Vellum: Glints

Read "Glints" reviewed by Mark Corroto


To mark John Butcher's 65th birthday in 2019, a series of concerts were held (mostly in Berlin) which produced five well-appointed limited editions of 300 LPs from the folks at Ni Vu Ni Connu. The varied albums include Induction a trio with Burkhard Beins and Werner Dafeldecker, La Pierre Tachée a duo with Sophie Agnel, Shaped & Chased a trio with Thomas Lehn and Gino Robair, Lamenti Dall'infinito a quartet with Liz Allbee, Ignaz Schick, and Marta Zapparoli, and Glints ...

4
Album Review

Das B: Canopy

Read "Canopy" reviewed by Mark Corroto


The free improvisational quartet Das B releases its first recording Canopy, taken from a live performance at the Festival Konfrontationen, in Nickelsdorf, Austria 2017. Formed in 2015, the 'B' refers to Berlin, the nexus of activity for the four musicians heard here. The two Australians, drummer Tony Buck and bassist Mike Majkowski, join the Beirut-born trumpeter Mazen Kerbaj and Berlin-native pianist Magda Mayas in what is a natural development of the musicians' ongoing Berlin collaborations. Buck, maybe best known for ...

86
Album Review

Magda Mayas - Jim Denley: Tempe Jetz

Read "Tempe Jetz" reviewed by Glenn Astarita


Magda Mayas (Germany) performs on a 1970s manufactured clavinet with reedman Jim Denley (Australia), augmented by their use of field recordings, as they pay homage to a “marginalized corner" of Sydney, Australia on this experimental and irrefutably adventurous improv fest. Yet I wouldn't be so bold to suggest that this is easy listening but for the most part, it's relatively subdued. The duo projects organic minimalism amid the sounds of nature and bizarre tone poems that move forward ...

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Glints

Ni-Vu-Ni-Connu
2022

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Canopy

топот
2020

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Tempe Jetz

Relative Pitch Records
2017

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