Liz Allbee
[US/DE]
Liz Allbee is an American multi-instrumentalist and composer. In her performances she plays trumpet, electronics, conch shells, and tuning forks. Her work is at home in Berlin’s Echtzeit music scene but has loyalties to numerous musical genres, including noise, weird pop, experimental rock, and free jazz.
Originally from Vermont, Allbee studied music and media theory at Mills College and lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for a decade before relocating to Germany. Recurring themes in her work include extensions and embodiments and their interplay with instruments; everyday objects; and both high and low technologies. She is fascinated with the guttural, protolinguistic qualities of musical voices and bodies. She has appeared at Märzmusik, Donaueschingen Musiktage, Ostrava Days, Serralves, Bolzano Museum of Fine Art, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco Electronic Music Festival, CTM, Radialsystem and Berghain. Her collaborators include Anthony Braxton, Wadada Leo Smith, Hans Grusel, Axel Dörner, Gino Robair, Birgit Uhler, Fabrizio Spera, George Cremaschi, Yugen Noh Theater, and SFSound. Her duo Mensch Mensch Mensch with echtzeit percussionist Burkhard Beins is devoted to “imaginarchic” music.
