invited by Nils Frahm , who is curating a long weekender at the Barbican, s t a r g a z e will present an intimate set in the tranquil surroundings of the Barbican’s own parish church, St Giles’ Cripplegate .

- tickets: here

For Motel Mozaique stargaze now re-arranged Boards of Canada's highly acclaimed Hi Scores EP, the duos first significant release back in 1996 which wasn't technically the first album but nevertheless a taste of the later release Music Has The Right To Children, featuring some of the trademark sound-patterns of the the band. The arrangements of stargaze will be a world-premiere at this years Motel Mozaique and mark a further addition to the collective's growing catalogue of instrumental compositions. stargaze will also present their interpretation of Grateful Dead's What's Become Of The Baby of the very psychedelic album AOXOMOXOA, which the collective recorded for the upcoming Grateful Dead tribute Day of the Dead of the Red Hot Aids Foundation. Invited by Bryce Dessner (The National) to contribute to the album, stargaze re-interpreted the song with long-lasting drones and vocals provided by the musicians themselves.

- tickets: here

Mica Levi is a British composer and musician, known from experimental pop group Micachu & The Shapes. Levi wrote the critically acclaimed soundtrack for cult film ‘Under The Skin’ , which starred Scarlett Johansson . This haunting soundtrack will now be performed live in its entirety for the first time in Europe by stargaze at a very special venue: de Grote Kerk, in the city centre of The Hague.

Mica Levi won a European Film Award for the Under The Skin OST, which was

described by the Guardian as “a score that brings together strings, percussion, distortions in speed and clashing microphones to create sounds that are seductive, perverted and compassionate”. Rewire Festival presents the European premiere of the live performance of this soundtrack, which has only been performed live once before.

- info and tickets: here

we are excited to announce that s t a r g a z e, in the form of a 25-piece orchestra, recently recorded original music composed by Bryce Dessner for the soundtrack of Iñárritu's upcoming feature "The Revenant", alongside music by Ryūichi Sakamoto and Alva Noto. The film, starring Leonardo di Caprio, Domnhal Gleeson and Tom Hardy, hits US screens in late December and is released in Europe in January

You can find all information on our festival site

A weekend in December, a stage in Berlin-Mitte and 14 musical performances oscillating between the poles of revitalized classical music, electroacoustic pop and folk form the coordinates of a music festival that is so thrilling, so coherent and so much more uptodate than the otherwise long-unquestioned mode of festivals that one can speak of a potentially groundbreaking musical event for Berlin.

André de Ridder – the Berlin-based conductor and founder of the trailblazing and internationally acclaimed stargaze ensemble – found himself wondering why in Germany, and especially in Berlin, there was not a curated festival in the spirit of All Tomorrow’s Parties (ATP): Rather than being a mere musical showcase, such a festival could seek moments of epiphany, illumination and enlightenment – requiring an arc that is larger, carefully curated and not clouded by compromise.

At first glance, it appears that very different artistic positions will collide at the Volksbühne on 11, 12 and 13 December. Of course, on closer inspection they turn out to be deliberately assembled puzzle pieces, which together form a great musical panorama. The special thing about stargaze Weekender is its ability to relate to today’s pop listening habits, while at the same time challenging them. It should be mentioned that the London indie label Transgressive Records recently signed stargaze under contract – but as what? As a band? As a classical contemporary ensemble? None of these terms can precisely describe it. Beyond here lies the unknown.

Founded two and a half years ago, the collective of curators and musicians is internationally well-connected in the pop and electronic worlds and performs in various formations. They are heralded from the Boiler Room (“renegade classical ensemble”) to the Barbican in London, to Amsterdam’s Muziekgebouw, where stargaze did not merely perform with Terry Riley, but indeed acted as a source of ideas and innovation. Now in the context of its Weekender, stargaze returns to Berlin, bringing together the loose ends and existing energy lines of the recent interventions in concert.

But let’s take it day by day.

Friday night (11 December)

has spiritual music as the theme – thus addressing a basic need in our throughly rationalized time, which in all its technocratic strive for perfection still painfully feels the presence of an absence. Translated into the language of music, one might speak of a modern classical variant of saudade, the popular Portuguese style of music that so masterfully translates the loss and the intangibility of the absent into melodies and moods. stargaze has managed to put together a program that approaches the topic of spirituality in music in an almost Dadaist manner: A newly arranged Bach Cantata #150, “For you, Lord, is my longing” and a piece entiteled “Grateful Dead – What’s Become of the Baby” form the core of the opening night. Both will be performed by stargaze ensemble and Cantus Domus. “Death Speaks”, for soprano, violin, guitar and piano, was composed by the Pulitzer Prize winner David Lang. Lang took words from many Schubert songs and reassembled them in a new libretto, a collage about death. Like last year, the evening, and thus the three-day festival, will be opened by a string quartet from Bryce Dessner, which he wrote for the Kronos Quartet: “Tenebrae”. De Ridder: “Tenebrae is a three-day Catholic Mass before Easter beginning on Maundy Thursday. During the sermon,15 candles are extinguished, one after another, until it gets dark. This piece describes this Mass in retrospect, so it moves towards the light.” The overarching question of the first evening is: What are the sources when spirituality finds its voice anew as a subject in pop music (and pop culture)?

Saturday night (12 December)

delves deep into the Folk of Eastern Europe — and takes the audience into the world of Bela Bartók and György Ligety (as well as Jonny Greenwood). When Bartók’s “Three Village Scenes” is collaged, or rather infiltrated, by the indie folk band A Hawk And A Hacksaw, a circle is closed that has already been drawn at many stargaze events in recent years. According to de Ridder’s reading, Bartók is nothing more than the tonal and rhythmic language of folk in a different guise. A Hawk And A Hacksaw from New Mexico, in turn, have toured South-Eastern Europe and work much like Bartók: they go into the villages, play for the local folk and adjust themselves to suit them. With stargaze, and especially this Weekender, it’s always about the permeability of pop and classical music. György Ligety’s Cello Concerto for solo cello and a for the evening specifically assembled allstargaze Orchestra (feat. Solistenensemble Kaleidoscope) in turn refers to the evening’s international guest star, Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead. He has always stressed that Ligety and Bartók have been decisive influences of his compositions and film scores. To be performed on the Friday night is his suite “There Will Be Blood”, composed for the eponymous film by Paul Thomas Anderson. Indeed, the evening is also committed another narrative: the film score. Namely, the Cello Concerto by Ligety is familiar to us from pop culture as it underscored but the eight-minute break-in to the warehouse in Michael Mann’s film “Heat”. Without a word being spoken, during the scene we hear the entire first movement of Ligety’s work. This is reminiscent of Kubrick; cinema and folk as narrative lines amalgamating in an orchestral context.

Sunday night (13 December)

The finale is devoted to potentially groundbreaking collaborations** – the sensational Danish punk-noir band Iceage, whose sound swings dynamically between The Gun Club, the Bad Seeds and Joy Division, will perform in an unfamiliar dialogue with stargaze for the first time in Berlin. This clash of two worlds promises an intense, inspiring listening experience: the hypnotic-existentialist urgency of Elias Bender Rønnenfelt’s vocals with the artificial, instrumental contribution of stargaze. It is as if Alexander Kluge’s famous phrase about the value of “using the Subway Map of Brooklyn to find one’s way in the Harz Mountains” is transferred to the reality of the stargaze concert stage. The musicians of stargaze and Rønnenfelt first got to know each other this year at the Haldern Pop Festival. De Ridder: “stargaze is characterized by the fact that we cooperate with all kinds of musicians. So on this evening the band Villagers from Ireland will perform with stargaze, and together we will also play new arrangements of the American composer Nico Muhly.” David Longstreth from Dirty Projectors is another of the evening’s potentially groundbreaking collaboration partners, here with a piece entitled “Michael Jordan” for double string quartet. Longstreth thus takes his place along the likes of Felix Mendelssohn on the extremely short list of composers to have written pieces for this instrumentation. De Ridder: “He always names his pieces after athletes who are so charged in the pop context that something happens to the music, as if it becomes more accessible as a result.“

Curtain.

One thing is certain: The audience will be witness to a clear course of contrasts, surprises, risks, key experiences and challenges. The stargaze Weekender thus promises real and pure entertainment, evoking the origins of folk and pop, but also of classical music: Nothing is generic, nothing is commercial, which – see Jonny Greenwood (see also Bach) – doesn’t mean that it won’t work in a Cinemascope movie, or on the main stage of the Volksbühne, or as a harbinger of a new festival culture. With the stargaze Festival, we are surely talking about the most exciting, illuminating as well as entertaining music festival to be held this autumn/winter.

- doors: 19:00 every day - starts: 20:00 every day

- tickets: here

s t a r g a z e signs to Transgressive Records London

Debut EP 'Deerhoof Chamber Variations' out on December 4th

We are very proud to announce that s t a r g a z e have signed to the much lauded Transgressive Records label, home of such bands as Foals and the up-and-coming Alvvays and Gengahr to name but a few. Transgressive was recently awarded Label Of The Year by AIM Independent Label Association and we are extremely excited to enter into a collaboration with them, and we'll keep you up-to-date as to future plans and releases!

We launch this hopefully pioneering relationship with the premiere recording of Greg Saunier's 'Deerhoof Chamber Variations', out on December 4th!

Deerhoof Chamber Variations is devised as a continuous piece of instrumental music, based on 9 1/2 songs which drummer and composer Greg Saunier originally wrote for his acclaimed band Deerhoof. Different from most other band and orchestra/classical collaborations Greg himself arranged and recomposed the material for a classical chamber ensemble, using exactly the same notes as in the originals while rearranging the songs structurally, in a kind of miniaturizing and abstracting way. Therby coalescing their essence, he somehow managed to still enhance and bring out the quirkyness, the harmonic and melodic originality and eccentricity of these pieces. Talking of eccentricity: Just as he eliminated his own part (drums) first, he used two instead of one singer, subtracting most words from their parts and using their voices and fragments of the original singing parts more like instruments themselves.

So the transformation is complete!

watch the "data" video on vimeo

watch the "data" video on youtube - except in Germany

order the 12" from transgressive

download from itunes

- reviews:

Drowned in Sound - 8/10

Drunken Werewolf - “Ebbing and flowing through the entire spectrum of human emotions, the sections weave beautiful, lilting lines though haunting, unsettling backdrops of instrumentation.”

The Music - 3.5/5 - “Stargaze debuts with a brilliant and totally left-of-centre take on the work of an indie-rock powerhouse.”

The Skinny - 4/5 - “the effects are dazzling.”

s t a r g a z e is excited to be part of the new festival by the Haldern Pop Team, taking us to the Italian Alps this time – to the tiny and idyllic village of Kaltern! Next to drinking wine and swimming in the lake we are already working on arrangements with Emil (Loney Dear) and we will join our friends from The Slow Show again. Rumor has it that we might share the stage with Chad Lawson as well as All The Luck In The World too. Oh and there will be another performance of Richard Parry's Music for Heart and Breath ! So see you in the mountains!

More info here

on june 10th, the young british band these new puritans released their third album field of reeds on the infectious label. Recorded at Nalepa Studios in Berlin, this album featured a line-up of stargaze musicians who already accompanied the only german hidden live show , including orchestral ensemble, children's choir, two pianos and two vibraphones.

stargaze also teamed up singer/composer jack barnett with dutch composer michel van der aa to co-compose and arrange one of the tracks, the light in your name. The musical arrangements on field of reeds lead the band even further away from set definitions of pop-music, merging with chamber music and presenting a unique and unconventional style of songwriting, which the band and stargaze already presented at last year's The Rest is Noise Festival in Amsterdam.

For sacrum profanum festival in krakow, These New Puritans will now perform their expanded-show for the third time only, conducted by andré de ridder and performed by stargaze musicians.

Richard Reed Parry , the multi-talented musician out of Montreal's rich and striking music-scene, is probably best known for his work as a core member of arcade fire and the band's unique sound-design. Parry is the leading force and creative head of bell orchestre, being responsible for the remarkably complex instrumental compositions.

In 2014, the composer released music for heart and breath(Deutsche Grammophon), several pieces for ensemble – duet up to octet.

Tempo and development of the individual parts depend literally on the heart beat of the musicians - by listening through stethoscopes to the beat of their very own hearts - they are bound to follow them.

After playing the german premiere of music for heart and breath, the musicians of stargaze will now team up with Aaron and Bryce Dessner (The National) and Richie Parry himself.

s t a r g a z e is very honored to be invited by sacrum profanum festival in beautiful krakow for the very first time and to not only play one but two concerts!

- Dates:

September 13th – These New Puritans, stargaze and Synergy Vocals London

September 15th – Aaron and Bryce Dessner, Richie Parry and stargaze perform Music for Heart and Breath

Canadian singer/songwriter, violinist and composer Owen Pallett and s t a r g a z e will premiere new and unheard material from what will be his supposedly 5th LP, written for our 11-piece ensemble. This concert is a collaboration between Berlin's newly founded Pop-Kultur Festival and the Ruhrtriennale. We will play Berlin's Berghain on August 26th at 11pm and at PACT Zollverein both September 5th and 6th at 8pm.

tickets: and more info here .

It's Terry Riley's 80th birthday and the Ruhrtriennale will celebrate the godfather of minimal music with an evening of In C performances by Mouse on Mars and Tyondai Braxton with Sonic Robots (originally commissioned by stargaze) and Africa Express, the renowned project by Damon Albarn, uniting musicians from Africa and the US/Europe.

Being part of the evening as well, the young producer/DJ Koreless from Scotland will present his composition Cycles I for 10 strings played by members of stargaze.

The concert starts at 7:30 pm.

Canadian singer/songwriter, violinist and composer Owen Pallett and s t a r g a z e will premiere new and unheard material from what will be his supposedly 5th LP, written for our 11-piece ensemble. This concert is a collaboration between Berlin's newly founded Pop-Kultur Festival and the Ruhrtriennale. We will play Berlin's Berghain on August 26th at 11pm and at PACT Zollverein both September 5th and 6th at 8pm.

tickets: and more info here .

For July 2015 the new classical music festival Wonderfeel invited s t a r g a z e as the ensemble in residence on their Fusion of Arts stage.

Performing once again instrumental and without any additional guests, the collective will perform string-quartets by Bryce Dessner and Sufjan Stevens, compositions by Richard Reed Parry and Greg Saunier as well as David Lang's Death Speaks, originally written for Shara Worden, Bryce Dessner, Nico Muhly and Owen Pallett; now performed by stargaze' own David Six (piano), Aart Strootman (guitar), Jeffrey Bruinsma (violin) as well as Nora Fischer (voice). Next to performing the above mentioned compositions, stargaze will write and arrange new material for the last concert day.

program:

July 24th,

13:15-14:00

Bryce Dessner – Tenebrae

Richard Reed Parry – Music for Heart and Breath

July 25th,

17:00-17:45

Sufjan Stevens – Movements from Run Rabbit Run

Greg Saunier – Deerhoof Chamber Variations

20:45-21.30

David Lang – Death Speaks

July 26th,

13:15-14:00

new arrangements by stargaze

20:45-21.30

David Lang – Death Speaks

In the summer of 2014 a fourteen-piece s t a r g a z e orchestral ensemble and the San Francisco band The Dodos , consisting of singer/guitarist Meric Logan and drummer Logan Kroeber, first presented a project that showcased the instrumentally multi-layered and -faceted songs of the band's back-catalogue in it's full glory. The arrangements were specially commissioned from stargaze by the Berlin Musicboard and Kilkenny Arts Festival, and receive their UK premiere on this occasion.

The Dodos just released their 5th studio album on January 26th, Individ, to critical acclaim, and will add a few of these new songs to the collaboration with the ensemble also.

And as special support of the show s t a r g a z e will perform the Deerhoof Chamber Variations !

Greg Saunier, drummer and co-songwriter of US-American indie-stalwarts Deerhoof , has written a songcycle "without words" based on original songs by the band, condensed into a series of snappy chamber-ensemble pieces including two female voices. The singers don't just replicate the original vocal lines, but are used in a rather instrumental, non-literal way, as part of the ensemble. The result are extremely beautiful, crystal-clear and neo-classical 'covers' which highlight the harmonic, rythmic and melodic richness of the original compositions.

Saunier recently recorded this work with s t a r g a z e and this is the UK premiere of Deerhoof Chamber Variations.

tickets: here .

After initiating an on-going stream of In C interpretations with artists such as Matthew Herbert, Bill Frisell, Sam Amidon, Mouse on Mars, Tyondai Braxton, Pantha du Prince and The Bell Laboratory, Owen Pallett and Nils Frahm (have you seen the video yet?) s t a r g a z e has been invited to perform on the opening night of the World Minimal Music Festival in front of the composer – Terry Riley – himself. There will be electronics, baroque-tuned instruments and African influences and who knows, maybe Riley himself will join us on stage?

Any plans for NYE yet? Too many even? Let us help you to decide: stargaze will be part of the New Years Eve Celebrations at ACUD, a new cultural space in Berlin. The program is curated and chosen by Casper Clausen and we are sure that it's going to be a fun night full of concerts, DJ-acts and very good friends on multiple levels! stargaze will play the Deerhoof Chamber Variations and rumor has it that Deerhoof's own Greg Saunier will be around as well.

tickets: 10 EUR

doors: 21:00

facebook event page: here

LA-based multiinstrumentalist Julia Holter is well known for her dreamy but complex compositions blurring the lines between modern classical and indie-pop.

stargaze and Holter will be working together closely on this premier chamber-orchestral realisation and performance of tracks from her three albums, the 2011 released Tragedy, 2012's Ekstasis and her most recent, Loud City Song.

This is an event initiated by stargaze and specially commissioned by the Barbican Centre London, and constitutes stargaze' swift return visit to one of the world's most enterprising music venues.

More info and tickets: here.

Preview Gig Gallery: The Line of Best fit

on june 10th, the young british band these new puritans released their third album field of reeds on the infectious label. Recorded at Nalepa Studios in Berlin, this album featured a line-up of stargaze musicians who already accompanied the only german hidden live show, including orchestral ensemble, children's choir, two pianos and two vibraphones.

stargaze also teamed up singer/composer jack barnett with dutch composer michel van der aa to co-compose and arrange one of the tracks, the light in your name. The musical arrangements on field of reeds lead the band even further away from set definitions of pop-music, merging with chamber music and presenting a unique and unconventional style of songwriting.

For The Rest Is Noise Festival at amsterdam's muziekgebouw aan't IJ, These New Puritans will now perform their expanded-show for the second time, conducted by andré de ridder and performed by stargaze musicians.

stargaze plays the Into The Great Wide Open Festival 2014 as the ensemble in residence on the dutch island Vlieland.

We will be presenting works by Bryce Dessner (The National): Tenebre and Richard Reed Parry (Arcade Fire): Music for Heart and Breath. Listen to the ensemble works in the church, while further songs, like the Chamber Variations of Deerhoof (yes, Deerhoof songs arranged for ensemble) will lead us onto the forest stage.

show time table:

Fri 20:00 – 23:45 - In Het Boos - stargaze presents: Aart Strootman – Reichmarathon

Sat 15:30 – 16:30 - Church Stage - stargaze performs: Bryce Dessner’s Tenebre, RR Parry’s Music for Heart and Breath.

Sun 12:00 – 13:00 - Forrest Stage - stargaze performs: covers and pieces from Sufjan Stevens, The Sound, Deerhof and others.

tickets: sold out.

festival info: here.

merchandise: our brand new bags will be available ( logo designed for stargaze by Anne Caesar ).

Grant Hart – The Argument

In 2013, the legendary singing drummer and songwriter Grant Hart (Hüsker Dü) released the concept album (Domino Records), inspired by John Milton's Paradise Lost and unpublished manuscript by William S. Burroughs Lost Paradise. stargaze initiated the collaboration to realize the epic quality of the album by performing a selection of songs live with a semi-acoustic ensemble.

The Dodos: No Color / Carrier - with stargaze

In autumn 2013 The Dodos released their fifth album Carrier (Polyvinyl), mostly characterized by Meric Long's virtuous fingerpicking on the guitar and Logan Kroeber's driving drums. Although primarily working as a duo, they've repeatedly incorporated instrumental parts in their compositions – strings, trombone, horn and vibraphone – as well as having worked with San Francisco's Magik*Magik Orchestra. The Dodos and stargaze will present new arrangements ( by stargaze ) of songs from Carrier as well as No Color.

This project is kindly supported by Musicboard Berlin.

facebook event page: there.

preview listening: npr radio interview with Grant Hart.

preview watching: The Dodos on orchestral work.

location: heimathafen

tickets: KOKA 36.

http://we-are-stargaze.com/#event23