Zbigniew Karkowski.
Born 1958 in Cracow, Poland. Started playing flute and piano at the age of eight and afterwards studied music at the Frederik Chopins Music Lyceum in Cracow. After moving to Sweden in 1979 he has been involved in early 80s within the group of artists around Radium label in Gothenburg and from 1985 studied composition with Mikael Edlund, Bo Holten, Lars Johan Werle and Åke Parmerud at the State College of Music in Gothenburg, Sweden. Studied also aesthetics of modern music at the Department of Musicology, University of Gothenburg and computer music at the Chalmers University of Technology. After moving to Netherlands in 1990 he has studied sonology with among others Klarenz Barlow, Joel Ryan, Konrad Boehmer, Stan Templaars and Paul Berg at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Den Haag. He has also attended many summer master courses arranged by Centre Acanthes in Avignon and Aix-en-Provence, France, where he studied for among others Olivier Messiaen, Pierre Boulez, Iannis Xenakis and Georges Aperghis. He works actively as a composer of both instrumental music - has written among others two pieces for large orchestra, both performed by Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, several chamber music pieces which were performed by professional ensembles in Sweden, Poland, Holland, Germany, Spain, France New Zealand and Japan and many electroacoustic media compositions. Between 1986-89 he has actively worked as a composer in the computer music studios at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg and EMS (Electroacoustic Music Studio) in Stockholm. Between 1990-93 while he lived in Amsterdam he was closely associated with STEIM (Studio Elektro-Instrumentale Muziek) where he worked with development of interactive gesture sensing instruments and Electronic Music Studios at Sweelinck Conservatorium in Amsterdam where he composed electronic tape pieces. In 1994 he lived in Berlin where he worked as an artist in residence in Tacheles Kunsthaus developing several projects with experimental Berlin artists like Blixa Bargeld and Elektronauten. Since 1995 he is based in Tokyo, Japan where he collaborates closely with japanese avantgarde scene. He has extensively toured in Europe, Asia, North America, South America and Australia and his music has been performed at several festivals - among them: Music und Dokumenta-Kassel 87, Internationale Feriekurse für Neue Musik-Darmstadt in both 1988 and 1992, International Computer Music Conference-Cologne 88 and Berlin 2000, Töne und Gegentöne-Vienna 89, SISEA-Groningen 90, AVE-Arnheim 90, Ars Electronica-Linz 91 qne 99, "Skinnskattebergs Electroacoustic Music Festival-Sweden 91, NEMO-Århus 92, Stockholm Electroacoustic Music Festival-Stockholm 92, Digital Interact,We Never Sleep, "Le SonImage-all in Berlin 93, WRO "- Sound Basis Visual Art Festival-Wroclaw 93, Under Spaghetti Junction-Birmingham 93, Le Monde Virtuell-Paris 93, IRRTON-Berlin 94, Sonick Acts-Amsterdam 94, Music Poetry Force-Berlin 94 , DEAF" = Dutch Electronic Arts Festival-Rotterdam both in 94 and 96, VISAS-Maubeuge 96, EXIT - Creteil 96, Digital Aesthetic-One - Sydney 96, Sonderangebot - Berlin 96, La Parallaxe - Quebec Ville 96 , "SAT" - Montreal - 96, Audio Art Festival - Cracow 96, Festival Atlantico - Lisbon 97 , SONAR - Barcelona 1997 and 2002, 'FNCM" - Montreal 97 and 2001, 'Steirischer Herbst" - Graz 97, "IMPACT" - Utrecht 98, "Nursery Injection Festival" - Stockholm 98, "Meltdown Festival curated by John Peel" - London 98, "ICMF - International Computer Music Festival" - Kobe 98, Art Futura Festival - Madrid 98, "FBI - Festival Beyond Innocence" - Kobe 98, "Nature is Perverse" - Stockholm 98, "Mego@ICC" Tokyo 1999, "Electrofolie" - Dijon 1999, "38eme Rugissants" - Grenoble 2000, "Observatori" - Valencia 2000 and 2003, "LEM" - Barcelona 2000 and 2004, "Metronom" - Barcelona, 2001, "GAS" - Gothenburg , 2001, "ATM" (San Francisco SF Moma, Chico Polytechnics, San Luis Obispo and LA) -2002, "Frequenzen" - Schirm Museum Frankfurt/Main, 2002, "Risonanze" - Venice 2002 and 2003, "Electrograph" - Athens, 2002, "TEAP" - Taipei 2002, "Argos" - Bruxelles 2003, "Sonicity" - Roma 2003, "First Electronic Music Festival" - Beijing 2003, "Radar Festival" - Mexico City, 2004 "Realidadvisual festival" -Lima, Peru 2004, "Nuit Blanche" - Paris 2004, "Weatherbrain festival" - Taipei, Taiwan 2004, "Underground Film and Music festival" - Lausanne, Switzerland 2005, "Dis_positionen festival" - Berlin, Germany 2005.
He has also given workshops and lectures at among others 'Stanford University' Palo Alto , 'Northwestern University' Evanston, 'Chicago Art Institute', 'UCSB '- Santa Barbara =USA. 'Osaka University of Arts', Kunitachi College of Music Tokyo, IAMAS 'International Academy of Media Art and Science' Gifu and CCA (Center for Contemporary Arts) - Kitakyushu = Japan. 'Royal Conservatory' in Den Haag, Holland, Darmstadt courses in both 98 and 92, 'University of New South Wales' Sydney, 'Music Academy' Cracow, 'L'ecole d'art superieure' - Geneve, 'Taipei Institute of Technology' Taipei, Taiwan, 'Xinghai Conservatory' - Guangzhou, China, 'Centro Nacional de las Artes' - Mexico City. In April 96 he had 1 month retrospective exhibition of his 'audio art' work at Ivan Dougherty Gallery in Sydney. Besides working as a composer of contemporary music he has been collaborating with several experimental groups and artists like: The Hafler Trio, Blixa Bargeld, Merzbow, Stelarc, John Duncan, Aube, Tetsuo Furudate, CCCC, KK Null, Antimatter, Francisco Lopez, Kasper T. Toeplitz, Peter Rehberg, Li Chin Sung and has worked on remixing artists and bands like Iannis Xenakis, Clock DVA, Phauss, Jazzkammer, Florian Hecker, TV Pow, Rechenzentrum, Fred Bigot, Fear of God, Nosei Sakata and The New Blockaders. Between 1993 and 2002 he was a member of internationally aclaimed 'music/technology' group SENSORBAND with which he often performed network concerts via ISDN or internet (see.www.sensorband.com). He also composed 2 radio specific compositions (comissions from Ateliers de Creation Radiophonique - Maison de Radio France Paris and Radio Copernicus - Universitet der Kunste Berlin). He has as well written music for film, video, theatre and dance. His scores are published and distributet by STIM in Sweden and until today he has released more then 100 cds by labels all over the World.
He is conviced that it is a responsibility of an artist in in the present day to travel and work around the World in order to learn and understand different cultures and traditions and discover truth about ourselves and our planet. He also strongly believes that geographical, political and social exile is a necessary condition for true and honest creation. He is not interested in the traditional definition of music, in his opinion, all musical theory and systems as cultural concepts must be destroyed. In his latest work, his main concern is to realize drama with sound - electronic and acoustic walls with the architectures of ruins transcribed in the scores.
