Handcrafted Tributes Festival 2nd Edition at Studioboerne45 / 14+15.11.2025

The second edition of the Handcrafted Tributes Festival brings together the Stefan Schultze Large Ensemble and a group of invited guest artists for two evenings dedicated to the interplay between acoustic instruments, electronic circuits and spatial sound practices.

The festival combines short solo, duo and trio sets with a concluding large-ensemble performance each night, creating a modular format in which different approaches to instrumental playing, live sampling, automated pianism and light-based sound production intersect.

Guest artist Rabih Beaini appears both evenings with live sound collecting and processing; he is known for his work as a producer, DJ and founder of Morphine Records. Werner Hasler contributes live sampling and quadrophonic sound diffusion; he is a Swiss trumpeter, electronic musician and composer active in electro-acoustic improvisation.

Liz Kosack, a synthesizer player working between Berlin and New York, performs on the second evening as part of a quartet. Michael Vorfeld, Berlin-based visual artist, percussionist and performer, presents his set-up of lightbulbs and electronic switching devices. The festival also features drummer Tom Rainey, a long-standing figure in New York’s improvised music scene.

Each evening opens with three 20-minute sets in changing line-ups from members of the Large Ensemble and guests: “Resounding Circuits”, featuring combinations of voice, bass or alto saxophone together with Beaini’s live processing; “Sound Diffusion”, pairing horn or electric guitar with Hasler’s quadrophonic sampling; and one special set per evening, including new works for data-driven automated piano and electronics by Stefan Schultze, and the quartet Schultze-Ehwald-Rainey with Kosack on synthesizer.

The final hour of both nights brings the full Stefan Schultze Large Ensemble together with the guest artists for A Current, Sounding – Music for Glowing Filaments and Curious Ears.