Thomas Lehn / Tiziana Bertoncini with guests Emily Beisel / Michael Zerang

Tiziana Bertoncini and Thomas Lehn have been collaborating since 2002. 

The special feature of the duo is the alchemy created by the meeting of the classical and the electronic instrument. The different nature of sound, the characteristics and histories of violin and analogue synthesizer could recall a friction. Actually, what happens is a sort of mirror game, in which the roles of the instruments are continuously exchanged. Bertoncini and Lehn move in an abstract territory, their approach to sound is contemporary. Nevertheless their consideration to music is quite classical insofar as based principally on tension/release, rupture, intensity and expressivity in all its facets. 

Their first CD Horsky Park, was released in spring 2011 on British label Another Timbre. 

They have been performing together in Austria, Germany, England, France, Switzerland, Italy, Slovakia and The Netherlands.  

Beside their duo work, they play in larger or extended constellations, like the ensemble]h[iatus, an international ensemble with an extensive experience in the field of  improvisation and interpretation of contemporary pieces. With this ensemble they played in numerous festival of contemporary music and premiered works by young and established composers like for example Vinko Globokar, Peter Jakober and Jennifer Walshe. 

Bertoncini and Lehn have been part of multimedia projects, in which they were involved as musicians and performers.  

In collaboration with ZAM Zentrum für aktuelle Musik they initiated comprovise, a festival for contemporary composed and improvised music, which took place first time in June 2009 in Cologne supported by the german Netzwerk Neue Musik project. In 2016 and 2021 the 2nd and 3rd edition followed in co-curation with Nina Polaschegg and Bruno Strobl, produced by IGNM and co-produced by Wien Modern.

In 2024 they created together with Austrian composer Peter Jakober the concert project samen which embraces both practices of contemporary music: compositon and improvisation.

Since about 1990 Thomas Lehn’s central artistical work is live-electronic music, created on the basis of analogue sound synthesis. After a period of working with the Robert Moog’s minimoog synthesizer, since 1994 his main electronic equipment is the Synthi A modular analogue synthesizer combined with the DK-2 keyboard, both developed and produced by the British company EMS in the late 1960ies.
Thomas Lehn’s electronic music is instrumentally live-performed. Musical material, process and structure are created and performed in real time.
A wide spectrum of experiences in numerous musical and music contextual genres merge in his current musical creations: in the 1980ies he has been working as pianist widely in the fields of classical, classical modern and contemporary music, jazz, music theatre and mixed media performances. Throughout the 90ies up today the centre of his work became the contemporary forms of music, both as interpreting pianist and performer of analogue live-electronic music.
Rooted in this background, he has been developing an individual language of electronic music, which inner syntax often seem to be rather of an acoustic than electronic nature.

https://elasticarts.org/events/elastro-1001

1st set
Thomas Lehn – electronic

Tiziana Bertoncini – violin

2nd set

Thomas Lehn – electronic

Tiziana Bertoncini – violin

Emily Beisel – bass clarinet

Michael Zerang – percussion