"Dutch musician-composer and bandleader Ig Henneman performs on viola, and writes compositions for orchestras, ensembles, soloists, including pieces for film and theater. As an improviser, she mainly focuses on the Ig Henneman Sextet, Duo Baars-Henneman and Perch Hen Brock & Rain.

According to critic Ed Hazell "... an artist incapable of remaining satisfied with any music that lies strictly within the boundaries of any one style. Her working free of received wisdom to an individual voice and clarity of vision is the exhilarating story told by the discs. (...) it's a beautiful, functioning musical world all it's own that Henneman developed organically out of poetry, jazz, classical, improvised music-and birdsong. (...) Melodies were entirely her own, again blending an ancient and modern sensibility similar to the Tentet recording and using rhythm and nonstandard intervals to shape and color them. (...) Not that she doesn't have chops, but she seems determined to subvert classical notions of instrumental prowess in favor of a deliberately simple approach with more emphasis on timbre and more directly expressive (perhaps this is a legacy of her rock experience?) (...) Here the deliberately awkward rhythms, the dry textures and subdued colors of her playing, the concentration of thought and her ability to pare down to essentials take on an intense vulnerability and humanity.(...) It is sound discovered and organized with no preconceived notions and it is both incredibly touching and intellectually thrilling at the same time."

As of 1985, Ig Henneman leads her own groups, showcasing improvisers as well as her own compositions, in hundreds of concerts throughout Europe, North America, Brasil and Japan.

Some highlights:

• in her series 'Solo Songs for Instruments' Henneman wrote In the Storm of Roses -Solo Song for violin with improvisation- for the German violinist Ayumi Paul, and for Dutch violinist Diamanda La Berge Dramm. And Ten Lines -Solo Song for viola with improvisation- for Elisabeth Smalt (2014-2015)
• European 2014 tour with Perch Hen Brock & Rain a totally improvised quartet featuring Ab Baars, Ig Henneman, Ingrid Laubrock and Tom Rainey
• Duo Baars-Henneman 'Autumn Songs' USA Tour (2012)
• Molot for marimba-solo played by Fredrike de Winter (2010, 2011)
• Ig Henneman Sextet plays 'Kindred Spirits' (2010), recorded on Cut a Caper (Wig 19, 2011)
• Chant for violin and piano played by Heleen Hulst and Gerard Bouwhuis (2010)
• Henneman, Henneman & De Swaan, Henneman String Quartet with harpist Godelieve Schrama (2004), recorded on Strepen - Music and Image in Concert (DVD and CD, Wig 10, 2004) Henneman String Quartet on Italian music (2001), recorded on Piazza Pia (Wig 07, 2002)
• Henneman String Quartet plays Westwerk (1997), a project on medieval music and architecture
• Ig Henneman Tentet plays 'De nachtegaal tijdens de slaap' (1995), recorded on Repeat that, repeat (Wig 03, 1995)
• Ig Henneman Tentet plays Emily Dickinson (1993), recorded on Dickinson (Wig 02, 1993)

Self-taught composer Ig Henneman received some years of coaching by Dutch composer Robert Heppener. Since the nineties the music of the Russian composers Galina Ustvolskaya en Sofia Gubaidulina has been an inspiration for Henneman, who is attracted by the extremes of the former's structural severity and the latter's improvisational freedom.

As a five year old, Ig Henneman took piano lessons; at eleven she began to play the violin as well. At the conservatory, she initially studied the piano, later she majored on the violin, but ultimately the viola became her instrument. Ig Henneman played in several symphony orchestras before co-founding the legendary rockband FC Gerania, which performed Henneman's first compositions. One of her early works is the soundtrack to the 1927 silent movie Baby Ryazanskye by Olga Preobrasjenskaja. Nowadays she is renowned for being one of the 'New Dutch Swing' improvisers of the Amsterdam scene as well as for being a prolific and much sought-after composer. She performs at venues and festivals in Europe, Japan and North America. Grants and commissions were given her by the Fonds voor de Scheppende Toonkunst, the Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst, the Fonds voor de Amateurkunst en de Podiumkunsten and the Dutch Ministry of Culture.

So far, Ig Henneman has worked with improvisers such as Ingrid Laubrock, Tom Rainey, Dave Burrell, Misha Mengelberg, Alberto Braida, Han Buhrs, Axel Doerner, Martin van Duynhoven, Katrien Ex, Lori Freedman, Mark Helias, Tristan Honsinger, François Houle, Wilbert de Joode, Theo Jörgensmann, Takuji Kawai, Peggy Lee, Marilyn Lerner, Sabina Meyer, Michael Moore, Phil Minton, Ernst Reijseger, Roswell Rudd, Fabrizio Spera, Roger Turner, Veryan Weston, Wolter Wierbos, dancers Hisako Horikawa and Masako Noguchi and poets Anneke Brassinga, H. C. ten Berge and Diane Régimbald."

-Wig (http://stichtingwig.com/igHenneman/igHenneman.html)
1/27/2025

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"Jaimie Breezy Branch (born 17 June 1983) is an American jazz trumpeter and composer.

Branch was raised in Red Hook, Brooklyn and started playing trumpet at age nine. At 14, she moved to Wilmette, a suburb of Chicago, before attending the New England Conservatory of Music (graduating in 2005). Later she moved back to Chicago, working as a musician, organizer and sound engineer on the local music scene, including with Jason Ajemian (on The Art of Dying, 2006), Keefe Jackson's Project Project (on Just Like This, 2007), and Tim Daisy' s New Fracture Quartet (on 1000 Lights, 2008), Anton Hatwich and Ken Vandermark. She has performed in Chicago and New York with her trio Princess, Princess, with bassist Toby Summerfield and drummer Frank Rosaly, and in trios with Tim Daisy and Daniel Levin, Matt Schneider and Jason Adasiewicz, and with Chris Velkommen/Sam Weinberg. Together with Jason Stein, Jeb Bishop and Jason Roebke, she founded the band Block and Tackle. To jazz she has contributed on five albums between 2006 and 2008.

In 2012 Branch moved to Baltimore, where she earned a master's degree in Jazz performance from Towson University. At this time she also founded the record label Pionic Records, where she releases the music of her group Bomb Shelter. In New York she has worked with Brandon Lopez, Fred Lonberg-Holm and Mike Stolthet among others. In addition, she performed on albums with the independent rock groups Never Enough Hope, Local H and Atlas Math. Currently, she works in a quartet with Chad Taylor (drums), Jason Ajemian (bass) and Tomeka Reid (cello), as well as with Brandon Lopez, Mike Pride, Shayna Dulberger and Weasel Walter, and with Yoni Kretzmer and Tobey Cederberg. She names Don Cherry, Axel Dörner, Booker Lite and Miles Davis among her musical influences. In 2017 she released her debut solo album, Fly or Die, with Tomeka Reid, Jason Ajemian, Chad Taylor, Matt Schneider (guitar), Ben LaMar Gay, and Josh Berman (cornet)."

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaimie_Branch)
1/27/2025

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"Anne La Berge's passion for the extremes in both composed and improvised music has led her to storytelling and sound art as her sources of musical inspiration. Her music gathers the elements on which her reputation is based: ferocious and far-reaching virtuosity, microtonal textures and melodies, and her unique array of percussive flute techniques, all combined with interactive electronic processing and text.

She performs regularly as a soloist, with the ensemble MAZE and with her husband David Dramm. She is a founding artist of Splendor Amsterdam, a collective of musicians who have transformed an old bathhouse in Amsterdam into a cultural mecca, where she rehearses her own projects and shares small scale concerts with international guests.

In 1999, together Steve Heather and Cor Fuhler, she founded Kraakgeluiden, a improvisation series based in Amsterdam, exploring combinations of acoustic and electronic instruments using real-time interactive performance systems. Many of the resulting musical collaborations have have taken on a life beyond the Kraakgeluiden series, which ceased in 2006. La Berge's own music has evolved in parallel, and the flute has become only one element in a sound world that includes computer samples, the use of spoken text and electronic processing.

She works regularly as an improvisation and live electronics coach worldwide in the context of residencies and private coaching.

She can be heard on the Largo, Artifact, Etcetera, Hat Art, Frog Peak, Einstein, X-OR, Unsounds, Canal Street, Rambo, esc.rec., Intackt, Data, verz, Relative Pitch and Splendor Records labels which include recordings with Ensemble Modern, United Noise Toys, Fonville/La Berge, Rasp/Hasp, Bievre/La Berge, Apricot My Lady, Big Zoom, Corkestra, La Berge/Williamson, MAZE, Phil Maguire, Henneman/Branch/La Berge and the family Dramm La Berge La Berge Dramm.

Her music is published by Frog Peak Music, Alry Publications, Donemus and many of her Max patch based compositions are available as Apps from her privately. She is the Managing Director of the Volsap Foundation that produces innovative music projects."

-Anne La Berge Website (https://annelaberge.com/bio/)
1/27/2025

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