For Violin, Snare & Kacapi brings together Stockholm-based violinist-composer Maya Bennardo (a member of the New York-based contemporary Mivos Quartet), Swedish Kristofer Svensson who is a kacapi (the traditional zither of Sundanese people in Indonesia) player-composer-music theorist-educator, and the label kuyin manager (that released Bernardo’s solo album Four Strings, 2022. Svensson also recorded Two Skies with Bernardo and Swedish bass clarinetist Erik Blennow Calälv, thanatosis produktion, 2022), and Dutch, Cologne-based Etienne Nillesen for a delicate, sound-oriented free improvisation recorded at Atlantis Grammofon in January 2024.

The kuyin label uses as its moto Chinese poet-painter Su Shi’s saying: «With quietude, you comprehend all movement, With emptiness you receive ten thousand things». The 51-minute collective improvisation on ‘Āsthita’ (remaining silent, in Buddhism. Sebsson is a committed Buddhist), sounds like embracing Su Shi’s advice. It is based on a mode and melodic framework in 13-limit Just Intonation constructed by Svensson based on the pitches of Nillesen’s 15′′ snare drum.

This minimalist and meditative, quiet, and exploratory improvisation attempts to stretch the conceptions of time into an almost statis with extended bowing and percussive techniques that draw an extensive range of exotic timbres, pitches, harmonics, and overtones. It corresponds faithfully with Svensson’s aesthetics and the philosophy of music, summarized in his research, Intimated Emptiness, suggesting a spontaneous, ego-less process of tuning with – or attunement – with the music. During this extended improvisation, the violin, snare drum, and kacapi blend into an enigmatic, ritual-like, vibrant sonic entity.

Eyal Hareuveni

Maya Bernardo (violin), Etienne Nillesen (snare drum), Kristofer Svensson (kacapi)