For more than 35 years, Berlin based drummer, percussionist and composer Maurice de Martin has been working in the field of contemporary music and other experimental forms of sound creation. In addition to his profession as a musician, he works and researches as an artist in the field of sound art and participatory process art.

Work in Music

Maurice de Martin appeared on the international scene in 1991 as a musician with the debut album "Happy Hour - Live at the Knitting Factory" on ENJA Records by the Munich-based art rock band Brother Virus. After the break off of this band he moved to New York City, where he lived and worked until 1995 and where he became an active member of the Downtown Avant-garde around the Knitting Factory. During this time he studied drums with Dennis Charles, Gene Jackson, Sam Ulano, Michael Carvin and Joey Baron, contemporary music with Prof. Dinu Ghezzo (New York University) and the Georgian master composer Giya Kancheli and Jazz piano with Roberta Piket and Barry Harris.

In 1995 he moved from NYC to Berlin, where he lives and works up to today. From 1997-99 he traveled to Romania and Bulgaria on a scholarship from the DAAD and studied Eastern European folklore. In Bucharest, together with the Romanian pianist Mircea Tiberian, he founded the Interzone Jazz Orchestra with musicians from Western and Eastern Europe in 1997 and in 2000 the Berlin Jazz Composers Ensemble. With this group, he recorded his composition „Transylvaniana“, which reflects his folklore research in Romania.

Between 2000 and 2005 de Martin was a drummer in various formations of the Polish "Yass" scene, e.g. together with bassist Olo Walicki, Adam Pierończyk and in the trio of the pianist Leszek Możdżer. In Berlin he worked u.v.a. with Free Jazz bassist Sirone, and internationally with Elliott Sharp, Gary Thomas, Tim Berne, Marc Ducret, John Taylor, Terje Rypdal, Palle Mikkelborg, Melvin Gibbs, Herb Robertson, Iwo Papasov and the Romanian wedding band "Musica de la Marsa". From 2008 to 2010 he was on three long stays in Seoul / South Korea, which led to studies of Samulnori percussion and cooperation with musicians of this musical tradition.

De Martin joined the contemporary music ensemble zeitkratzer in 1999 and has been a permanent member of it ever since. In the context of zkr, he participated in recordings of the music of John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen and James Tenney as well as Lou Reed, Kraftwerk and Whitehouse. With this ensemble he performed on stages all over the world in numerous collaborations with important protagonists of the contemporary avant-garde, such as Laurie Anderson, Alvin Lucier, Arto Lindsay, Keiji Haino, Carsten Nicolai, Oval, Manuel Göttsching, Terre Thaemlitz, Alvin Curran. In 2003-08 he led his own trio 3D with the German vibraphone player Christopher Dell, and the American bassist Chris Dahlgren, with whom he released two albums on the Cracow-based label NotTwo.

Work in Theater and transdiciplinary contexts

De Martin worked for several years (2006-09) as musical director at the Berlin Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz for productions of the director Thomas Ostermeier and cooperated with the dance choreographer Sasha Waltz, with the Swiss Theater collective PLASMA, the Berlin-based performance collectives She She Pop and CHEAP. As a sound and installation artist, he conceives works with social and historical questions e.g. in collaboration with the Hofreitschule Wien and the Museumsquartier Wien/Tonspurpassage. With the German actress Susanne Sachsse he founded the project GIRLS in 2018.

Work in Art

De Martin's art projects have been decidedly carried out at the edge or outside of conventional high culture contexts, cooperating with people who have not yet been given the opportunity to work with the practices of contemporary art and have not had the opportunity to come into active contact with experimental music. It is his core interest, to realize projects that are deliberately not low-threshold, in mixed cooperation with "lay people" and "professionals" in different constellations and situations.

Berlin-Marzahn-Cycle „Maurice ist da! / TKM / Unholdt-Forum“ (2012-16)

With his projects Maurice ist da!, Temporäre Kunstakademie Marzahn (TKM) and Unholdt-Forum, he has been collaborating with Galerie M in the Berlin-Marzahn, the largest industrially fanufactured housing area for five years. His task was to bring together people from different contexts and age groups for participatory art projects. His main topic here was the question of the value and function of art in a society with strongly changed community and work structures. De Martin wants to emancipate people by extending creative processes to the whole of society, exploring new opportunities for individual as well as collective engagement. He believes that "excellent" education should not be confined to elites today, but potentially involve as diverse a population as possible.

United Nations „UNKNOWN SPACES“ (2011-16)

What he negotiated locally in Berlin-Marzahn, De Martin pursues globally in cooperation with the Berlin-based director and stage designer Janina Janke. Since 2011 the artistic duo has conducted the long-term project UNKNOWN SPACES, exa)mining the United Nations in terms of a Foucaultian ‘heterotopia’, while debating the question how a complex global organizational structure accommodates the individual. How do the extremely different constellations of local culture, global protocol and personal area of expertise influence the (self-) perception and action of individual employees with the UN? To explore these issues De Martin/Janke have interacted with more than 200 UN staff-members, and people with a close relationship to the UN, on three continents from 2011 to 2016. This particular project was the very first time in the history of the UN that a larger representative group of its staff (from a kitchen help to the Under-Secretary-General) had actively participated in an art project.

The project had been exhibited at Donauturm / Museumsquartier in Vienna (2013 and 2015) and Goethe Institut Nairobi / UN Headquarters in Nairobi (2014). In October 2015 on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the UN it was presented at Headquarters UN in New York City, accompanied by a lecture performance and a panel discussion at Goethe Institut NYC. The project had its officially final performance at the Assembly Hall of Palais des Nations in Geneva in August 2016 and parallelly opened a temporary headquarters at FAR° Festival Nyon.

Berlin-Rüdersdorf „Just Intonation“ (2018-19)

In this context, together with his artistic partner Janina Janke, de Martin initiated and conducted "Just Intonation" with 200 patients and employees of a psychiatric clinic near Berlin: a music-based, participatory process art project, over which an unusual role reversal took place: patients wrote scores that -under their lead- were performed by their doctors and professional musicians.

Discourse & Theory

De Martin is invited regularly to lecture on, discuss and expound his ideas of ‘unconditional presence’, ‘intensified intersubjectivity’ and ‘collective improvisation’ as a basis for artworks in public space that are not heteronomously functionalized and respectful at the same time. The recurring question is this: what differentiates or unites artistic involvement in everyday contexts from/with the involvement of the conventionally commissioned participants (from the sectors of social services, academia, politics or the churches)? In Switzerland and Austria he works in the field of artistic research. Among other activities he has been a member of the Austrian FWF research project Andere Räume-Knowledge through Art from 2011 to 2015.

Since 2009 De Martin has been a lecturer teaching various disciplines at Hochschule der Künste Berne, Switzerland, (Y-Institute for Transdisciplinarity, Drama Dept., Music Dept. and Research Dept.). As  guest s he has been teaching/lecturing in the context of special transdisciplinary and participatory projectat on many German as well as international educational and research institutions, e.g. HU Berlin, Folkwang-Universität Essen, Alanus-Hochschule Alfter bei Bonn, Kunsthochschule Burg Giebichenstein Halle, Mazaryk Universität Brno/CZ, Musikuniversität Bukarest/RO, Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt/AT, KGIT Seoul/KOR, Brockwood Park School/GB.

De Martin known for his unconventional cooperations with organizations, such as Swiss Emergency Management, the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, an orphanage in the KIbera district at the periphery of Nairobi, South Korean Samulnori percussionists, a Swiss crematorium, the New York Transit Authority, as well as the serbian orthodox Church of Slavonia.

Studies

2009–2011 Master of Contemporary Arts Practice, Hochschule der Künste Bern, CH

1998–1999 Eastern European Folklore, Academia de Muzica Cluj-Napoca/RO

1995–1997 Diploma in Musical Education-Jazz (DME), HdK (now UDK) Berlin, GER

194-1995 private studies in composition with Giya Kancheli, NYC & Berlin

1993–1994 private studies in composition with Prof. Dino Ghezzo, New York University, USA

1991–1993 training for street musicians, project “Music Under New York,” NYC, USA

Exhibitions & Installations

„Zeigen“ Temporäre Kunsthalle Berlin 2010, "In Transit", HKB, Papiermühle Bern 2011, „C- Zone“ & „EarCity“, BMW-Guggenheim-Lab 2012, „UNKNOWN SPACES“, Donauturm Wien 2013 & Museumsquartier Wien 2015, „Maurice ist da!“, Galerie M, Berlin-Marzahn 2013, „WIR sind die (!) Künstler!“ Galerie M, Berlin-Marzahn 2014, „UNKNOWN SPACES“, UN-Hauptquartier New York City und Goethe-Institut NYC 2015, „Morgenarbeit“ Tonspurpassage, Museumsquartier Wien 2015/16, „ESPACE UNCONNU/Quartier Général“, Palais des Nations, Genf & FAR° Festival, Nyon 2016, „SCORES“ Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin 2016, „(un)fortunately the Show must go on“, Musikuniversität Bukarest & Goethe-Institut Bukarest 2016. „Wir sind die (!) Wilden“, Galerie M, Berlin-Marzahn 2016/17, „Im Land der Germonen“, Häselburg, Gera 2017, „Tempel der Göttin der Dienstleistung“, Lange Nacht der Museen, Gera 2017, Schloss Biesdorf /Berlin „Ankommen“ 2018, „Just Intonation“ / „Werk statt Eröffnung“ Psychiatry Immanuel-Klink Rüdersdorf 2019

Venues Music & Theater

Knitting Factory NYC, CBGB's NYC, Münchner Philharmonie, Konzerthaus Wien, Queen Elizabeth-Hall London, Jahrhunderthalle Bochum, Akademie der Künste Berlin, Volksbühne Berlin, Schaubühne Berlin, Haus der Kulturen der Welt Berlin, EXPO Hannover 2000, Steirischer Herbst Graz, Biennale Zagreb, Genf Archipel, Göteborg Sound Art, Donaufestival Krems, Theaterhaus Stuttgart, Stadtgarten Köln, Essener Philharmonie, Auditorio National Madrid, Les Musiques Festival Marseille, Athens Festival, Jazz Institut Darmstadt, Warsaw Jazz Jamboree, Polska Filharmonia Baltycka Gdansk, Torun Art Nova Festival, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Salamanca Festival, Disgressions Barcelona, ETNA-Fest Sicilia, Theatro-Festival Napoli, Whynote Dijon, Theatre National de Chaillot Paris, Schillertheater Berlin, Mogosoaia Palace Bucharest, KGIT Seoul,South Korea, Audiconciertos Zaragoza, Philharmonie Luxembourg, Jazzfest Berlin, ULTIMA-Festival Oslo, SWR Baden-Baden, Musik Triennale Cologne, Melos-Etos Bratislava, VWS Berlin, UdK Berlin, Palast der Republik Berlin, Radio-Music-Hall Bucharest, ARCUB Bucharest, Taktlos Zürich, Ruhrtriennale, Zollverein Essen, Ensemble-Akademie Darmstadt, C3-Festival Gdansk, Maerzmusik Berlin, Berghain Berlin, Wroclaw Avant Art, Onassis Cutural Center Athens, Sing-Sing Festival Belgrade, Sound Live Tokyo, Super Deluxe Tokyo, Klangspuren Innsbruck, Meteo Festival Mulhouse, FAR Festival Nyon, Kammerspiele München, HAU Berlin, RomaEuropa, Sacrum-Profanum Cracow, ULTIMA Oslo, Konzerthuset Copehagen, UNAM Mexico City, Roskilde-Festival, DAAD Künstlerprogramm Berlin, Tonhalle Düsseldorf

Venues Art & Literature

Serpentine Gallery London, Hamburger Bahnhof Berlin, Temporäre Kunsthalle Berlin, Museumsquartier Wien /Freiraum INTERNATIONAL/Quartier 21, Haus am Waldsee Berlin, Galerie M Berlin-Marzahn, Bucharest Literature Museum, Galerie Klingenthal Basel, Palatul Mogosoaia Bucharest, BMW-Guggenheim-Lab, ARCUB Cultural Foundation Bucharest, Museum für Kommunikation Berlin, Hamburger Bahnhof Berlin

Cooperations with Musicians/Composers/Ensembles

Laurie Anderson, Keiji Haino, Elliott Sharp, Herb Robertson, Arto Lindsay, Alvin Lucier, Bern Nix, Peter Kotik, Dinu Ghezzo, Norris Jones aka Sirone, Wilbert de Joode, Tim Berne, Melvin Gibbs, Gary Thomas, Alvin Curren, Ivo Papasov, Terre Thaemlitz, Manuel Göttsching, Rechenzentrum, Carsten Nikolai aka Alva Noto, Ekkehard Ehlers, Olo Walicki, Leszek Mozdzer, Mircea Tiberian, Franz Hautzinger, Gunnar Geisse, Christopher Dell, Chris Dahlgren, Roberta Piket, Radio Symphony Orchestra Bucharest, Baltic Philharmonic Brass Players Gdansk, Terje Rypdal, Palle Mikkelborg, Eric Mingus, Dirk Dresselhaus aka Schneider TM, Mariam Wallentin

Cooperations with Theater Groups and Directors

Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz, Berlin / Thomas Ostermeier, Frank Oberhäuser; Operdynamo West, Berlin / Janina Janke; Plasma, Zürich / Lukas Bangerter, She She Pop, CHEAP

Cooperations with Actors/Performers/Choreographers

Sascha Waltz (&Friends), Saskia Edens, Mili Bitterli, Constanza Macras, Angela Meindl, Lucia Kasiarova, Kim Jung Sun, Hyoung-Min Kim, Gail Sharrol Skrela, Florencia Lamarca, Susanne Sachsse, Vaginal Davis

Cooperations with Artists, Film-Makers, Media & Video-Artists

Jorinde Voigt, Christine Thepenier, Lillevan, Sebastien Dupouey, Pola Sieverding

Cooperation partners / supporters institutions/organizations/foundations

Goethe-Institut, Auswärtiges Amt (German Ministry of Foreign Affair), BKM (The Federal Government and its Commission for Culture and Media), German Embassies and Consulates, German Missions to the UN NYC & Genf, Swiss Mission to the UN Genf, Robert Bosch Stiftung, Montag Stiftung, Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural Foundation), Berliner Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Europa, Ausstellungsfonds für die kommunalen Galerien der Berliner Bezirke, Migros Kulturprozent, Stadt Bern, Ernst Gröhner Stiftung, Kulturreferat München, FWF (Österreichischer Wissenschaftsfonds), Deutsches Kulturforum östliches Europa, UNESCO, IBA Thüringen, Immanuel Klinik Rüdersdorf, Stechlin-Institut

Released Recordings

Until 2021: 80 released albums released on record-labels NotTwo, Neuklang, Komatonse, Enja, Karlrecords, Intuition/call it anything, Zeitkratzer Records, Asphodel, Subrosa, AnoKato, Weiser Records, Laika, Konnex, PAO, EMMIX, Meta Records, JAM Records, Electrecord, Olo-Records, Everest Records, Polish Radio Experimental Studio, IZBIT IN ZID

For Print & Online-Media references go to category „Media“