Birthday greeting: Support EMC with first tour this Autumn

Hi, my name is Milana and today I am organising a birthday fundraiser to support newly founded EMC (European Music Collective) with travel expenses for their first tour in autumn 2024 around Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

But first I would like to introduce myself and tell you about EMC, my journey in improvisation and the tour.

I was born in the Ukraine and moved to the UK in 2014 to study at the Royal Academy of Music to pursue my dream of becoming an opera singer. Currently, I am based in Bradford and sharing my life with my partner Ben Finlay who is multi-talented musician and member of EMC. Life is interesting: it leads you down the most unexpected paths and now I am proud to say that I am a vocal coach and vocal health specialist with aspirations to open my own accessible practice; a freelance opera singer who’s dream is to help opera be more accessible and reflect our times and an improviser who discovers new possibilities for the art of singing through the exploration of a huge range of unconventional sounds.

The European Music Collective is a union of musicians from all over Europe (and beyond) which functions as a platform for improvised/contemporary music featuring young and promising musicians. As a decentralised collective, EMC organises events such as: concerts, tours, workshops. This summer EMC hosted their first residency in Latvia where they spent an intense week recording new music for their first album.

EMC presents a double bill improvisation gig featuring bands Fleitų 3 and KINK for the Autumn EU tour 2024. Our aspirations are to bring these unique combinations of sound worlds and creative ideas to a European audience craving an unrepeatable sonic experience. To make this happen, we kindly request your support in raising £1000 to cover travel expenses for musicians.

Listen Fleitų 3

Listen KINK

Tour schedule:

05.11.2024 – Classic Jamming in Groningen, Netherlands

06.11.2024 – Club Nilsson in Düsseldorf, Germany

07.11.2024 – Klanhaven x Sound in Motion in Antwerp, Belgium

At the moment we are open for accepting more bookings in this area.

This is what your donation can help with

Tour expenses:

• transportation UK-EU for myself

• transportation in the EU

• overnight stay

• food expenses

I became a member of this collective through meeting the founder of EMC Christoph Götzen on the improvisation programme which changed my perception on singing. Apart from alluring freedom of musical expression and diversity of sounds which improvisation is all about there is a story of mine which will show you the beneficial health effect improvisation can provide.

Story 1: How improvisation got my stamina and strength back after a long battle of MTD (Muscle tension dysphonia)

After I graduated from RAM, I have experienced a muscle tension dysphonia (occurs when the muscles around the voice box become too tight, making it difficult for the voice box to function efficiently). One can live with this but not as a singer. For singers it means professional ineptitude. It happened for me in 2020, right before the endless amount of lockdowns during COVID-19 pandemic. At that time it was financially impossible for me to provide for expensive sessions with vocal health specialists. I started researching myself and a year later I managed to release my poor voice box. Little did I know that it was just a beginning of a riddle. My vocal strength and stamina were gone and as soon as I returned to my usual vocal routine I would experience fatigue.

One day I found a music course: ‘Opera Incubator and Improvisation’ organised by the Lithuanian Academy of Drama and Music. It sounded hilarious and intriguing to me, so I applied. That’s where I discovered vocal free improvisation. After two vocal sessions, I noticed that I not only wasn’t vocally tired, but could also fully resonate in every part of my vocal range without any effort which had never happened while singing operatic repertoire. When I returned to London, I started searching for different jam sessions to explore this practice further and started noticing that my voice was getting naturally stronger even after all sorts of shouts and screams which would be considered silly and a carefree thing to do in the classical world. This phenomenon made me interested in vocal health and its functions which led me to a deeper analyses of the vocal improvisation process which brought me to the following conclusion:

“When we create unpredicted sequences of sound with our voice in the moment of creation our mind does not fixate on the idea of ‘good’ or ‘bad’ sound because there is simply no time for it. Because of the chaotic and diverse nature of sound making the muscles around our voice box are in continuous motion which prevents the development off any holding patterns. The social standard of ‘beautiful’ singing often stop singers to go for the radical explorations of the sound which become seen as ‘ugly’ qualities. This stigma around ‘art must be beautiful’ stops singers exploring and incorporating unconventional ways of singing in their vocal routines…”

I truly believe in the powers of this musical genre and would like to support its accessibility for non-musicians who can not only experience the freedom music created spontaneously but also gain highly a musical knowledge beneficial for health and well-being.

SPECIAL OFFER: I would like you to get this unforgettable vocal experience and offer a session with me where I would show you different ways of working with voice. When making a donation £50 and higher please state ‘VOCAL SESSION’ and your contact details, and I will get in touch with you to find suitable day and time.

Fleitų 3 is an experimental Lithuanian faftrio whose musical style goes around free improvisation between three types of flute. This combination of instruments and their timbres is rather unusual and gives a special refined touch to the sound of the band. The trio was formed in 20.. by their members, Mėta Gabrielė Pelegrimaitė (soprano flute), Salomėja Kalvelytė (alto flute), Kristupas Gikas (bass flute). This concept dashingly brought lots of attention from the local experimental scene and was described as ‘The usual traditional sound quality of the flute, familiar to all, is transformed into sonorous textures unrecognisable to the ear’.

Their career highlights performances on Lithuanian Radio and Television broadcasts, Vilnius Jazz Festival, Muzika Erdvėje Festival, Improdimensija series of concerts, Druskomanija Festival, RASŲ Radio broadcasts, Studium P space, Garsų Potvynis Contemporary Music Festival in Zapyškis church. In May 2024, Fleitų 3 did their first Baltic tour which featured … The tour took places in Latvia (Riga, Talsi, Liepaja), Estonia (Viljandi, Tartu) and Lithuania (Vilnius, Kaunas).

Besides their focus on band development, all of them are keen on collaboration with other artists which brought them working with leading music creators and performers in the scene such as; Liudas Mockūnas, Arnas Mikalkėnas, Dalius Naujokaitis-Naujo, Marijus Aleksa, Adas Gecevičius, Paulius Vaškas, Liepa Vozgirdaitė, Dominykas Digimas, Twenty Fingers Duo, and Ferry Good Company.

Artists on their music:

“Our performances feature original compositions as frames and cues for free improvisations. Playing consonances and dissonances on three identical instruments, the timbres and consonances are highlighted, revealing the commonalities and differences between these instruments. The ensemble uses a wide range of expressions, not shying away from sweet, sour, soft, hard and otherwise extreme extended techniques to achieve the desired sonic effect and thus bring out the versatility of these instruments. Experimenting with different techniques, the trio members invite the listener to immerse themselves in a relaxing and lulling ambient or equally immersive dissonant overtones.”

About Artists:

Mėta Gabrielė Pelegrimaitė is a flutist who plays in various improvisational ensembles -previously more traditional ensembles with clearer compositional frames, now she seeks means of expression through free improvisation, experimentation, and at the same time incorporating some elements of mainstream music. Her current focus behind written notated or free music is finding ways to communicate with different performers in duets or trios, as well as exploring and trying to understand the musical expressions of other performers.

Salomėja Kalvelytė is an improvisational contemporary music performer who graduated with a master’s degree in Contemporary and Improvisational Music specialization from LMTA. She expresses herself through music composition and creative collaborations with various performers and ensembles. Her musical language reflects influences from classical, contemporary, jazz, and free improvisational music, as well as exploration of additional music styles, such as mainstream, dance, soul, hip hop, and noise. Through experimentation with structures and by employing different flute techniques, Salomėja explores the flute's timbres in her improvisations and seeks ways to effectively communicate and play within ensembles while considering the acoustics of the space.

Kristupas Gikas is a performer of contemporary, improvisational and experimental music. He is interested in different musical traditions and styles, and in his work he blurs the boundaries between them. He combines acoustic and electronic sound in various forms, and is exploring the possibilities of electroacoustic music in his PhD studies at the LMTA. Driven by curiosity, he likes to try out new means of musical expression, including not only various flutes, but also the saxophone, turntables, programming etc. In his music, Kristupas seeks a balance between intuition and logic, often applying playful elements

KINK is an improve duo lead by Ukrainian soprano Milana Sarukhanyan and german guitarist Christopher Götzen. The duo was officially formed in 2023 as a result of a continuations collaborative musicianship which started in 2021. They first met in Vilnius while an ‘Opera Incubator and Improvisation’ project which was lead by … and organised by Lithuanian Academy of Music and Drama. After their collaboration, they’d both realised that creating ideas and turning it into music together was something they both wanted to acquire. Their first continues collaboration happened in Summer 2021 when both of them brought to live a project-workshop ‘The Artist is Present 2.0: Musical Response and Cultural…’ to Düsseldorf. This collective experience made them thinking to start improvising together which brought them to the stages of …

In February 2023, Milana organised a week of intense music making in Saltaire. Being surrounded by nature of Yorkshire and stillness brought them to creating a specific improvised story-telling project which the duo was named after. This is an adventure to the world of human fetish through the world of sounds and stories. The main source of inspiration for the stories was taken from Eva OH teakinck podcast where the renoved dominatrix is sharing her experience working in the sex industry for the past decade.

This improvisation is a collection of secrete desires which are still considered to be taboo in our days. This experience can tickle, pet or bite you as a listener. Our aim is to provide the most abstract sound experience for each of listeners to help todecide for themselves the interpretation of each story.

It’s sexy, dark, cute, flirty and dirty and maybe the only live improv experience out there which can turn your imagination on into self sex exploration.

Milana Sarukhanyan (UA) is a classical singer, improviser and a vocal coach. Her speciality is Bel Canto opera, classical and contemporary vocal repertoire and free improvisation. Her career highlights include appearances on BBC Radio 3, Royal Festival Hall, Susie Sainsbury Theatre, Teatro del’Opera di Roma, Palau de la Música Catalana, Santander Festival Hall, Teatro del Giglio and Glazunov Concert Hall. Milana’s recent work was described as: ‘British-Ukrainian classical singer Milana Sarukhanyan, who played Bertha, added to an already silky layer of sound.’ By Telegraph & Argus. Despite her rich artistic background in opera and chamber vocal repertoire, she is a passionate advocate of free improvisation and experimental staging. In 2022, Milana curated a staged experimental improvisation ‘The Artist is Present 2.0: Musical Response’ with Christopher Götzenwhich had been performed numerous time across Lithuania, Germany and the UK. As an improviser, Milana has appeared on stages such as: Cafè OTO (London), Nilsson (Düsseldorf), Witzli-Poetzli(Antwerp), and the Hundred Years Gallery (London). In 2022, she became a member of London Improvisers Orchestra, established by Butch Morris in the 1990s.

Christoph Götzen (DE) himself, has recently emerged as one of the most ambitious and original young musicians in and around the free improvised scene. Strongly influenced by and in constant dialogue with the NYC independent scene, he strives for a haunting sound influenced by organic, radical, but also lyrical sounds.

Unlike many of his colleagues, as an electric guitarist he manages without a multitude of effects and focusses on playing and expanding the acoustic possibilities of his instrument. He will release his first solo album next year (2024).