Two transfixing duos take Berlin’s stage.

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Eyvind Kang and Jessika Kenney are a duo who have been active for over 20 years at the intersection of contemporary composition, esoteric improvisation, and traditional musical forms. Their albums include Azure, Cypress Dance, the face of the earth, Aestuarium, Reverse Tree, and Seva/Fixiones. As a duo, they have worked with poets Will Alexander, Anne Carson, and “randomizer” Bob Currie and the bands Sun City Girls, Sunn O))), and Animal Collective.

Kenney was the singer for punk bands Cause and Ex Nihilo, and later for ASVA. She released the solo albums Uranian Void (2025) and Atria (2012) and has recorded the music of Alvin Lucier, Sarah Davachi, and Jarrad Powell. She has also performed and recorded with Niloufar Shiri, Lori Goldston, Simone Forti, and Melati Suryadarmo. Her compositions include Gaze of the Ear, presented in Berlin in June 2026. She has made several sound installations, including Anchor Zero in 2015.

Kang is a violist and composer who has released several albums including Riparian, Sonic Gnostic, and Ajaeng Ajaeng. He has worked with a wide range of musicians including Bill Frisell, Laurie Anderson, Skuli Sverrison, and Hildur Guðnadóttir. He studied with spiritual jazz violinist Michael White and is a longtime student of North Indian classical music with Dr. N. Rajam. Since 2020, he has focused on the viola d’amore.

Together, Kang and Kenney composed Concealed Unity and Siheung Tablatures for orchestra, choir, and soloists for the Tectonics festivals in Reykjavik, Athens, and Glasgow. Their most recent collaboration was the installation Spokane River Sound Action, shown at the Gonzaga University Urban Arts Center (GUAAC) in 2022 and anthologized in Ear Wave Event, Issue 7.

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Kyle Motl is a bassist, composer, and improviser whose playing is noted for both “iridescent delicacy as well as abrasive force” (The Wire). His music “promise[s] to change us by revealing things we could never have imagined” (Free Jazz Collective). Motl’s work spans composed and improvised musics, including performances and recordings with Anthony Davis, Clucas/Motl/Hubbard, the Peter Kuhn Trio, Treesearch, Zarabanda Variations, International Contemporary Ensemble, and others. He is assistant professor at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, where he teaches double bass and contemporary music practices. Motl is a recipient of the 2026 McKnight Artist Fellowship for Musicians administered by MacPhail Center for Music.

Niloufar Shiri is a kamancheh player, composer, and improviser born and raised in Tehran, Iran. Her work exists between traditional Iranian and experimental music. Drawing inspiration from the Radif, intervallic relationships, and pitch settings, her work navigates the space between structure and spontaneity, exploring the familiar and the unexpected. Her recent album, OSHI, is a collaboration with Isaac Otto, a Los Angeles–based composer and multi-woodwind performer, released on Infrequent Seams. She is based in the Twin Cities.