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Concert

Malacoda String Quartet Plays Tristan Honsinger

Portrait collage of the Malacoda String Quartet

Malacoda String Quartet © Massimo Golfieri, Francisco Rios Anderson, Carlo Galliotto / Fotoclub Padova

Berlin-based bassist Antonio Borghini pays homage to the late cellist Tristan Honsinger – a crucial and influential figure in the city’s improvised music community – by debuting string quartet music written shortly before his passing in August of 2023.

Malacoda String Quartet plays Tristan Honsinger

(FR, IT, TR)

World premiere

Tristan Honsinger (1949 – 2023):
Mystery String Quartet (2021)
2. String Quartet (2022)
3. String Quartet (2022)

American cellist Tristan Honsinger spent extended time not only in New York, but Amsterdam, Berlin and Trieste, where he died in August of 2023, aged 73. Although his lengthy membership in the ICP Orchestra underlined his time in the Netherlands, his impact upon the improvised music scene in Berlin was immense. His sprawling, theatrical aesthetic collided free jazz, Italian folk and Dadaism in singular fashion, but his ideas endure through the countless players touched by his playing and his personality. Few Berlin-based musicians were impacted by Honsinger as much as bassist Antonio Borghini, who worked with the cellist in the quartet Hook, Line and Sinker, and who participated in Honsinger’s wildly ambitious Hopscotch project.

Line-up

Erica Scherl – violin, vocals
Silvia Tarozzi – violin, vocals
Anıl Eraslan – cello, vocals
Antonio Borghini – double bass, vocals

Portrait Tristan Honsinger

Tristan Honsinger

© Viola Förster-Lühe

Tristan Honsinger

In his final years he wrote new music at a prodigious clip, including a series of string quartets. To honour Honsinger’s profound artistic contributions and his indominable spirit, Borghini has assembled a superb ensemble with violinists Silvia Tarozzi and Erica Scherl and cellist Anıl Eraslan to interpret this music, focusing on three works composed for string quartet between 2020 and 2022. Naturally, significant improvisation will figure into the performance, as will singing – Honsinger often broke into song to accompany or defy what he was playing on cello.