ORNIS is a duo between Sabine Vogel and Kathy Hinde.

In May 2024, ORNIS spent a week working on a new collaborative, improvisation in response to the stunning rural setting of Paretz in Havelland, Germany concluding with a performance as part of the picnic concert series Paretzer Field Music with a new, site responsive piece titled “Shimmering Resonance”.

During the week, Sabine and Kathy explored of the surrounding area to gather field recordings. The air was rich with the songs of nightingales and oriels with the calls of cranes further overhead, and the croaks of frogs echoing across the surface of the Erdlöchers and underwater chirps of hidden aquatic creatures. ORNIS always make their performances respond to a specific location and present their sonic worlds as a cross between an installation and a performance. This piece began with transducers playing the sounds from the local area resonating inside metal buckets distributed around the space, between audience members. Sabine and Kathy moved through the audience with wind-hummers and ocarinas, tiny motors activated bells and gongs hanging in trees, as ORNIS moved to the stage to perform on resonating glass vessels, flutes, singing bowls, bells, also interacting with water levels to create a delicate, immersive composition at a level sympathetic to the local soundscape.

Some photos from the performance © Christina Marx Photomusix

some of the instruments and set ups used by ORNIS for ‘Shimmering Resonance‘

Following ORNIS’s performance, Eva Völlner performed a wonderful solo set for accordion, and the afternoon concluded with an improvisation by Sabine, Kathy and Eva. Our idea was to tune in to the sounds of the accordion’s reeds with Sabine playing reed based keyboard instrument the organette and Kathy playing a set of ‘falling reeds’, an adaptation from her composition ‘FLOCK’.