As we fast approach the middle of March, the Howard Assembly Room’s spring season has already hit its considerable stride and tonight’s artist affirms the venue’s unwavering commitment towards inspiration, innovation, and imagination. The artist is Martin Kohlstedt, the German neo-classical composer, pianist, and producer; a man who expresses himself through the synthesis of electronic production and analogue elements, merging the classical with the avant-garde. He is a musical visionary.
Cocooned in a nest of equipment comprising his trusty Fender Rhodes, what looks like four interlinked synthesisers, a drum machine, a series of pedals, and the Howard Assembly Room’s very own Steinway piano, Martin Kohlstedt creates a web of heavily improvised, intoxicating sound. You sense he does not know just where the music will lead him until such time as he steps out and onto that stage. It is this air of complete uncertainty, this unpredictability, this giant step into the unknown that elevates this experience into another dimension. When you then add the pristine sonic textures sculpted by sound engineer André Karius and the scintillating light design of Johannes Zink – made all the more impressive given they probably have little or no idea in which musical direction Kohlstedt will next turn – and you are suddenly transported into another sensory stratosphere altogether. What is abstract by design, is cosmic in its execution.
Three, or is it four pieces of music into this performance Martin Kohlstedt pauses for breath and says “Now we can start the concert.” By then he had reached a point of musical self-actualisation, a place where he felt “super-centred.” Given our levels of total absorption in the event that was unfolding before our eyes and seeping into our ears, the audience had already been in that moment from the very outset.
It is this fusion of disparate musical styles, of modular ideas that just flow from each other organically, coalescing and then flourishing together that makes this such an intoxicating experience. One moment we hear the gentle trickle of Martin Kohlstedt’s piano keys, the next he has swivelled on his chair and apocalyptic claps of thunder reverberate from one of his synthesisers.
With remarkable self-effacement, he says in the German language this would be described as “the cold water method,” perhaps suggesting that like the kitchen sink in English, everything just gets thrown at it. The reality is actually of an incredibly skilled musician who adopts music as a protean method of communication. Listening to him play is a transformative event.
With a warm smile on his face and after some 90 very special minutes of often intense musical expressionism, Martin Kohlstedt says “I’m kind of done for the day.” But, of course, he’s not. He still has time to lower the temperature of the performance with a beautiful reading of ‘Jin’ – the only concert piece of the entire evening – a track which can be found on his 2017 album, Storm. It has been an absolute pleasure and privilege to have spent that time in Martin Kohlstedt’s musical company. These are the nights that Howard Assembly Room was made for.
Photos: Simon Godley
More photos of Martin Kohlstedt at the Howard Assembly Room
