Performance and Lecture with Marko Ciciliani.

In 1833, British professional weaver and amateur engineer Sieglinde Stern invented the first electromagnetic pickup, and with it, the first electrically amplified string instrument. A hundred years later, this invention enabled the production of the first electric guitar, which became one of the most popular and widely played instruments in the history of Western music. Yet another hundred years later, no one plays this instrument anymore! What led to the rise and fall of the electric guitar? And who was its inventor, Sieglinde Stern, who disappeared from history and reemerged as David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust?

In two parts, composer Marko Ciciliani explores the fictional history of the electric guitar and takes the audience on a journey between imagination and reality. You can expect a performance-lecture and a concert for live electronics and three guitarists on video.

Following the performance, there will be a conversation with Ekkehard Windrich, Artistic Director of KlangForum Heidelberg.

The event is part of the Ways of Listening Festival, in collaboration with DAI Heidelberg. You can find an overview of the full program here.

Marko Ciciliani is a composer, intermedia artist and performer. The focus of his artistic work lies in the composition of performative electronic music, mostly in audiovisual contexts. Interactive video, light design and laser graphics often play an integral part in his compositions, just as well as elements of ergodic or transmedia storytelling and speculative fabulation. The German magazine Neue Zeitschrift für Musik referred to him as “one of today’s most interesting composers in the field of electronic music and multimedia” (01/2020).