.001_The “inner-piano” and mixing board player Andrea Neumann occupies a special position within the contemporary free improvisation scene. Despite being a founding member of the influential informal Berlin group Echtzeitmusik and having contributed considerably to the definition of the now established canon of reductionist improvisation, she has always been eager to venture outside the imaginary walls of this exclusive lounge filled with silent sounds, pregnant pauses, and waiting for the “right” moment. .002_She comes from Freiburg, studied classical piano at the Berlin Hochschule der Künste, and her investigations of the possibilities of instrument preparation later led her to conceiving a special lightweight aluminium frame with undamped strings that was eventually created specially for her by the renowned piano builder Bernd Bittmann. .003_Piano preparation is now, decades after it was first conceived by John Cage, a more or less established discipline distinguished by a characteristic sound, and always impressive expanded playing techniques. The system used by Andrea Neumann is a peculiar hybrid between an acoustic resonator and an electronic instrument. Its feeble sound is captured by magnetic pickups originally designated for the electric guitar, and amplified by a mixing board. The board is used to modulate feedback in which often resonate acoustic impacts transmitted by the piano frame. The result is a sophisticated equilibrium between a natural and synthetic sound where we are often not sure which of the two we are experiencing. The impression is reinforced also by her skilful handling of the acoustic panorama (through lightning-speed left-right “panning”), and her virtuoso technique of sound “zooming” (i.e. the technique in which a musician first sounds her instrument in a so to say trial fashion, without amplification, only to let it inundate the speakers in a sudden and often unexpected amplified burst). .004_It is for her elaborate style of treating sound that Andrea Neumann is a sought-after partner for improvisational duos. Her long and focused pauses leave the musical partner with abundant space for expression, and her unexpected sonic explosions at the same time provide an opportunity to structure the acoustic situation. *.005_In the beginnings of her active improvising career at the turn of the millennium, Andrea Neumann focused more on exploring raw sound textures (primarily on her “Rotophormen” album, Charhizma, 2000, in a duo with Annette Kerbs). But her twofold approach to sound that we have mentioned allows her to take part also in projects based on a more ambivalent sound (as in the underrated album “Atøn” with Toshimaru Nakamura, Rossbin, 2001), or in conceptual projects as the “Lalienation” CD with Sabine Ercklenz (Herbal International, 2008) on which the musicians destroy all clichés associated with improvised music, using attributes unlikely in the given genre, both compositional (rhythms), and acoustic (spoken word), and visual (with a CD jacket featuring pictures of the two performers in model B-movie costumes). .006_A separate chapter in the career of the rather hermetic personality (Andrea Neumann has never had her own web page) are her organizing and editorial activities. She is a founding member of the legendary Berlin Labor Sonor – a creative platform for experimental music beyond established institutions meeting at the Kule club in central Berlin. Kule has, along with the allied Ausland, become the headquarters of the Berlin reductionist community. Andrea’s editorial contributions include the book “echtzeitmusik berlin. selbstbestimmung einer szene / self-defining a scene“, Wolke 2011, a collection of essays by more than fifty authors reflecting on the emergence of a living music scene and their involvement with it. .007_In recent years the platform has been focusing on expanding the possibilities of its once rather rigidly delimited aesthetics. One of the characteristic traits of Echtzeitmusik is the fact that it is interpreted solely by its authors. However, the musicians have recently tried to reverse the perspective. The number of concerts is growing where various authors process characteristic methods of their colleagues through their own aesthetics (as in the series The Sound of Second Hand Clapping). The leitmotif of the Berlin improvisation melting pot of these days is simply transposition between musical languages: a relay chain of concerts in which individual composers create a new piece on their listening experience with the preceding performance and its author (Transmit power). Since its zero edition this compositional pyramid scheme has arrived at a night dedicated to the violist Catherine Lamb who composed her piece “pulse/shade” “based on the listening to Sven-Åke Johansson’s “Sounds Of A Tropical Rainforest in America” which derived from “Animal Nacht”, a performance by the Allbee/Hochherz/Mangan/Wassermann quartet who had been influenced in their playing by Nile Koetting and Nicolas Houde’s interpretation of Fernanda Farah’s score “Music Piece” that she noted down after having heard Serge Baghdassarians and Boris Baltschun perform a piece by Peter Ablinger who wrote down freely what he had heard in an evening with Hook, line and Sinker… and so on.” .008_Andrea Neumann has devoted herself recently to a sort of synthesis of several of her previous projects. From her cooperation with the always questioning Argentinian theatre philosopher and drummer Diego Chamy she has retained an interest in a combination of stylized dance gestures and abstract music, which she transposed into a series of compositions titled Letraton. This magic play with the denounced technique of syncing to pre-recorded music amazes the concert audience with its simplicity and simultaneously meticulous non-transparency. When Andrea performed it last year at the conference on technologies in music at JAMU in Brno, her perfectly home-made robotic show came across almost as a parody of the frequent overuse of interactive media in contemporary music. The listeners and viewers witness something quite unusual. At first they are captivated by the sophistication of the piece. Then comes soon the insight into the obviousness of the trick that brings about the illusion, but before they allow themselves to be disappointed they realize that the magic works regardless of the fact, and maybe more convincingly than if it had remained artfully covert. .009_Andrea Neumann’s current full engagement in areas where improvisation and composition overlap is confirmed also by her activities within the group of female composers Les Femmes Savantes (The Learned Ladies). Their production often blurs the boundaries between the two fields. Abstract sounds generated through improvisation receive a fixed place in the consolidated form of a composition. 4 Akteure from Les Femmes Savantes on Vimeo. .010_A certain characteristic idiosyncrasy in its ambiguous approach to sound is to be found in the solo recording Pappelallee 5. The house that is found at this Berlin address is occupied by a number of musician friends, and Andrea often hears through the walls of her flat sounds resonating in floors and ceilings. That is what led her one day to the decision to record improvised duets with absent partners. In the recording, the parts of the unaware colleagues are almost inaudible but the structure and proportions of the dominant sounds are manifestly influenced by them. Emerges a sound palimpsest positioned on an ambiguous lattice. .011_Andrea Neuman is a rarity. One could hardly find a figure with a comparable degree of focus and at the same time childlike recklessness on the contemporary experimental music scene. Her music blows where it wishes but sounds as if it were at those unpredictable places from eternity.