image © Mariya Boyanova, 2019
about
Alex Nowitz is a composer and vocal performance artist from Germany. He also appears as improviser, sound artist and musician and works as artistic researcher, author and curator.
His compositions comprise vocal and instrumental chamber music, two full-length operas, a few short orchestral pieces, electro-acoustic music, multimedia works, music for dance and spoken theatre. In 2021 the Deutsche Filmorchester Babelsberg recorded the study for large orchestra Ich bin das Volk [I am the people] conducted by Christian Köhler. In April 2022, conducted by Antonello Manacorda, the Kammerakademie Potsdam commissioned and premiered his work for orchestra and smartphones Vom Glühen der Glut [On the glowing of the embers].
As vocal performance artist starting in 1989, Alex Nowitz shares the stage with a great number of musicians, with vocalists as well as with dancers and actors. The most recent projects include aNo with Antonis Anissegos, BLONOVO with Sabine Vogel (DE, fl) & Frédéric Blondy (FR, pno), MASUAL with Sukandar Kartadinata (DE, egtr/elec) & Matthias Bauer (DE, db), KLANGPAKT with Christine Paté (Fr, acc) and Matthias Badczong (DE, cl) & M. Bauer (DE, db) or OPERADICALS with Tone Åse (NO, voc/elec), Franziska Baumann (CH, voc/elec) & Sten Sandell (SE, pno/voc).
Composer-performer Alex Nowitz presents extended vocal performance art often applying custom, wireless and gesture-controlled live electronics, that is, the strophonion allowing him to move about freely onstage and thus become a 'sound dancer.'
Both in his vocal performance art and in his compositions dedicated to others, he explores the notion of multivocality. Thus, in 2019 he releases his dissertation on the Research Catalogue, called 'Monsters I Love: On multivocal arts,' a documented artistic research project featuring a number of essays together with audio and video material of either studio productions or live performances. On this basis, he was awarded the doctoral degree in 'Performative and Mediated Practices with Specialisation in Opera' by the Stockholm University of the Arts.
Both in his vocal performance art and in his compositions dedicated to others, he explores the notion of multivocality. Thus, in 2019 he releases his dissertation on the Research Catalogue, called 'Monsters I Love: On multivocal arts,' a documented artistic research project featuring a number of essays together with audio and video material of either studio productions or live performances. On this basis, he was awarded the doctoral degree in 'Performative and Mediated Practices with Specialisation in Opera' by the Stockholm University of the Arts.
Since 2008 Alex Nowitz publishes essays and articles written in both German and English. Sprache und Spannung: Aspekte der vielstimmigen Stimme im Kontext musikalischer Improvisation [Language and Tension: Aspects of the multivocal voice within the frame of musical improvisation] appears in the journal Improfil (Berlin 2022, No. 85). Exploring the philosophical potential of extended vocal performance art he composed the chapter with the title 'Assemblages of Multivocal and Schizophonic Practices: Unleashing the machined voice' published in Machinic Assemblages of Desire. Deleuze and Artistic Research 3 (Orpheus Institute Ghent), edited by Paolo de Assis & Paolo Giudici (Leuven University Press, 2021).
Initiated in 2021 in Potsdam and Berlin, Alex Nowitz curates the International Festival for Vocal Performance Art, Sound & Music DESIGNING VOICES whose second edition in 2023 was titled Vokalaktionen. The new edition with the topic Klangsinne [sense/s of/for sound] will take place in October 2025 at the fabrik Potsdam, Germany.
Since 1994 he received numerous artist residencies, grants, awards and fellowships, such as the ECPNM/ISCM Gothenburg (SE), Banff Arts Center (CAN), Else-Heiliger-Fonds der Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (DE), Cité International des Arts Paris (FR), Schloss Wiepersdorf Brandenburg (DE). In 2022 Alex Nowitz was awarded the residency at the Villa Aurora, Los Angeles. In 2023 he received the fellowship Arbeitspaket-Stipendium 2023 awarded by the Ministry for Science, Research and Culture of the Land Brandenburg, Germany.
May 2025
May 2025