Bio

Bernd Klug – double bass / sound art (US/AT)

Bernd Klug is an Austrian born, Brooklyn based sound artist and double bassist. In sound installations and solo concerts, his music encounters our everyday circumstances as found forms and questions our perceptions of sound and social space.

His installations make use of acoustic phenomena like feedback, room frequencies and electromagnetic waves and explore strings, wood, metal and other materials as audiovisual components. Recently Klug has shown his works in solo exhibitions at Harvestworks (NYC 2013), Art Now at Monmouth University (NJ, 2014, ce.ins_0006) and the Austrian Cultural Forum NYC (2015) as well as collaborations with Daniel Lercher at mo.Ă« (Vienna 2014) and ‘Bearing’ with Johanna Tiedtke at Galerie Freihausgasse (Villach, AT April 2015) and group shows, such as, Groundswell 2015 (Olana, NY) and Klangmanifeste (Vienna 2012). In 2017 he premiered his multichannel live feedback performance ‘sides – systems under test’ at Experimental Intermedia NY and the composition ‘string quartet and skyscraper 2.0’ with The Rhythm Method string quartet.

His solo double bass work (cupreous donkey and the CD ‘Cold Commodities’ Innova 902) focuses on the world inside and around the double bass: the bow, the body, and room frequencies lay the groundwork for a radical reduction of both the composer-performer’s role and the traditional musical narrative. He has played solo concerts at CTSwaM Fridman Gallery, Share Issue Project Room, Biegungen Ausland (Berlin), CoCART – Tarun (PL), CNMAT (Berkeley) and Radiokulturhaus and the Porgy and Bess in Vienna.

As an improviser and bassist, he has collaborated with Burkhard Stangl, Keiko Uenishi, Shelley Hirsch, Radu Malfatti, Franz Hautzinger, Butch Morris, Bernhard Lang, John Butcher, Gust Burns, Danielle Dahl, Mimu Merz, Daniel Lercher, Henrik Munkeby NĂžrstebĂž, Laurie Amat, Brendan Landis, Lucio Menegon, Kjetil Hanssen, ctrl, OENCZkekvist and Ritornell. His most recent bands include the experimental techno noise band T-Shit (w/ Bernhard Hammer and Sixtus Preiss) and the dramatic chamber duo Rash (with Meaghan Burke, cello).

Since 2016, Bernd Klug has worked as a sound engineer and built sound systems with Jim Toth’s Jupiter Sound for events and exhibitions at Guggenheim, MoMA, Brooklyn Museum, Knockdown Center, MoMA PS1 and the Red Bull Music Academy.

Bernd Klug was 2016 Resident in Visual Arts at the Institute for Electronic Arts, Alfred University,  a Wave Farm Artist In Residence 2015 and the awardee for interdisciplinary arts  from the Carinthian government, AT 2015 and the featured in  “New Austrian Sound of Music” program for 2014-15. His compositions received commissions by New Music USA and the BKA (Austrian Federal Chancellery). He was granted an educational scholarship at Harvestworks (NYC) in 2012-13, and received the BM:UKK Startstipendium (federal Austrian grant for artists) in 2011. He holds a MFA from the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts (Music/Sound, 2016) and holds a BA in bass performance (popular, contemporary, and classical music and music education) from the Vienna University for Music and Performing Arts.