Miako Klein, Jia Lim: Nova Atlantis

Modern Classical / Beyond Jazz
premiera polska: 2025-12-10
kontynent: Europa
opakowanie: Jewelcaseowe etui
opis:
Editor's info
Welcome to the Sound House — a place of contemplation, curiosity, and discovery. Here, echoes of the Baroque intertwine with the unpredictable shimmer of electronics, as Miako Klein and Jia Lim traverse centuries of sound and imagination.
Drawing inspiration from Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis (1626), the duo reimagines the “sound-houses” he described — laboratories of resonance and invention — as a living metaphor for their own musical practice.
At the heart of Nova Atlantis lies a dialogue between the historical and the experimental, between notation and improvisation, between gut strings and glowing LEDs. A Renaissance harpsichord replica hums beside recorders and baroque violins; beneath, a constellation of cables and pedals shape the music into new dimensions of color and texture.
Klein and Lim explore the Doctrine of Affections through fresh ears, uncovering the rhetorical power of the old masters — Biber, Matteis, Buxtehude, Frescobaldi, Weckmann, and Schmelzer — and reanimating their spirit through the lens of the Stylus Fantasticus. Improvisation flows freely, merging the precision of early music with the spontaneity of modern sound art..
The result is a sonic journey through past and present, where historical gestures resonate with electronic echoes, and the language of the Baroque is refracted through contemporary sensibilities.

Miako Klein (recorder)
Miako Klein, Berlin-based musician, performer and improviser, has a greatly varied musical background. Classically educated on the recorder and violin, she has extensive experiences in performing contemporary music, as well as in Early and improvised music. Miako constantly questions and challenges the conventional ways of music performance by pushing boundaries between styles and genres, by experiment, and by interdisciplinary collaborations. She performs as a soloist and chamber musician and often collaborates with composers who have written works for her.
Miako has played as a guest with Ensemble Modern, ICE International Contemporary Ensemble, Il Pomo d'Oro, Constanza Macras | Dorky Park and Quartet New Generation, and she regularly performs with her trio JANE IN ETHER (with Magda Mayas and Biliana Voutchkova), her duo WARBLE (with trumpeter Brad Henkel), trumpet player Sava Stoianov and harpsichordist Jia Lim, Cité des Dames, the Marc Sinan Company and different constellations for contemporary, Early and improvised music.
Throughout 2010/11, she worked as musician at the Cirque du Soleil Show ZAiA in Macau. She won fellowships as Artist in Residency at Kunstmeile Krems in 2014 and Akademie Schloss Solitude 2014-15.
She has performed at the Ultraschall Festival Berlin, MATA-Festival NYC, Aichi Triennale Japan, Festival Musica Strasbourg, Early Music Festival Barcelona, Emergences Festival Avignon, Festival Aix-en-Provence, Boulevard Festival s’Hertogenbosch, DeSuite-Muziekweek Amsterdam and Klangwerktage Hamburg. Miako's live-recordings have been broadcast on German radio stations including HR/DLF, WDR3 and Concertzender.
At young age Miako won prizes in numerous competitions including first prize at the “International Recorder Competition of Engelskirchen” and the “SONBU” International Recorder Competition of Utrecht/NL. She was awarded first prize at Germany’s National Youth Competition, “Bundeswettbewerb Jugend musiziert”, on multiple occasions. Miako also won the “Prize of the City Erlangen for the Best Interpretation of Contemporary Music”, the special award for outstanding ensemble performance by “Stadtsparkasse Köln”, and the IRINO-Foundation Tokyo award for contemporary music.
The daughter of a classical pianist, Miako received her first musical lessons as a young child. At the Westfalian music school she was then taught the recorder by Gudula Rosa and the violin by Tor-Song Tan. Miako studied the recorder with Paul Leenhouts at the Amsterdam Conservatory, and graduated with distinction, and violin as a second major with Lex Korff de Gidts.
She also studied Early Music UdK Berlin with Prof. Christoph Huntgeburth (recorder) and Irmgard Huntgeburth (Baroque violin) and took Masterclasses with Mechthild Karkow and Luca Giardini.

Jia Lim (harpsichord)
Jia Lim is a harpsichordist and musician whose work spans early music, contemporary projects, and theater. Based in Berlin, she combines a background in historical performance practice with an openness to cross-disciplinary collaboration. Her formal studies began at the University of Michigan, where she studied Communication Studies, trumpet, and music theory. Introduced to early music during her time there, she went on to pursue harpsichord studies at the Universität der Künste in Berlin and completed a master’s degree in basso continuo at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, as well as earning awards at the international Jurow Harpsichord Competition and the Berlin Bach Chamber Music Competition. Her interest in historical performance has taken her as a soloist and chamber musician to several early music festivals in Europe and Asia. A sought-after répétiteur, she assisted regularly at various opera houses for Renaissance and Baroque productions. With the ensemble Cité des Dames she is actively engaged in an ongoing concert series Sonus feminae, platforming early and new works of female composers. Her recent interdisciplinary work includes theater performances at the Volksbühne Berlin (Vengapoise, Sisyphos) and at Theater Basel (Das Narrenschiff, Little Ice Age). Her interest in experimental approaches has also led to a collaboration with her colleague Miako Klein, combining early music and live electronics, culminating in the album Nova Atlantis with Buzz.

muzycy:
Miako Klein (recorder)
Jia Lim (harpsichord)

utwory:
01. Improvisation: I. (Miako Klein, Jia Lim) 02:38
02. Mystery (Rosary) Sonata No. 1 in D Minor (Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber) 06:56
03. Fantasia in A Minor 'Alia Fantasia' (Nicola Matteis jr) 04:14
04. Spool reicul (Miako Klein, Jia Lim, Sebastian Schottke) 03:22
05. Chaconne in E minor, BuxWV 160 (Dietrich Buxtehude) 05:11
06. Improvisation: II. (Sebastian Schottke, Miako Klein, Jia Lim) 04:49
07. Capriccio di obligo di cantare la quinta parte senza toccarla (Girolamo Frescobaldi) 07:17
08. Toccata in D Minor (Matthias Weckmann) 05:08
09. Improvisation: III. (Miako Klein, Jia Lim) 04:03
10. Violin Sonata No. 1, Unarum Fidium (Johann Heinrich Schmelzer) 08:51

wydano: 23 January 2026
more info: www.challenge.nl