LIGHTNING ORCHESTRA
All members of Berlin based Lightning Orchestra are international music artists expressing their emergency for a free and independent voice.
The Lightning Orchestra sessions are experimental setups to explore its own diversity and the moving new realities of one's experiences, as musicians, as individuals, and as an ensemble, interrogating improvised music, its needs and perceptions.
Lightning Orchestra is an exponential ensemble.
In 2019 Or Solomon organised the first recording session entitled ‘phone boxes’ of (what to become) the orchestra. Most musicians did not play together beforehand and were all separated in 3 different recording boxes. The recordings reflect the nervous-system-like mechanics of the ensemble - communicating parallel simultaneous ideas, instantly transforming abstract chaotic senses into time-structured graphical or melodic movements.
The album was mixed by Tobias Bonello in November 2019.
Shortly after, the Corona crisis emerged and pushed the ensemble to a halt.
In March ‘21, re-scheduled by the ID-festival ‘Absurd’ edition, the ensemble performed ‘on time’, a specially dedicated program of 52 minutes filmed collective improvisation, built on time-framed free improvisation sequences where the intention of focus-zone was given to a particular cell or soloist of the orchestra. An original video created by cellist Anil Eraslan was projected behind the orchestra underlining the changing senses of time and the transformative densities through air, soil, water or steam.
In 2022 Or Solomon & Lightning Orchestra received the support of Musikfonds FEB-II.
“Or Solomon and the Lightning Orchestra explore the boundaries of traditional jazz. The first rule of free improvisational music is: there are no rules. Similar to the musicians of the avant-garde, jazz musicians also looked for ways to free themselves from the chains of tradition and created styles like free jazz or free improvisation. In their spirit, Or Solomon & Lightning Orchestra hold up a mirror to jazz. In rousing, shall never-ending sessions, they deconstruct the dogmas of jazz and expose, one step beyond the seemingly random absurd, jazz’s own limits.”
Ohad Ben-Ari (ID Festival 2021)
recorded sessions
‘Live at Panda’ (2022)
Recorded in public by Or Solomon and Adam Asnan
Or Solomon piano & directions
Anil Eraslan cello
Gabor Hartyani cello
Adam Goodwin double bass
Jonathan Nagel double bass
Simon Rose baritone saxophone
Philippe Lemoine tenor saxophone
Devin Gray drums & objects
Chris Hill drums, objects & electronics
Melih Sarigöl modular synthesizers
©℗ All rights reserved 2023
‘On Time’ (2021)
52 minutes live-streaming at ID Festival ‘absurd’ from Radialsystem - Berlin
Recorded by Carlo Grippa and Anne Taegert
Or Solomon piano & directions
Chris Hill drums, objects & electronics
Melih Sarigöl modular synthesizers
Simon Rose baritone saxophone
Marcello S. Busato drums & objects
Anil Eraslan cello & voices
Jonathan Nagel double bass
Screened images created by Anil Eraslan
©℗ All rights reserved 2021
‘Phone-boxes’ (2019)
Recorded by Will Hickey and Or Solomon at DBS Berlin
Mixed by Tobias Bonello 2019
Or Solomon piano & directions
Marcello S. Busato drums & objects
Chris Hill drums & objects
Jonathan Nagel double bass
Simon Rose baritone saxophone
Philippe Lemoine tenor saxophone
©℗ All rights reserved 2019
