Martin Fondse ft. Femi Dawkins & Woodcraft – Wild Card

Socially critical spoken word meets piano, string quintet, and live electronics.

Composer and pianist Martin Fondse and multidisciplinary artist Femi Dawkins explore the power of the Wild Card. In card games, it is the joker: the card that can assume any role, breaks game patterns, and brings unexpected twists. In society, they see this role for the thinker, the maverick, and the artist, who questions entrenched ideas and makes room for something new.

In WILD CARD, they play with the special string quintet Woodcraft. With improvisation as a basis, acoustic instruments, electronics, spoken word, and poetry merge. Through live sampling, the musicians are constantly in dialogue with each other and their environment, causing the perspective to continually shift. Dawkins' powerful texts about justice, the diaspora, and the human quest for meaning form a contrasting counterpart to Fondse's adventurous music.

Femi Dawkins spoken word, Martin Fondse piano/electronics, Woodcraft: Wouter Torringa violin, Noah Hassler-Forest violin, Joshua Herwig cello, Ischa Kooistra cello, Reinout De Vey cello