Ensemble Extrakte Kollektiv
Recent 2025:
FarnWelten – Nahe Ferne
Ensemble Extrakte Kollektiv
22 November 2025, 18.30
Gruson-Gewächshäuser Magdeburg
In the middle of a fern house in the Gruson greenhouses in Magdeburg, a unique concert unfolds, in which singing and instruments from different musical traditions enter into a special dialogue. The ensemble creates improvised and conceived soundscapes on the theme of the rainforest, inspired by texts by Werner Herzog and Pablo Neruda, among others. The space itself becomes part of the experience—its humid, green atmosphere merges with the sounds to create a dazzling tapestry of color that combines nature, voice, music, space, and movement into a sensually perceptible unity.
“The forest lives; its breath is the mist, its voice the call of the birds.” Yanomami, oral tradition (Brazil/Venezuela)
Ensemble Extrakte Kollektiv (recent cast)
Warnfried Altmann (saxophone), Klaus Janek (bass, electronics), Bakr Khleifi (oud), Thomas König (violin), Marius Moritz (keyboard, electronics) Silvia Ocougne (guitar), Michael Schiefel (voice), Ravi Srinivasan (percussion, objects, khyal singing, pipes), Dietmar Wiesner (flutes), Lucy Zhao (pipa)
Musical Director: Cathy Milliken + Dietmar Wiesner
Ensemble Director: Elke Moltrecht
Mission Statement 2025:
The Ensemble Extrakte was founded in 2013 on the initiative of Elke Moltrecht. Since 2025, the ensemble has been operating as the Ensemble Extrakte Kollektiv with changing guest musicians.
New music in our time cannot arise solely from Eurocentric traditions and concepts: it must spread its roots much further afield.
The Berlin-based ensemble was founded to respond to this insight with an ensemble that seeks precisely such new roots for new forms of musical expression—an all-star ensemble of renowned musicians, most of whom live in Berlin, whose diverse musical backgrounds include living traditions from China, Europe, India, Korea, Bulgaria, Syria, Australia, and the USA, as well as genres such as jazz, folk music, techno, blues, and Eurological concert music from the Baroque to the present. In variable constellations, through meticulously curated concert projects and joint artistic research, the Ensemble Extrakte Kollektiv works across all geographical, historical, ethnic, social, and ideological orders of the world in search of a new music for our global future. The ensemble is looking for a third way.
The musical cosmopolitans of Ensemble Extrakte Kollektiv explore the musical potential of traditions they are already familiar with, as well as traditions that are foreign to them. In the concerts of Ensemble Extrakte Kollektiv, forms of music-making, ideas, and musical concepts from many origins intertwine—opening up new approaches to music as an art form of various traditions. Each ensemble member is encouraged to question everything within their own tradition: their relationship to pitches, scales, rhythms, but also to the audience, to how one imagines beautiful music, and how one communicates with fellow musicians.
In all of this, the Ensemble Extrakte Kollektiv is free to choose the means that suit its artistic needs—be it learned systems of rules for structured improvisation or an interactive screen score, conventional notation or verbal instructions, graphic scores or flowcharts, computer-generated sounds,& nbsp; light signals or nods of the head. Two questions are central here: What have we not yet heard together? And—does the music that emerges open up stimulating insights and rich sensations for us? There are as yet no repertoire pieces for the trans-traditional approach of Ensemble Extrakte Kollektiv. At best, process-oriented, open scores can be used.
Ensemble Cast
Sören Birke – Harmonicas, duduk, jaw harps, electronics
Klaus Janek – bass, electronics
Kang Ji-eun – haegeeum (until 2019)
Deniza Popova – Bulgarian and Russian folk singing techniques
Farhan Sabbagh – Ud, Riqq (until 2021)
Gregor Schulenburg – Flutes, duduk, kyotaku
Ravi Srinivasan – Various percussion instruments, objects, khayal singing, whistles
Teichmann Brothers – Turntables, sound objects, live electronics (until 2020)
Wu Wei – Sheng, erhu
Yoo Hong – Daegeum, changgu
Zhao Lucy – Pipa, electric pipa
Ensemble Director
Elke Moltrecht – Initiator and Artistic Director
Sandeep Bhagwati – Musical Director (until 2020)
Peter Wiegold – Musical Director – Project The Third Orchestra (2023/24)
Video and Sound
Ensemble Extrakte: YouTube
Ensemble Extrakte: Dulab Altaj
Ensemble Extrakte: Dulab Alpaloma
Ensemble Extrakte: Dulab Altaj Konzertinstallation