Two artists compose on the route of a virtual Danube a modern composition that bursts with life

Unwilling to give up their project due to the pandemic ban on travel, Mischa Blanos and Khori Ander took the unknown road of co-writing and recording remotely a remarkably optimistic piece for piano, clarinet and synths. Created during the Virtual Partner Residency offered by Goethe Institut, Blue Wired Danube draws its inspiration from the location of the two artists, one living in Germany and the other in Romania. This is the digital frame where ideas flow on the route of a virtual Danube, acoustic and electronic instruments blend, and the creative work happens through the invisible wires of the Internet.
Just like in the string telephone game, the distance can cause disruptions, alterations or glitches in the message, as the sound travels through different media. The uniqueness of this piece comes precisely from the method of creating it.
In trying to describe the experience, Mischa Blanos borrows a term from the clubbing scene "it was a kind of “back-to-back” composition, where each of us was taking turns and adding audio channels one after another to the whole song". For Khori Ander "it was similar to snowball writing, where many authors are writing a story, one introducing the setting, another creating the plot, other developing the characters, attempting to resolve the conflict, revising details and finally bringing the story to a close".

Blue Wired Danube promises from the beginning a vivid experience, trying to offer a physical form to something as nebulous as music. With the key clicks used as percussion, it starts slowly as if some slender ribbons of water are carving into stones, then widening and flowing through woods and meadows carried away by the piano theme. Then it plunges into full tone painting with the clarinet giving the illusion of a mighty river that flows dramatically and in the end vanishes into the distance. There are a lot of key clicks, white noise from air sound on the clarinet and finger nail glissando on the piano strings and this is what enriches the piece with texture and granulation, giving the work a sense of embodiment. All while the irregular 7/8 time signature adds an extra dimension.
While the pandemic news has focused on the negative impact, less attention has been given to the creative and collaborative initiatives that have also come out of it. The piece Blue Wired Danube tells the story of two artists finding a way to compose remotely, a project about how adaptation, collaboration and ideas sharing will outlive the pandemic. Blue Wired Danube is their second release, the first being the album Crossrhodes released in 2020 at Algorithm of Unknown.


Mischa Blanos is one of those artists who are tirelessly working to escape the tedium of composing around a single genre. It's boredom that makes him rage against the creative plateau; it's fatigue that drives him to emerge himself into manifold richly-hued projects. It's kind of odd to find an artist in a concert venue, where you sit quietly and enjoy the virtuosity of a neoclassical pianist, and then to find the same artist in a club making you move and dance to techno. This is Mischa Blanos, back and forth between standing and sitting venues, attuning between two music worlds, clubbing and concert halls, determined to instill his own view on the alliance between classical and electronic music. In the club you may find him with his project of Live Electronics or part of "Amorf", a three minded project that hit the club scene with their minimal house & techno vibes. From the world's most famous clubs like Fabric, Rex Club, The Block, Gazgolder and festivals like ADE, Caprice or Sunwaves, Amorf makes an edgy clubbing presence with their showcases.
But the blend between these two apparently distant worlds truly stands out in his Acoustic Electronic project, where sounds are going through analogue and digital editing, an interplay between classical piano, synths and software, where clubs and concert halls come into being. He calls this genre Neoclassical/Acoustic Electronic and his latest album City Jungle released earlier this year at the French label Infine was received with accolades by the public and media alike.


Khori Ander embodies the alias of Horia Dumitrache, triggering the leap to cross the borders of the familiar. While the contemporary clarinet performer Horia Dumitrache got his international kudos on well-known stages and along with much acclaimed classical orchestras around the world, Khori Ander is convinced that focusing in a single musical direction would make him feel a stranger in his own house. In this particular project he dives headfirst into composition and improvisation quenching that intense thirst of discovering what his wind instruments would sound like in the hands and lips of a liberated performer.
Graduated with a Soloist Diploma from the Academy of Music in Bern, Horia Dumitrache is member of the Kammer Ensemble Neue Musik Berlin. His undeniable craftsmanship as soloist and chamber musician as well as his captivating stage presence brought him acknowledgement in the field of contemporary music performance and led him to some of the most famous festivals and concert halls around the world. He is often invited as a jury for international competitions and to be part of masterclasses designed to go deep into the details of clarinet techniques and interpretation of classical and new music. Precisely these complex experiences made Khori Ander, the composer, emerge. The ability to play as a performer within a broad repertoire from classical to contemporary music, helped the composer to blend techniques and expand the territory of his creative self. The album Crossrhodes released in 2020 in collaboration with Mischa Blanos stands as solid proof.