Elke Schipper

Elke Schipper is a German vocal improviser associated with the European free-improvisation tradition. Her performances use speech sounds, fragmented words, consonants, breathing and changing vocal registers as material for spontaneous music.

Creative Sources documents her voice on Core (CS183), a trio recording with Günter Christmann on cello and trombone and Alexander Frangenheim on double bass. Recorded in Berlin in 2010, the music consists of fifteen concentrated improvisations that investigate the changing relationships between vocal and instrumental gestures. Her approach places language itself within the ensemble's acoustic vocabulary, moving between intimate detail and theatrical expression.