Monday, 29 June 2026 | 20:00
Eleftheria Square

Improvisation Concert
Christian Kobi, saxophone
Tomas Korber, electronics

For more than three decades, Christian Kobi has been exploring the relationship between sound, silence, and action in space. Trained in Basel, Paris, and Zurich, with a focus on experimental music and improvisation, he has developed a distinctive artistic voice that places attentive listening and sonic presence at the center of musical experience.

Kobi has collaborated extensively with leading figures in experimental and improvised music, including Phill Niblock, Jürg Frey, Taku Sugimoto, and Keith Rowe. Alongside his work as a performer, he is a dedicated curator and educator. Since 2004 he has directed the zoom in festival for improvised music at Bern Minster, co-founded CUBUS RECORDS in 2006, and teaches improvisation at the Bern University of the Arts (HKB). In 2018 he was awarded the Music Prize of the Canton of Bern.

While active in numerous collaborative projects, including the Konus Quartett, Kobi’s solo performances offer a particularly intimate insight into his musical thinking. Every detail of the sound, every shift in direction, and every transformation of space and time emerges directly from the performer in the moment. Through this practice, he has cultivated a highly personal sonic language that reveals the expressive potential of both sound and silence.

christiankobi.ch

Tomas Korber (*1979) lives and works in Zurich. He studied psychology and computer science at the University of Zurich (degree: Master of Science UZH) and wrote his master’s thesis on audio design and cognition. Today he works as a composer, producer and improvising musician and is mainly active in the fields of electro-acoustic music and film music.​

​In addition to his work as a solo artist, he has collaborated with numerous renowned musicians from around the world, including Olivia Block, Martin Bezzola, Dimitri de Perrot, Dieb13, Jason Kahn, Christian Kobi and Hans Koch, Ulrich Krieger, eRikm, Sachiko M, Lionel Marchetti, Butch Morris, Norbert Möslang, Günter Müller, Toshimaru Nakamura, Otomo Yoshihide, Keith Rowe, Christian Weber, Ralf Wehowsky, Stephan Wittwer, Christian Wolfarth and many more.​

​Korber has composed the music for films such as “No More Smoke Signals” (Swiss Film Award 2009; director: Fanny Bräuning), “Ein Lied für Argyris” (Award for Best Film Music Global Nonviolent Film Festival 2023; director: Stefan Haupt), “Finsteres Glück” (director: Stefan Haupt), “Downtown Switzerland” (directors: Fredi Murer, Stefan Haupt, Christian Davi, Kaspar Kasics), “Zürcher Tagebuch” (director: Stefan Haupt, nomination German Documentary Film Music Award 2021) and many others and has also written various compositions for theater, dance and radio play productions.

In his career, Tomas Korber has participated in the production of over two dozen recordings, has toured Europe, the USA and Asia extensively and has performed at renowned festivals around the world, including: Steirischer Herbst (Austria), Musica Genera Festival (Poland), FIMAV (Canada), Ultrasound Festival (Hungary), reMusik.org  (Russia), LMC Festival (UK), Wien Modern (Austria), Erstquake Festival (USA), and many more.​​​

He was awarded the “Artist in Residence” scholarship (New York) of the City of Zurich in 2009 and has received several commissions from the City of Zurich and the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia throughout his career.​ In 2024, he was awarded the annual grant (Werkjahr) of the City of Zurich in “Classical/New Music”.

tomaskorber.com