Ensemble Nist-Nah + Shouji Hara

Silent Green presents

Ensemble Nist-Nah

Will Guthrie, Charles Dubois, Mayomi Moreno, Elora Antolin, Sven Michel, Julien Ouvrard, Ellen Pele Gamelan, percussion, drums

The Nist-Nah ensemble was founded in 2019 as a hybrid gamelan/percussion ensemble and is led by Nantes-based Australian drummer and percussionist Will Guthrie. The sound is characterized and inspired by traditional forms of music from Indonesia and gong-based music from Southeast Asia. At the same time, however, the ensemble is trying to distance itself both from dry academic discourses and from questionable exoticism. Instead, the focus is on sound and interactive aspects. Since its founding, Nist-Nah has pursued the goal of creating music that constantly evolves, remains relevant, treats its influences with respect and adapts to current members and their interests.

Ensemble Nist-Nah was created from Guthrie's many years of work with tuned percussion and resonating metals. Gongs, singing bowls and bells are used as melodic and harmonious material and combined with polyrhythmic and polymetric structures. The music presented is based on his travels to Indonesia and his appreciation of various forms of Gamelan music — from the floating temporality of the courtly Javanese gamelan Sekaten to the raw repetition of the Javanese trance ritual Jathilan to the acoustic “glitch” by the contemporary Balinese composer Dewa Alit and his Gamelan Salukat.

While Guthrie expands his musical spectrum to explore the instrumentation of gamelan and pay tribute to his love for this highly developed and elementary percussion music, the influences reach far beyond. These include percussion works by Roscoe Mitchell, multi-directional improvised music by Henry Threadgill, and cross-cultural projects by Trevor Watts, Michael Ranta and Mike Cooper.

Nist-Nah brings together eight musicians with diverse and eclectic backgrounds, bringing together a wide range of experience. In addition, the ensemble regularly invites guests such as Jennifer Torrence, Sarah Hennies, Toma Gouband and Jessika Kenney.

The second phase of the ensemble began in 2024: A new formation with younger musicians from Nantes and new musical material shaped this section.

In addition to the artistic activities, various members regularly organize workshops and teach Gamelan. The unusual instruments and teaching methods serve as a means of bringing people together — regardless of age or level of experience.

In 2025, Ensemble Nist-Nah released their second album SPILLA on the Black Truffle Records label.

Shouji Hara guitarist from Japan, lives in Berlin.

“Things that were there yet passed unnoticed and left behind. Things whose existence was controlled even before they were born.

I want to be with these things, to experience their existence, and to celebrate it. Letting go of the idea of myself.

Neither active nor passive, but in the space between, where things become friends with one another.

My practice is an attempt to open the space where uncertain sounds, overlooked presences, and phenomena that have gone unnoticed can simply be there.

For me, music is not about asserting something. It is an act of listening, of making space, and of allowing what has always been there to reveal itself.

And I believe that this does not happen only within the space. It also happens within the listener. ”

In the dome hall, he presents a solo on the Shakuhachi flute.

Wednesday, October 7 Dome Hall Admission: 19:00/Start: 20:00 Tickets