JIP interviewed by Espacio Sonoro Camilo Irizo — 10/2017
Camilo Irizo — Together with your partner Ulrike Mayer-Spohn, you founded the duo UMS’nJIP. Can you explain to us how this atypical formation was born and why?
JIP — UMS’nJIP was born in 2007 by chance, like many things in life. Although it is an atypical formation, in fact it meets most of our musical demands: the temperament is not fixed (which means that we can adapt to any intonation system), mobile instruments (we are not limited to the concert format, but we can carry out scenic, performative formats and sound installations). Thanks to voice and text, the semantic dimension is integrated (not only the purely instrumental), and thanks to electronics we can work with both the virtual / real and with soundscapes. The duo becomes highly versatile and its unusualness makes it probably unique in the world.
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CI — Javier, you both have a solid training both at an instrumental and compositional level, and more specifically in your facet as a singer, it ranges from the most classic style to the most rabidly current. How do these two aspects interact in your way of interpreting music?
JIP — Our dream and our desire is to consider music as a global entity and therefore we try to understand it from different perspectives, that is, by composing and by performing: they are both complementary dimensions that nourish each other. CI — In music, is there room for surprise?
JIP — Of course. Forever! CI — You have developed projects with interpreters and composers from more than 15 coun- tries. What is the philosophy of these and what are you achieving exactly?
JIP — We became active in more than fifty countries, either as composers, performers or organizers. Our most important goal is Long Term Work: durable, sustainable and differentiated. That is also one of the reasons why the
