Biography

" Somewhere in-between John Cage, Helmut Lachenmann and British guitarist Derek Bailey (Georg Pepl, HNA 2016)"

Joshua Weitzel is a musician, curator and researcher born in 1989.

As an improviser, composer and performer he is mostly active in the field of experimental music, jazz and the grey areas in-between. His instruments of choice are guitar (acoustic and electric) and shamisen, which he plays both employing traditional and extended/invented playing techniques such as using circular breathing on stringed instruments, preparations and scordatura. His music is primarily concerned with spaces, contrast, harmony, timbre and interaction between players.

Aside from his own music practice he curates concerts, performances and exhibitions in Kassel. He was the artistic director interim of the art space Galerie Feiertag from 2019-2020 and the artistic director of the concert series Chamäleon Experimente (2018), Chamäleon Clash (2019) and Chamäleon Verbindungen (2020/21). He further coordinates online-releases and concerts under the umbrella Kassel Experimental Music Productions. He also works as a gallery educator and art mediator (among others dOCUMENTA (13), new talents biennale Cologne, and KW Institute Berlin).

His research interests are located at the intersection of musicology, art history, and education.
He holds a Master’s degree with distinction from King’s College London and a Bachelor’s degree from Göttingen University. Currently, he is working on a PhD in music at the Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh, where he writes about sound in the context of the history of documenta exhibitions. Since May 2020 he is artistic-scientific asscociate for sound art and sound research at the Hochschule für Musik Mainz in the group Art - Sound - Research led by Prof. Peter Kiefer.