Elo Masing
Elo Masing is a composer, free improviser, and sound artist of Estonian origin, currently based in Berlin, Germany. Her music has been performed internationally by renowned soloists and ensembles, including the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra (EE), Ensemble L'Itinéraire (FR), Ensemble Adapter (DE), ensemble mosaik (DE), Ensemble Fractales (BE), Ensemble mmm... (Japan), Ensemble Synaesthesis (LT), Ensemble for New Music Tallinn (EE), Ian Pace (UK), James Aylward (AU/NL), and many others. Her work has appeared on labels such as Squeaky Kate, squib-box, CRAM, Creative Sources, and 577 Records.
In 2015, she was awarded a PhD from the Royal Academy of Music, London, where she explored the physicality of instrumental performance in chamber music. With support from the Academy, she also received private tuition from Rebecca Saunders in Berlin.
Together with composer-improviser Dave Maric, she forms the free improvisation duo Vicious Circus, whose debut album was released to critical acclaim in 2014, including a review on BBC Radio 3. In 2015, the duo released the innovative Hand Written Tweets, recorded live in a flying saucer on the roof of Matt's Gallery in London onto 12 unique wax cylinders.
Masing is a member of the Berlin-based composers' and improvisers' ensemble Reanimation Orchestra and works regularly with musicians on the Berlin scene, including Jack Adler-McKean, Hui-Chun Lin, Sabine Vogel, Vincent Laju, Francis Heery, Ernst Surberg, and many others. She also regularly performs in interdisciplinary settings with dancers such as Mariangela Tinelli and Manuela Lucia Tessi, as well as with painter and performance artist Dolanbay.
Masing's current compositional and performance practice engages deeply with posthumanist theory, drawing inspiration from thinkers such as Donna Haraway, Vinciane Despret, Timothy Morton, and others. Since 2010, she has been engaged in an ongoing artistic-ecological experiment, sharing her living space with two Fischer's lovebirds. This project culminated in the interspecies collaboration albums Music for Birds (2018, CRAM) and Music with Birds (2022, Creative Sources).