Luiz Rocha

I play the clarinet and bass clarinet mostly in free improvisation, contemporary, avant-garde infused and post-bla-bla-bla ensembles. For many years I’ve been investigating the improbable sounds the clarinets can produce and how to make music out of them. I’m interested in musical processes, in working with timbral transformations and sometimes using the clarinets as if they were synthesizers. The use of extended techniques also opened doors for working with contemporary composers such as Joan Bagés Rubi and Pablo Carrascosa. 

Brazilian born and based in Barcelona, I’m a close collaborator with Discordian Records and have played with Ernesto Rodrigues, Tom Chant, El Pricto, Fred Frith, Carlo Mascolo, Abdul Moimême, Vasco Trilla, Miguel Mira, Adriano Orrú, Silvia Corda, Iván González, Johannes Nästesjö, Karoline Leblanc, Sarah Claman, Marko Jelača, Diego Caicedo among others.

Around four times a year I switch to photography mode and shoot pictures. For me, photography is much less intimate a process than music; it’s an external exploration. Anyway, the process is alike for both: awareness, technique and improvisation; the act is driven either by pure impulse or by observing and carefully composing.