Old and new. Light and dark. Harp and accordion. Chamber music and groove. We are OXYMORON: Anna Steinkogler und Valentin Butt. Based in Berlin.

From the very first moment we made music together, we felt a strong musical bond, and the exciting desire to create something powerful, enthralling and intensely emotional together. The juxtaposition of our instruments - harp and accordion - have never felt like antagonisms, on the contrary, they attract each other. Our name says it all: OXYMORON.
Our music is an organic and refreshing take on the encounter of the well-known and the new-found.
Any kind of music deserves to be treated like chamber music in the truest sense of the concept: perfect ensemble playing, careful interaction, listening, trust. Feeling the same pulse makes the groove come alive regardless of the genre.
In our arrangements we are not looking for imitation, but the creation of new colours, friction and tension.
LIFE IS AN OXYMORON
... because life is not perfect and never will be. There is no such thing as life without contradictions, friction and ambiguousness. Life IS an oxymoron. This oxymoron is the source of all creativity in humankind: being confronted with it on a daily basis, people constantly create unique, unimitable moments, called 'life'.
Two worlds, two musical languages in dialogue. We create new perspectives upon a classic work by rearranging and reinterpreting it - and contrasting it with our own compositions.
One world is Maurice Ravel's 'Ma Mère l'Oye'. Arranging all 5 movements of this fabulous orchestral suite for harp and accordion has been a heartfelt project of ours. This piece is an impressionist painting set into music: it only takes a few notes to take us right into the middle of five fairy tales, right into Ravel's 'univers en miniature' as he liked to call it himself.
Next to it we place our own fairy-tale suite, inspired by Lewis Carroll's classic 'Through the Looking Glass.' Carroll's imagination and twisted puns remain timelessly fascinating - especially for a duo called OXYMORON.

Track Listing

• Scented Rushes - I The 5th Square
• Scented Rushes - II Into the Looking-Glass
• Scented Rushes - III The White Knight’s Horse
• Scented Rushes - IV Bread-and-Butterfly
• Scented Rushes - V The Garden of Live Flowers
• Ma mère l'Oye - I La Belle au bois dormant
• Ma mère l'Oye - II Petit Poucet
• Ma mère l'Oye - III Laideronnette, Impératrice des Pagodes
• Ma mère l'Oye - IV Les Entretiens de la Belle et de la Bête
• Ma mère l'Oye - V Le Jardin féerique
• Parvis - I Cortège
• Parvis - II Danse

Additional Details

Label: Fine music

Genre: Contemporary Instrumental

Run Time: 47:19 mins

Region: 0

Release Date: 06/07/24

UPC: 4014063438423