CROWN QUARTET
Zahra Mani - double bass, e-bass, field recordings, electronics
Roberto Paci Dalò - clarinets, voice, electronics
Tibor Szemzö - flutes, voice
Mia Zabelka - violin, voice, electronics
Crown Quartet is an international ensemble of contemporary music bringing together four distinctive artistic voices: Zahra Mani (Croatia), Roberto Paci Dalò (Italy), Tibor Szemző (Hungary), and Mia Zabelka (Austria). Since its formation in 2020, the quartet has developed a unique artistic language that moves between composition and improvisation, integrating multilingual texts, voice, instrumental performance, electronics, and field recordings. The ensemble creates immersive performances that explore themes of memory, ecology, communication, and social transformation. Through the interplay of acoustic and electronic elements, spoken word, and improvisation, Crown Quartet develops multilayered sonic environments that transcend geographical, linguistic, and cultural boundaries.
Crown Quartet has presented its work in a variety of live contexts, including performances at Villa for Forest and, most recently, at Malli Distillery in the Alps-Adriatic region. Originally formed through a transnational collaboration during the Covid-19 lockdown, the ensemble quickly attracted international attention. As critic Brian Morton wrote in The Wire (August 2020): “We’ll hear more work conceived in a similar way over the coming months, and maybe years, but it will rarely touch such thoughtful and emotional heights as this.”
Working remotely from their respective studios, the artists created a live acoustic exchange of music, voice, language, field recordings, and electronic sound, connected through radio and internet transmission. The project „News from Radio Yerevan – Sound Art in Four Countries“ explores sound as a communicative, artistic, and subversive medium. Its title references the legendary Radio Yerevan jokes that circulated behind the Iron Curtain, using humor and absurdity to expose contradictions, misinformation, and political realities—an uncanny precursor to today’s culture of fake news.
Recent projects include The Next Wave, Dedicated to the Dark for the international Slow Light – Seeking Darkness initiative and A Natural Contract, created for Resonances IV at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission in Ispra. Crown Quartet continues to develop new works exploring the relationships between music, voice, space, memory, and collective listening.
Zahra Mani
Zahra Mani was born in London, lives in Austria and spends time in Istria, Croatia, the UK and Pakistan. Sound, installation and radio artist, improviser, composer and producer, Zahra is a multi-instrumentalist whose instruments include piano, double bass, bass guitar and custom-built electronics by Stephan Moore. Her sound is characterized by a burgeoning archive of field recordings, instrumental and found sounds that she edits, loops, transforms and recomposes as central organic elements of her music in a differentiated exploration of spaces between, where voices, instruments, machines, the sea, wind, rain, animals and landscapes provide the acoustic basis for auditory worlds. Collaborations include work with Mia Zabelka in various constellations, notably the ongoing project One.Night.Band and trio with Lydia Lunch, Medusa’s Bed as well as performances with the Crown Quartet (Mani & Zabelka with Tibor Szemző & Roberto Paci Dalò), Jaka Berger, Balazs Pandi, Rupert Huber amongst others. Has performed with numerous international musicians and artists including inter- medial work with Mia Makela and Elise Passavant.
Roberto Paci Dalò
Roberto Paci Dalò is an Italian composer and musician (clarinets, live electronics), filmmaker, theatre director, visual and sound artist, author, and radio producer whose work is internationally recognized and who currently lives in Rimini, Italy. His artistic practice is based on sounds and drawings, which he expands into sculpture, installation, music, film, performance, and collaborative projects, connecting cultural institutions, the independent arts scene, and popular culture. He performs not only in traditional venues—such as the Kunsthalle Wien, the Venice Biennale, Ars Electronica in Linz, and the Vienna State Opera—but also in highly unconventional locations, including the Adriatic coast, a Baroque church in San Marino, and armored vehicles from the Second World War. He founded one of the first internet radio stations, Radio Lada, as well as the online radio station USMA, and serves as director of the performing arts group Giardini Pensili. Since 2006, he has been the director of Velvet Factory – Space for the Arts in Rimini, Italy.
He is a recipient of a DAAD fellowship in Berlin and a member of the International Heiner
Müller Society in Berlin and the British Cartographic Society.
Tibor Szemzö
Tibor Szemző is a Hungarian composer, performer, and media artist. He began his musical studies at the age of six at the Kodály Method School and later graduated from the Hungarian Academy of Music. He founded his own trio (which later became a quartet) and, in 1979, established the minimalist ensemble Group 180 (active from 1978 to 1990). The ensemble became highly influential for its performances of Hungarian minimalism and presented works by composers such as John Cage and Steve Reich. In 1983, Tibor Szemző launched his solo career, integrating spoken word and visual elements into his projects. In 1987, he released his first solo recording, Snapshot from the Island. The collapse of communist rule in Hungary enabled him to collaborate with a wide range of artists across Europe and beyond.
Audio: https://de.cba.media/778515
https://soundcloud.com/zahramani/crown-excerpt-dedicated-to-the