Pantha Du Prince

Some notes on the concert:

Hendrik Weber, better known as Pantha du Prince, Panthel or Glühen 4, was born in 1975 in Bad Wildungen, often referred to as the region's “Siberia”.

Weber, already a successful composer, producer and conceptual artist, published his debut album as Pantha du Prince entitled nowhere, in 2002. A few years later his first Studio album Diamond Daze (2004) appeared, followed by a Remix-12" (Butterfly Girl Versions, 2005), as well as new material (Lichten/Walden, 2006). His second studio album as Pantha du Prince was This Bliss (2007), which generated great interest among critics.

In 2010 he presented his third album Black Noise via London's legendary Rough Trade Records.

The label's founder, Geoff Travis personally introduced him to the English independent music institution, which has published many celebrated albums since its founding in the late 1970s. Black Noise with its digitalized, natural sounds of rustling and bells, is already considered a classic of its genre. For this phenomenal album, Weber was awarded with the distinguished German music award “Echo” in Berlin in 2011.

As Pantha du Prince & The Bell Laboratory Weber was joined by the Norwegian composer Lars Petter Hagen. Together, they developed a modern musical piece in Oslo and Berlin in 2010. On The Bell Laboratory Weber and Hagen explore the soundscape of bells and melodic percussion, both rhythmically and tonally. The percussion piece is composed for a 64 bell carillon, to be accompanied by a six-person ensemble. The world premiere of this piece was celebrated enthusiastically in August 2011 at the Oya Festival in Oslo.

In May 2012, Weber presented his new project Ursprung, created together with Stephan Abry (who played with the artist Kai Althoff in the Kraut-Elektronika-Group “Workshop”). This project was performed live on-stage by a performance group. In 2015, Weber toured and performed with a new band-project called “The Triad”. He collaborated with old time friends and musicians Joachim Schütz, Stephan Abry, Scott Mou, Bendik Hovik Kjeldsberg, Kassian Troyer, and Thilo Kuhn, working in a different constellation of three musicians for each track. Rather than monopolizing control over the project like so many producers and DJs, Weber allowed himself to rely on improvisation and empathy and embraced an inevitably time-consuming production process. The album came out in three different versions, the regular album, an ambient version (both via Rough Trade) and an additional remix version via Recondite’s Plangent Rec.

In September 2017, he collaborated with classical composer Arash Safaian on a remix project called Überbach, composed after two canons by the great Johann Sebastian Bach.

At the same time he began to work on his concept of Conference of Trees. The premiere took place in Hamburg on August 13th 2018. On Conference of Trees, Weber presents a unique combination of electronic music and traditional instruments as he explores and interprets the communication of trees and, based on this exploration, creates a phenomenal sound concept. Some of the sound sources and Instruments were crafted by himself. It’s a breakthrough recording of experimental music, visual poetry, club culture and speculative science.

Additionally, Weber has composed remixes and arrangements for Depeche Mode, Animal Collective, Philipp Glass, Bloc Party, Hurts and Trentemöller.

Weber's work has been shown at solo and group exhibitions in numerous institutions and galleries. As recently as September 2019, he caught everyone’s attention with his great success as curator for the exhibition ”Kunst als Klang” at the Galerie Vittorio Manalese (the young gallery belonging to Bruno Brunnet's Contemporary Fine Arts).