First anniversary of death of theremin player ....

The Jazz Bigband Graz (they really write "Bigband" together), of which Barbara was a member for almost four years, dedicated all concerts of their 2012 "Urban Folktales" tour to her.

Stool Man wrote: A few years ago I saw Lydia Kavina perform, alongside a dozen or so other thereminists.  A unique sound.

Barbara Buchholz was probably among them; she and Lydia Kavina had a lot of projects going.

Barbara Buchholz.

Barbara Buchholz was one of the leading theremin players in the world. She created new playing techniques for the instrument as well as new sounds. She first studied bass, guitar, flute and singing; she played bass guitar in the all-female band Reichlich Weiblich (the name translates as "Substantially Female"). She discovered the theremin in the 1990s and studied it with Lydia Kavina (the grand niece of Lew Theremin, the inventor of the instrument). She played contemporary classical music, experimental electronic and jazz.

She died of cancer on Apr 10th 2012. I missed the news of her death back then and only heard about it a few months later, so I decided to wait for the first anniversary of her death to write about her.

Here a few videos of her that show what an extraordinary theremin player she was.

The first four are with Feature Ring, an experimental jazz band from Germany.





Then a few with the Jazz Bigband Graz. The first one is especially interesting; she first creates a few loops with the theremin and then starts playing over them.




Here a short one in which she is jamming with the Syntax Cinema Orchestra:


Here a modern classical composition by Caspar Johannes Walter, "Vacuum Hallucinations". Musicians are Barbara Buchholz - theremin, Lydia Kavina - theremin, Tobias Rempe - violin and Cosima Gerhardt - cello.


Here is one with Die Dissidenten; Barbara starts playing at around five minutes into the video:


Here a performance with Pedda Borowski (overhead projection).


After having seen these videos you will probably agree that Barbara was an extraordinary musician. She is deeply being missed.