The south African pianist, accordionist and composer, Sigrun Paschke (otherwise known as Ster) is well-known in both Berlin and Cape town. This is how she describes her unique sound world:
“What happens when sound comes and lives in your world…? Some melancholic and distant; others ferocious and immediate. Sounds can make you melt and freeze – tremble and prance simultaneously. sometimes they clamber and swarm over each other just like the cacophony of conversations in a crowded restaurant. Then they expand and stretch and grow apart and start bouncing like voices in an empty building.
sometimes they worm their way into your very being, warm and tender like a new-born baby in your arms!
sounds have holes in that allow them to live. Sometimes these holes become rustling silences that sing stories and sometimes they dissolve into nothings that bring everything to a standstill.
Everywhere you go these silences speak another language. sounds can creep up on you and cocoon you in cotton wool. Other times they drill through your buzzing thoughts and startle you out of them. Or they drug and envelop you like a room full of incense and candles, so beautiful they can make you mad.
sounds have so many places for pictures that you can rumble and shake around to your heart’s desire. They allow you to smell, touch or taste absolutely anything you want!”