Please tell our readers who you are and what you do?

I'm a sound artist and composer from Australia, currently living in Berlin. I work mostly within the electroacoustic spectrum, using a mixture of chamber music and electronics. I used to write chamber music exclusively, but after a more experimental period of dabbling in electronic music, I now often juxtapose the two, using a mixture of MIDI and audio manipulation. I'm a fan of collaboration and in the past year in Berlin I've worked with chamber musicians, dancers, video artists and beat collectives. You can hear my music in live art venues, concert halls or art galleries, often in collaboration with performers, dancers, classical ensembles and visual artists.

How would you describe your influences and how have they changed over the years? Do you feel that changing tastes over years as artistic growth? ?

Because my background is in classical music, my music will often operate within that regime, while occasionally stepping out into styles that adopt more influence from the likes of musique concrète. I like to intermingle my classical music background with more experimental electronic sounds; for example, a classical string quartet with live electronics. My composing is often highly rhythmic, even occasionally taking influence from psytrance and other more popular electronic music, and so some of my favourite collaborations are with dancers and installation artists. This is a big change from when I wrote almost exclusively chamber music, as I'm now branching out into more experimental, electronic realms. Having said that, I'm still highly influenced by classical music– some favourites include Mahler, Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Gershwin and Berlioz. I also trained on the classical guitar before focusing on composition, so I'm equally influenced by flamenco and other music from Spain and Latin America (tango is another favourite). Discovering new contemporary artists is always more difficult– I tend to turn to the listening lists of my peers and other musical circles for that.

What´s new right now?

Actually, I have a couple of shows coming up right now. From 25-27th of August, you can hear my music in London during a three-day run of a new contemporary dance duet, 'Hood'. The show is part of the Camden Fringe festival and will be performed at the Lion and Unicorn Theatre, Kentish Town. Check out the links below for more information!
I also have a group exhibition coming up in Tübingen this week, where I'll be performing on live electronics with a classical singer and a movement artist, and my music will be featured in the upcoming Daegu International Dance Festival in South Korea (world premiere Sept 9th). You can follow my Facebook page if you want to stay up to date on events related to my music, or check out my Soundcloud for more information.

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What was the biggest mistake you made when you started making music and what would be the number one tip you could give to a newcomer musician?

Definitely the biggest mistake I made was not paying attention to practicality, my surroundings, and the particular market I was trying to engage with. Making a living from music or any art requires consideration of what exactly you're trying to achieve, who you will appeal to, and why you're doing this particular thing a certain way. I'm not suggesting a bend to commercialism and a compromise of your creative vision, but a little bit of justification will go a long way and will make other people more interested in what you're doing and why you're doing it.

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How do you get gigs? Can you share any tips?

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What has been your biggest challenge right now? Have you been able to overcome that challenge? If so, how?

Being an artist will always be challenging, and when I first moved to Berlin with no professional contacts or friends, it was definitely a struggle to find work or projects. But I would say one of the best things you can do is to narrow your practice down into something specific, something a little bit niche. I found a lot of my current projects by responding to Open Calls through groups on Facebook and websites like ArtConnect. I've also been able to make projects of my own come to life by using these websites to get the attention of other artists who are further in their career (read: more connections).

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How do you promote yourself? Do you have any specific promotion tips for other musicians?

Funnily enough, I've found Instagram to be a good platform for self-promotion, even though my art is not visual based. People have short attention spans on the internet and a picture always seems to grab the attention of new people better than a link to your Soundcloud or a lengthy write-up of your gig.

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We meet again in one year. What has changed?

Hopefully I'll still be collaborating with amazing dancers, visual artists, and musicians, and will have a few more festivals, shows and concerts under my belt!

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https://www.facebook.com/andreaguterresmusic

https://www.facebook.com/andreaguterresmusic

http://www.camdenfringe.com/show.php?acts_id=1097

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