Workshop with Sandra Coutinho - Free Improvisation & Creative Composing

Sandra Coutinho (Mercenárias) leads an afternoon workshop for up to 10 participants, with the results performed live that evening. WORKSHOP: "Free Improvisation and Creative Composing" Led by Sandra Coutinho (Mercenárias) As part of ¡MASH-UP! | São Paulo Connections, Sandra Coutinho — founding member, bassist, singer and artistic director of the legendary Brazilian post-punk band Mercenárias — leads the workshop "Free Improvisation and Creative Composing" at Ausland Berlin. In this 3.5-hour workshop, up to ten participants develop their own musical material through free improvisation, deliberate variation of melodies, and creative composing. A full backline will be provided — a complete drum set, guitar amp and bass amp — and participants are welcome to bring their own melodic, harmonic and/or percussion instruments. The pieces created during the workshop will open the evening's concert program later that day. Sandra Coutinho has led workshops in Germany since the 1990s, including "Computer / Voice / Bass" (Dortmund), "Improvisation and Creative Composing" (Essen), and "Free Improvisation" (Wuppertal). A pioneer of Brazilian post-punk and indie rock, she founded Mercenárias in São Paulo — one of the first all-female rock bands in Brazil — and later spent fourteen years in Germany, where she became part of the experimental music scene, studying at the Technical University of Berlin (TU) and the Berlin University of the Arts (HdK), and receiving both a Berlin Kultursenat scholarship and the Virtuose scholarship from Brazil's Ministry of Culture. Sandra Coutinho and Mercenárias' trip to Berlin has been made possible with the support of the Goethe-Institut. Both the workshop and the evening of concerts and DJ set are part of the Festivalwoche program of Berlin's Tag der Clubkultur.