Aleksander Kolkowski

Aleksander Kolkowski (born 1959 in London) is a British musician and composer whose work combines instruments and machines from the pioneering era of sound recording and reproduction (Stroh violins, wind-up Gramophones, shellac discs and wax-phonograph cylinders) to make live mechanical-acoustic music. He lives and works in London, England.

Kolkowski studied music at the University of London, Goldsmiths College, violin with Clarence Myerscough at the Royal Academy of Music. Taught by John Tilbury, Hugh Davies and in 1982 participated in seminars and performances directed by John Cage. In the late 1970s, Kolkowski played on the then burgeoning punk rock scene in London, featuring on the records of Henry Badowski, an early member of The Damned, a British multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and composer, who was a member of several punk rock bands in the 1970s. Kolkowski played violins on Badowski's post punk album, Life Is a Grand..., alongside sometime Generation X (band) guitarist, James Stevenson (musician) and Dave Berk, drummer with Johnny Moped, an early Stiff Records punk rock band from the late 70s' first wave of punk in England.

Over the past 25 years he has worked internationally as an improvising violinist, interpreter, solo performer and composer for dance, theatre and film (Sasha Waltz, Performance artist Rose English, Corinna Harfouch and Butoh dancer Anzu Furukawa amongst others). He created several mixed-media projects in the UK and in Germany together with art…