About Me
SAXOPHONIST
COMPOSER
MEDIA ARTIST
FILM MAKER
CULTURAL MANAGER
Prof. Nikola Lutz (*1970) is a saxophonist, composer, film maker and media artist. She is a prominent player of new and experimental music and has held an honorary professorship for classical saxophone at the HMDK Stuttgart since 2017. In 2010 she was awarded first prize and the audience prize at the international saxophone competition in Paris. Tours have taken her to North and South America, China, Russia, India and European countries. In 2018 she met the Chilean double bassist César Bernal and founded the duo YonX with him. Since then, YonX has been exploring the space between improvisation and composition and released the CD “YonX” in 2022.
As a composer, she is interested in electronics and conceptual improvisation; for example, she realized the full-length multimedia performance foco_2018 for Deutschlandfunk. For Nikola Lutz, art is closely linked to social development, and consequently she prefers to choose subjects from politics and current topics. Since 2020 she has been working increasingly in multimedia and as a video and online artist. In 2022 she joined the nota community, which artistically explores and further develops the nota online platform. In the “Stuttgart Collective for Current Music e.V.” she is committed to promoting new music in the Stuttgart area.
Nikola Lutz met nota in 2020 at an event at the Stuttgart Film Winter. Since then, nota has developed into an integral part of her artistic practice. She published the nota spaces yonxmadmap and yonxmadmap_berlin as independent works of art, and she also published several artistic archives in nota. She also uses nota for process design and as a resource for live performances. Nikola Lutz has been an active member of the nota community since 2021. On her initiative, the Open Call notaᴺear was created in 2022, in which she participated as a curator and juror. In the course of this project, nota was technically further developed for the sound area. In 2022 and 2023, the nota Community carried out the structural development projects notanet and notacore with funding from the Performing Arts Fund, in whose conception and implementation Nikola Lutz played a key role. She held workshops about nota at the universities UNNE (Resistencia / Argentina), UNTREF (Buenos Aires / Argentina) and UNIRIO (Rio de Janeiro / Brazil) and led presentations and performances with nota at the documenta archiv Kassel, Kampnagel Hamburg, Filmwinter Stuttgart, CASo – Centro de Arte Sonoro (Buenos Aires) and as Artist in Residence at the artist residency MONTE (Chaco / Argentina).
YonX
MadMap
CV (PDF download, German)
© Frank Post
Education
2017–2019
Training to become a certified dispokinetician
1992–1996
Studied classical saxophone with Prof. B. Konrad Stuttgart, graduating with a diploma
1989–1990
Studied classical saxophone with Prof. J.-M. Londeix Bordeaux (F)
Current projects
2023
mem.cont.act – participatory installation in public space and series of events
2022–now
freemascha – Internet platform and videos for Mascha Kalesnikava
2021
Xibipíío II – media installation
extinct.algorithm – website and installation
2019–now
Duo YonX – concept improvisation and multimedia performance with César Bernal – double bass
Artworks
2022–now
MadMap – multimedia performance series with the duo YonX
2020
weiss/rot/weiss – Music performance for Masha Kalesnikava
The Creature In My Mirror – Film, performance and installation
2019
the darkroom of the map – for soprano, piano, viola and playing
2018
foco_2018 – multimedia music performance
El perro amarillo / Der gelbe Hund – for improvisation ensemble and 4-channel feed
Prizes, Awards
2023
Artist in Residence at Villa Waldberta Feldafing
2022
Research grant from the Music Fund for the MadMap concept by the duo YonX
2017
Awarded an honorary professorship by the HDMK Stuttgart
2010
Prix du Conseil Général des Hauts de Seine at Ville d’Avray (1. Preis sowie Publikumspreis)
1998
Scholarship from the Baden-Württemberg Art Foundation
Publications
2022
CD YonX – sellomodular (Chile)
2021
Soloist on Annesley Black – things that didn’t work the first time (Kairos)
2020
CD Freund Stein / El amigo piedra sellomodular (Chile)
2016
CD Infinite Jest – Gruenrecorder / DLF
2015
If music von Maximilian Marcoll – Self published on USB-Stick
Internet
2023
MadMap # 10 / Artefacto 01
2022
The Creature In My Mirror – MadMap nota space, Online artwork for YonX MadMap
2021
SpamScore played by YonX
2020
El perro amarillo / Der gelbe Hund
2016
Study for Tárogató and Wire
Cultural management
2021/2022
Juror at festivals and awards for web-based music (notanear, BROWSERSOUND 2021)
2021
Artistic direction My Behavioral Surplus: The Freedom of Speech in the Age of Surveillance Capitalism – Festival on the social impact of digitalization and data capitalism
since 2019
Development of the concert series out of the box for the city of Leonberg
since 2015
Co-founder and first chairwoman of S-K-A-M Stuttgarter Collective for Current Music e.V.
2001–now
Founding of the Stuttgart Saxophone Festival, holding seven festivals to date
Teaching
2006–now
Lecturer / since 2017 honorary professor for classical saxophone HMDK Stuttgart
2023
Workshops Software nota UNNE (AR), UNTREF (AR), UNIRIO (BR)
2002–now
Saxophone master classes at universities in Brazil, Peru, Chile, USA, China, Europe
2019
Maserclasses improvisation Universidad San Marco (Peru), HMDK Stuttgart
2015
Masterclass composition for saxophone Shanghai Conservatory of Music