For ten years, the musician and studio owner David Moufang, also known as Move D, and the writer and musician Thomas Meinecke have been producing Sonic Fiction together for the Department of Radio Drama and Media Art at Bayerischer Rundfunk. Most often, these pieces were based on Meinecke's literary texts, serving as musical variations on his concurrent (and published by Suhrkamp Verlag) novels such as Tomboy, Freud’s Baby, or Flugbegleiter, syntactically, often deconstructively interwoven with predominantly electronically generated patterns by Move D, who is an internationally acclaimed figure in instrumental techno music (on his own Source Label, as well as on Warp, Compost, City Center Offices, Workshop, etc.), often collaborating equally with jazz musicians such as vibraphonist Karl Berger (who contributed to Tomboy and Freud’s Baby).
The approach and starting point of the current production, "Übersetzungen / Translations," was the desire to create a work where a text did not exist first (and thus ultimately superordinate), but where the abstract, serial narrativity of the music would appear as equally significant, even leading. In a studio at Bayerischer Rundfunk in Munich, Thomas Meinecke spoke or sang the German and English/American alphabets in all twelve tones of the scale, and he took this recording, akin to individual keys of a typewriter, to Heidelberg, where in Moufang's Re-Source Studio, words and tones were spontaneously interwoven without the use of a microphone for the voice, almost synchronously assembled, with the sole overarching principle: a translation from German into English, or vice versa. These remarkably laconic translations did not always have to occur verbally (Osterglocke/Daffodil), but their focus, their inclination, their gradient could also be encoded culturally (Ursula Andress), politically (Henry Kissinger), or economically (Mini Cooper).
Thomas Meinecke, who has been playing in the Munich band F.S.K. since 1980, brought his pocket trumpet along and even picked up David Moufang's guitar at times. Ten very playful tracks, occasionally reminiscent of surrealist picture puzzles in their intricacy, were created over the course of a week on the Neckar River, immediately (and locally tested as such) club-ready. This resulted in more of an album than a dictionary.
Voice, trumpet, guitar: Thomas Meinecke
Electronics, piano: David Moufang
Composition and realization: Thomas Meinecke / David Moufang
Editing: Herbert Kapfer
Production: BR 2007
Premiere broadcast: BR on October 19, 2007
The award-winning work produced by BR is included in the CD double album "flugbegleiter" & "übersetzungen / translations" on the Intermedium Records label.
Competition 2008 and jury's statement
In total, 89 competition entries from 22 countries were submitted in 2008, including 38 independent author productions.
The allocation of awards was determined by an independent jury. Jury members included music theater director and former rector of the Freiburg University of Music Johann-Georg Schaarschmidt (Chairman), writer Marcel Beyer, journalist and media critic Frank Kaspar, music critic Monika Lichtenfeld, and publicist, literary scholar, and former Minister of State for Culture Christina Weiss.
The award ceremony took place on October 18 as a public event during the Donaueschinger Musiktage 2008.
"In their collaborative work 'Übersetzungen/Translations,' Thomas Meinecke and David Moufang (aka Move D) develop ten musical miniatures from the alphabet as a sound inventory. Semantically and acoustically rich word pairs such as 'Osterglocke – Daffodil' are dissected, re-spelled, and intertwined with sounds and patterns of club and jazz music. An ironically reflective play between languages and stylistic levels, between two artist friends interacting with sovereignty, leading the listener's imagination on a long leash."
The award winners
Thomas Meinecke, born in 1955 in Hamburg, studied Theater Studies, Modern German Literature, and Communication Studies from 1977 to 1983 in Munich. His master's thesis was on Karl Philipp Moritz ("Theatromanie und Melancholie"). From 1978 to 1986, he was a co-editor of the magazine 'Mode & Verzweiflung'. He has been a member of the band 'F.S.K.' since 1980. From 1983 to 1987, he wrote a column titled "Die aktuelle Kurzgeschichte" for the feuilleton section of 'Zeit' newspaper. Since 1985, he has worked as a freelance contributor for Bayerischer Rundfunk, serving as a radio DJ on the 'Zündfunk' program.
As a writer, he has been recognized since 1986 with numerous novels and stories published by Suhrkamp Verlag, establishing himself as an important figure in contemporary German literature. As a musician, he released a new album with his band F.S.K. on Daniel Richter's Buback label this year. Collaborations with Move D primarily occurred for Bayerischer Rundfunk since 1998, alongside solo projects such as featuring on the first "Clicks and Cuts" compilation (Mille Plateaux). Additionally, he is a radio DJ with his own show on Bayerischer Rundfunk and can be heard in numerous urban nightclubs. He lives in a village in Upper Bavaria with his wife Michaela Melián and their daughter Juno.
For the "Manifesta 7 – Projected Scenarios," he contributed "Aquatic Invasion." His new novel "Jungfrau" is set to be released by Suhrkamp Verlag in the fall. In addition to numerous records, the following books have been published: "Mit der Kirche ums Dorf," narrations (Suhrkamp, 1986), "Holz," a narration (Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1988), "The Church of John F. Kennedy," a novel (Suhrkamp, 1996), "Tomboy," a novel (Suhrkamp, 1998), "Mode & Verzweiflung," prose and manifestos 1977-1996 (Suhrkamp, 1998), "Hellblau," a novel (Suhrkamp, 2001), "Musik," a novel (Suhrkamp, 2004), "Plattenspieler," protocols, jointly with Frank Witzel and Klaus Walter (Edition Nautilus, 2005), "Feldforschung," narrations (Suhrkamp and Museum Ludwig, 2006), "Meinecke hört," columns (Sukultur, 2007), "Lob der Kybernetik," song lyrics 1980 – 2007 (Suhrkamp, 2007), "Jungfrau," a novel (Suhrkamp, 2008).
Previous awards include a residency grant from the Literary Colloquium Berlin (1987), the sponsorship award for the Heimito von Doderer Prize (1997), the Rheingau Literature Prize (1997), and the sponsorship grant from the German Literature Fund (1997), the Kranich mit dem Stein Literature Prize from the German Literature Fund (1998), an invitation as Poet in Residence at the University of Essen (1998/99), the Literature Prize of the Stadtsparkasse Düsseldorf (2003), the Tukan Prize from the city of Munich (2004), the Manuskriptum lectureship at Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich (2004/2005), and a grant from the Niedersächsischen Literaturbüros (2005).
David Moufang (alias Move D), born in 1966 in Heidelberg, alongside attending a humanistic high school from 1977 to 1983, received classical percussion lessons at the Music School Heidelberg/Mannheim. In the 1980s, he also had private jazz guitar and piano lessons.
After graduating in 1986, he pursued a degree in audio engineering at SAE Frankfurt, graduating with a diploma in 1990. Following this, he took on commissioned work for industrial film scoring (music) and smaller television productions. From the mid-1980s to 1992, he played guitar in various local bands, with his first record release in 1983. Since 1992, he has co-operated with partner Jonas Grossmann to establish his own record label 'Source Records'; and since 1996, he founded a second label 'KM20' (also with Jonas Grossmann). Since 1994, he has performed in numerous clubs and as a DJ or electronic live act at festivals, including 'Intermedium 1' in 1999 in Berlin, 'Intermedium 2' in 2002 in Karlsruhe, the 'Donaueschinger Musiktage' in 2002, and the 'Hörkunsttage Erlangen' in 2003.
Since 1996, he has organized several events with the Goethe Institute (London, Munich, and Budapest). Since 1998, he has undertaken commissioned work for Bayerischer Rundfunk, including collaborative works with Thomas Meinecke (all released on CD by Intermedium Records): "Tomboy" (1998), "Freud's Baby" (2000), "Konvent" (2002), "Flugbegleiter" (2004), "Translations – Übersetzungen" (2007); as well as solo works: "Tonspuren 1-10" (2003/2004; released on CD by BineMusic).
From 2002 to 2007, David Moufang held a guest lecturer position at the Bauhaus University in Weimar, Department of Experimental Radio Music.
