Reviews:
– “Hypnotic Visual and Audio Event…[t]he combination of the film and Acher’s performance created a highly inspiring cinematic-musical experience. … purely modernistic in character, blasting around the film, encompassing, supporting, and enhancing it.” – by Uri Klein, Ha’aretz, Tel Aviv, (April 2018).
– “”KAT”’s music created such an ecosystem in which to fully absorb the beauty of the film.” – by poet, Kristin Prevallet, New York City (March 2018).

Time in Live Sound & Silent Motion Picture is a “real-time” response to a time -capsule of Weimar era silent cinema. As an electro-acoustic flutist / composer, Modiano transforms the tradition of live music accompaniment of silent films to a contemporary experience. Through this art-performance hybrid, Modiano merges the two eras and art mediums. While her electro-acoustic music adds a surreal element, it also enhances the films’ emotional intensity, symbolic motifs, camera action, and social messages.

Modiano’s audio vocabulary is made of a versatile palate of sounds, stemming from universal eclecticism. Among elements typical to the Western classical music of 20th and 21st Centuries, Jazz, and rhythmic popular music, the soundtracks encompass also noise-art. Raw pulsating industrial noise-beats, ambient elements from ritualistic and spiritual music of indigenous cultures: Australian Aborigines, Native Americans, monastic spiritual Tibetan Buddhist chants, Japanese Zen music, and more.

Modiano performed Time in Live Sound and Silent Motion Picture internationally with different silent films from the Weimar era at film festivals, cinemas, screening venues, and museums in New York City, Chicago, Berlin, Venice, Bern, Tel Aviv, Copenhagen, etc. Numerous grants and awards have supported the project, including: Goethe institute in Tel Aviv and in Copenhagen, NY Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Emergency Grant, and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and Fresh Fruit Festival, from New York City.
Modiano has created and preformed different versions of Weimar Film Collage in New York City at Church of the Intercession (December 2017) and at Socially Relevant Film Festival at Village Cinema (March 2018), at British Irish Modern Music Institute in Dublin (March 2020), and at Støberiet in Copenhagen (December 2020).

Weimar Film-Collage is non-narrative, non-linear footage, edited of repeating cinematic motifs in different speeds and durations that are extracted from 3 Weimar era silent films selected from Modiano’s soundtrack repertoire.

-Richard Oswald’s Different from the Others (Anders als die Anderen; 1919), an educational film introducing homosexual and transgender (LGBTQ) community, and its struggle to overcome social marginalization and legal prosecution.
-Metropolis (1927), Fritz Lang’s iconic futuristic and highly stylized film on class struggle, fear, and fascination of the modern (independent) women and of technology.
-Joe May’s Street film, Asphalt (1929), an urban drama about love, lust, morals, normality, and life in the Berlin underground.

Having created and performed the full-length soundtracks for each of the films listed above, Modiano’s Weimar Film-Collage highlights through collage aesthetics the different socially relevant contexts, especially issues with gender suppression, normalization, and victimization of the feminine individual.

Post- performance/screening discussion with audiences/students on:
1). Aesthetics: electro-acoustic soundtrack: synchronizing film-score, compositions’ concepts, audio sample sources, and film-score improvisation.
2). Context: the Weimar cinema’s relevance to current times through its aesthetics and social messages, the role of women and feminine men in these films, gender violence and victimization, and the importance of artistic humanitarian messages.

Modiano’s collaborations as a composer and performer with different choreographers/dancers results in a wide range of audio expressions in electro-acoustic music compositions and interpretation work, from eclectic multi-layered electro-acoustic original music, to original fusion jazz and solo flute classical pieces.
Including commissions and performances at Edinburgh Fringe Festival; Copenhagen Summer Dance Festival, National Arts Gallery (SMK) in Copenhagen, Roskilde Dom Kirke, (Denmark), Tribeca Performing Arts Center (New York City), Las Vegas University (USA), and many others.

Corvino Ballet, in New York City, NY, and Norwalk, CT, USA (2016, 2021)
Ollom Dance, in New York City, NY and Massachusets, USA (2012, 2013, 2016)
Ellis Wood Dance, in New York City, and Fire Island, NY, US. (2007, 2008, 2010)
Kim Itoh, in Tokyo, Japan (2005)
Tim Rushton, Danish Dance Theater, Copenhagen, Denmark (2003, 2013)
Mink Colbert Dance, in Denmark, Scotland, and USA (2001, 2002, 2003)
Thomas Eisenhardt, Aaben Dans, in Copenhagen, Denmark (1999, 2000, 2001)

Modiano’s electro-acoustic music for “Prisoner of my Projection” by choreographer John Ollom was described as: “[The] sound created a space that really felt like the inner life of consciousness. “ By Lynne Constantine, George Mason University, August 28th, 2013, USA
And
“Sparked by wonderfully evocative music from Yael Acher-Modiano”. By by David Noh, Gay City, August 29, 2013, New York City, USA.

Modiano’s Classical flute performance at the dance production “Summer Dance Festival” by choreographer Tim Rushton inspired journalists to write:
“[A] bold, daring Bach –solo by the flutist Yael Acher, which initiates the spatial body energy in the beautiful pillar-yard, with her crispy tones and her androgynous jacket suit movements.” By Anne Middelboe Christensen, INFORMATION, August 8th, 2013, Denmark.
And
“…When the dancer and choreographer Alessandro Sousa Pereira danced Tim Rushton’s piece, ‘Syrinx’, he danced as the seductive faun. A hot contrast to the beautiful flute that played enchanting Debussy, with a wonderful magical interpretation by Yael Acher” – Dans Kritik (Dance Critique), Monna Dithmer, “Gutter and Red Carpet”, August 7, 2013, Copenhagen, Denmark.

Reviews:
– “Yael Acher is a flutist who isn’t about faking the funk…her hard-edged Junk Kat Modiano ensemble is run from the kick drum.”- Steve Smith, Time Out New York.
– “…Acher raises the excitement level frequently by using overblowing techniques to ignite the collective voices”- Frank Rubolino, Cadence Magazine, USA.
-“…inheritance of post-hard-bop is especially original and convincing.” – Thierry Quénum, Jazz Magazine, France.
– “Very dense…highly original interaction between organic and non-organic…”– Kjeld Frandsen, Berlingske Tidende, Denmark.

About:

Based in New York City, the award winning, and multiple genres flutist/composer/educator Yael Acher “KAT” Modiano leads her urban jazz & beat ensemble “KAT” Modiano locally and internationally. Performed in New York City and NJ at: Blue Note, Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola, nublu , Iridium, BAMcafe, APAP 2017, APAP 2023, Newark Museum, NJPAC in NJ, etc. And at European venues: Copenhagen Jazz Festival, Cph Jazz House, Rust, and Jazz i Malmö, Sweden, Jazzahead! Bremen, Germany, and more.

“KAT”’s latest original album NOMAD Imagination – Roots of Love is released the Grammy nominated Aliud Records.

The music:
Lining-up masterful / soulful musicians, “KAT” Modiano’s urban eclectic style merges together: fusion jazz-funk, indigenous beats, afro-Cuban, Industrial Noise-beats and hip-hop, blues, and spirituals. Pulsating rhythm section, funky -jazz el and acoustic bass lines, blues inspired, non-tonal harmonies on retro keyboards / piano, powerful improvisations with lyrical melodies and rhythmic riffs on the flute & EFX, with some afro-impro vocals, and MC & electronic multilayered noise-art beats. “KAT” Modiano’s electro-acoustic soundscapes vary in structures and atmospheres featuring instrumental combinations, from duo to quintet, with electronics and an image-collage screenings of abstract, associative, and social awareness visuals. While some tunes have clear forms with tight orchestrations, others display serial music motifs with more free style improvisation sections and unisons, yet other are more lyrical, like jazz-blues ballads.

Like a heartbeat, RHYTHM is a pivotal element, merging with and supporting the WINDs and STRINGs, creating an overall flow of an abstract cinematic storytelling, inviting the audience on an adventitious, multimedia journey.

As jazz soloist “KAT” Modiano had also performed and recorded with world known musicians: Wycliffe Gordon (Wynton Marsalis), Bernard Purdie (Modern Drummer Hall of Fame), David Haney (Cadence Magazine), Billy Martin (Medeski Martin & Wood), and more.

Grants: “KAT” Modiano’s group has been supported by: Copenhagen Culture Foundation, Danish Artist Union, Danish Musician Union, KODA, Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and more.

Interviews and Broadcastings: HORIZONTE- “la vuelta a la manzana”- Mexican National Radio, WHCR 90.3FM, THE VOICE OF HARLEM, NYC, Radio Free Brooklyn, NYC, Danish Radio, Copenhagen Kanal, Jazz News and Jazz –Live, Danish Radio (DR), Radio Shalom, Denmark, WFMU Freeform Radio- New Jersey, USA, “Territori Sonor” Radio, Barcelona, Euronews, etc.

CD Releases featuring “KAT” Modiano’s music:

Redcar – Released in 2001 on MODIANO, recorded in Copenhagen, DK
Modiano – Released in 2003 on MODIANO, recorded in Copenhagen, DK
La Belle Ombre – Released in 2006 on Capstone Records, NYC, USA, recorded in Switzerland
“KAT” & “MOON” in Manna-hata – Released 2014 on CD Baby, recorded in NYC and Cph
Humanity is an Ocean – Flute Soundscapes – Released in 2020 on Centaur Records, recorded in Denmark
NOMAD Imagination-Roots of Love – Released 2022-2023 on Aliud Records, recorded in Copenhagen, DK.

“La Pile Électrique de Léontine” (1910) and “Léontine Enfant Terrible” (1911), French silent films with Acher-Modiano’s soundtracks. Released on Kino Lorber on Cinema’s First Nasty Women, a 4-disc DVD/Blu-ray. 2023