Phill Niblock

Phill has passed away.

He was a constant companion and supporter for Nelly Boyd from the beginning (and even before the official formation of our group). Our second concert was at his loft in March 2004, twenty years ago.

Since then Nelly Boyd went through several changes, but Phill was always there, writing a piece for us, inviting us to perform with him (or the other way round), having a drink with us.

And he will always be here.

Phill with Nelly Boyd, New York 2008

Nelly Boyd @ blurred edges 2023

We will present and play two concerts at this year’s blurred edges festival with some great guests:

Nelly Boyd & Donghee Nam / Cat Hope
Westwerk
Friday, 16 June 2023, 20:00

Eiliyas / Nelly Boyd
Westwerk
Saturday, 17 June 2023, 20:00

Together with our old friend Donghee Nam we collaborated on a new project based on our Whirligig series. Since Donghee is working in the fields of performance and multimedia, these will be important elements, along with the music. The work on the composition was supported by Musikfonds.
After that, Cat Hope will shake the Westwerk with her solo bass performance.

On Saturday, Eiliyas performs an electro-acoustic set inspired by the piano solos by the great Thelonious Monk.
And we will play some pieces from our Whirligig series.

We hope you will join us!

Nelly Boyd & BEGO @ klub katarakt 18

© Anna Bertermann

We are looking forward to perform at klub katarakt 18 at Kampnagel in January 2023. We will be part of the opening on Wednesday, 18 January, performing among other things Branches by John Cage, as well as one or two of our own Whirligigs.

Also, Boyds Elektro Gitarren Orchester (BEGO), our big side project with lots of electric guitars, bass and drums, is back from hiatus and will perform the last set of the Long Night on Saturday, 21 January. This performance is in memory of Christian Smukal, who passed away last summer. Christian played in the first concert of BEGO (and several others), and supported us with many amps. So this is for him. We are playing with twelve guitars and several old and new guests.

Nelly Boyd @ Studio 45

We are playing a workshop concert at Studio 45 in Künstlerhaus Wendenstrasse. In the first half we will perform compositions for ensembles of same instruments by Johann Popp, Robert Engelbrecht and Jan Feddersen (cymbals and melodicas, respectively).

In the second part we will perform a choice of pieces of our collective composition WHIRLIGIG.

Friday, September 9, 2022,  19:30

Studio 45
Wendenstraße 45c
20097 Hamburg

admission: donation

presented by Studio 45 im Künstlerhaus Wendenstraße
funded by Behörde für Kultur und Medien Hamburg

Nelly Boyd @ Blurred Edges 2022

We play live again at this year’s Blurred Edges festival:

WAR, WORK, LOVE and LIMITED INFORMATION
Westwerk
Saturday, June 18th, 2022, 20:00

We are happy to welcome our guests Silvia Tarozzi and Deborah Walker, who will present their new CD Canti di guerra, di lavoro e d’amore („Songs of war, work and love“), on which they re-interpret and transform traditional songs that were sung by female rice field workers (Mondine) in Emilia-Romagna.

Silvia and Deborah are also the first guests who we have invited to our collaborative Whirligig project, and we are excited to play the premiere of the six new pieces of Open Whirligig 6 together with them. Christina Engelbrecht will again project light on us.

Plus, we will play a new piece by Johann Popp for four ride cymbals.

Hope to meet you!

klub katarakt 2022

We are happy to play at this year’s klub katarakt festival. It’s actually happening!

We are playing on the opening and closing nights, Wednesday January 19 and Saturday January 22, respectively. On Wednesday we will play Nellys Boudoir by Robert Engelbrecht, and on Saturday giration 4.2 ( a new version of giration 4) by Jan Feddersen.

We are joined for these concerts by our good friends and colleagues Donghee Nam and Fiona McKenzie.

As always, many great other musicians playing. Check it out.

Remembering Alvin Lucier

Alvin Lucier has passed away.

We were fortunate to have worked with him, at klub katarakt in 2009. Among other things, we prepared a performance of Vespers. Jens Röhm custom built, together with Olaf Hering, the echolocation devices which are asked for for this piece. Which amazed Alvin. It was a great experience.

On the photo are three quarters of the 2009 Nelly line-up. Two ghosts now.

© Katja von Nagy

blurred edges: Whirligig

We are happy to present our new project WHIRLIGIG at blurred edges 2021 – due to circumstances only as a movie.

WHIRLIGIG is a collective composition by Nelly Boyd with film projections by Christina Hansen.

Thanks to Giuseppe Gagliano for filming.

The movie can be watched on the Youtube channel of Blurred Edges, starting Monday, June 14, at 7 PM.

This concert is part of blurred edges. blurred edges 2021 is funded by Behörde für Kultur und Medien Hamburg and Hamburgische Kulturstiftung.

blurred edges update

No live concerts this time… We have decided to cancel the performance of our installation at blurred edges, due to the unsecure situation. We think it’s not possible to stream this work, so we will present a new work which we developed over the past months and which lends itself more to a classical concert setting. The filmed performance will be available as a video on Sunday, June 13, via the festival channels. Details follow.