LEMUR is a fourheaded sonic organism that transforms, blends and breaks the boundaries of their instruments and the art of quartet playing. Drawing on their combined vocabulary from experimental music, noise, contemporary music and jazz, the four soloist appear as a tightly knit improvising unit and a conceptually guided composition collective.
Since 2006 LEMUR have performed across Europe and Asia in different formations ranging from acoustic and electronic quartet sets, via collaborations with pianist John Tilbury, guitarist Stian Westerhus and larger projects with Caput, Glasgow Improvisors Orchestra or the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra. Their musical output includes music created live onstage, as well as a series of compositions drawing on titles from the canon of 20th century modernism.
Frequent collaborators include Glasgow-based avant-disco band AMOR, Zeitkratzer-leader and pianist Reinholdt Friedl, electro-acoustic pioneer Natasha Barrett and performance artist Kate Pendry.
Michael Francis Duch
(b. 1978, Trondheim) is a bass player, professor and researcher. Outside of Lemur, his activities include more than 80 recordings playing improvised and composed musics; both solo and as an ensemble member. His collaborators include Pauline Oliveros, Christian Wolff, Tony Conrad, Joelle Leandre, George Lewis and AMM. He frequently performs with the free-jazz trio en en en, a trio with John Tilbury and Rhodri Davies as well as AMOR, an avant-disco unit based in Glasgow. Duch is currently Deputy Head of Research and Professor of double bass, jazz and experimental music at the Department of Music, NTNU, in Trondheim.
Hild Sofie Tafjord
(b. 1974, Sula), is a horn player, electronic composer and improvising musician. Touring internationally since 1995, Tafjord has collaborated with numerous ensembles, musicians and artists such as Fred Frith, Fire Orchestra, Phantom Orchard, Trondheim Jazz Orchestra and Lotta Melin. She regularly performs with Lemur, SPUNK and Zeitkratzer. Tafjord has created music for dance, theatre, installations and performance and contributed to more than 130 records. Her solo work is released on Pica disk and +3DB records. In 2017 she held the position as Artist in Residence at EMS in Stockholm.
Lene Grenager
(b. 1969, Halden) is a composer and cellist. Her works list includes an wide array of compositions, spanning from solo to orchestral formats. Also active as a musician, composer, producer and conductor on more than 30 releases and has played or performed at festivals like Ultima, Stockholm New Music, Huddersfield CMF, November Music, Donaueschinger Musiktage, FIMAV, Tectonics and Moldejazz. She works regularly with the improvisation ensembles SPUNK, Lemur, in duo with Sofia Jernberg and as a soloist, touring in Europe, Canada and the United States.
Bjørnar Habbestad
(b. 1976, Bømlo) performs, creates, curates and researches contemporary music. Active as a flute soloist and ensemble musician since 2003, his activities range from premieres of solo works to installations, from chamber music to improvisation, noise and electroacoustics. Habbestad holds a PhD in performance practice from the Norwegian Academy of Music , studying collaboration processes between composers and performers. Since 2017 he is the Artistic Director of nyMusikk, Norway’s leading organization for contemporary music.