Zeena Parkins

Second episode of Talking & Improvising. This episode features conversations in words and music between bass player Jesper Nordberg and the American harpist Zeena Parkins, based in New York. The podcast was recorded in November 2024, with financial support from the Swedish Arts Council. Electro-acoustic composer and improviser Zeena Parkins is a pioneer of contemporary harp practices. Using expanded techniques, object preparations, and electronic processing, she has redefined the instrument’s capacities. Concurrently, Parkins self-designed a series of one-of-a-kind electric instruments. She leans into the harp’s physical limitations, pushing its boundaries and impossibilities. In her compositions, Parkins utilizes collections, recombination, historic proximities, geography, tactility, spatial configurations, and movement. Sonic presence and personality are revealed in explorations of subtle frequency shifts, feedback, over and under tones, melodic fragments, timbral and gestural intervals, perception, and residues.Jesper Nordberg is a young Swedish double bass player. He has studied at the famed Rhythmic Music Conservatory in Copenhagen. He has collaborated with numerous prominent European and American improvising musicians, including Okay Temiz, Brandon Lopez, Jesper Zeuthen, and Kasper Tranberg. With a grand tone and characteristic feel for rhythmical changes and displacements, he has established himself as an individual voice at the jazz scenes of Copenhagen and Malmö. He takes a big interest in folk music from the Balkans, and has collaborated with musicians from Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia, Turkey, and Romania.