Photo: Ernesto Rodrigues with Michael Maierhof and Lars Scherzberg

[…] If the gallery works for the aformentioned groups as a new place for both creative relief and inspiration, for 45 year old violinist Ernesto Rodrigues it’s been the one concert space in town where his shows have regularly taken place. A militant label owner, promoter and generous curator of collaborations, Rodrigues is now more than used to having to find his own solutions to present his work. He set up the Creative Sources label to put out his own music, and since the label’s first release (2001’s Multiples), he has established himself as one of the most accomplished improvisors in the lowercase/near silence circuit.
With Creative Sources, he has been constantly putting out releases by several groupings and solo artists, including Tetuzi Akiyama, Axel Dörner, Raymond Strid and Taku Unami, as well as by regular collaborators Manuel Mota, Margarida Garcia, Barry Weisblat, Alfredo Costa Monteiro, José Oliveira or his cellist son Guilherme, who he has been working with since the age of 11.
Rodrigues’s path through extreme music precedesPortugal 1974 revolurion, prior to which he became acquainted with American free jazz. He was inspired by Cage’s Zen-influenced (non-)musical strategies in silence and sound, Feldman’s microtonalism, an upbringing surrounded by Ligeti and Stockhausen, as well as a strong connection with the first generation of English improvisors of the late 60s/early 70s. Pedro Gomes (The Wire)