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Obituary
Jan Heinke, musician, band member and dear friend left us on April 20th 2022.
On April 15th, he played his final sounds on a steel cello in Martin Fischer’s studio in Dresden.
Jan left his recordings to us (Mats Eser and me) in full trust and expressed the wish that they would find their way onto a vinyl record.
He could not imagine that he very last sounds he recorded would become a solo album. He gathered all his strength to play them and created a music so pure that it seems to come from another place. It is grand, unpretentious, beautiful and hits you straight in the heart. It is the part of Jan which will endure.
We met each other in 2003 during a project organized by the Folk Music Festival in Rudolstadt. Our respectively self-developed instruments, Steel Cello and Xala, were both more or less new at the time. During our lives on tour we repeatedly crossed paths. After 2015 we met regularly to experiment on our acoustic instruments and to do sound research together.
In 2019 we released our first joint album “The Lugano Session” (in co-production with RSI Lugano / tonus-music-records).
We played live concerts as a trio under the name AËR until these were forbidden.
The Lockdown that was imposed on us led us to want to make louder music. We spent a lot of time together adding electronic effects to our instruments, creating music videos and inventing new AËR music during long drawn out sessions and sprawling improvisations. Laughing, Jan appointed himself head of the “German Institute for Sound Awesomeness” and elected us to the board. With this we wanted to conquer the world. Two AËR albums will emerge from the wealth of recordings made in 2021.
In January 2022 the diagnosis was received that led to his death within three months.
We traveled to Dresden to fulfill his wish to continue to play as much music as possible. In his short, final days, many more recordings for AËR as well as the first solo album for steel cello were made.
Jan’s fascination and love of sound was contagious. He himself was a walking, continuously self-feeding jukebox of sounds and noises of all kinds. Anyone who has known Jan and spent time with him will perceive the world and all of its sounds more intensely.
Only when he watched the birds in flight with clear eyes, did he become silent as he flew with them through the skies.
I know of no other musician who was able to encompass the entire world in a SINGLE note, let alone the whole universe, in two. The way Jan listened to music – the time and attention he gave to each note – is the way I want to play music. A music that breathes and allows the space for one’s own breath.
A Ë R
Ania Losinger – Xala
Jan Heinke – Steel Cello / Voice
Mats Eser – Marimba
Video for the crowdfunding to realize the first Solo-Album featuring Stahlcello.
