Heidi Heidelberg is an anarchic soprano, guitarist, composer and improviser, originally from London and currently based in Berlin.

Her main project is the duo Witch ’n’ Monk, with Colombian hybrid flute player Mauricio Velasierra. Using an array of bespoke electronics they generate a sound that refuses to remain still and constantly outwits the listener. Flutes roar with distortion, a guitar becomes a drum machine and a chameleonic voice shifts between delicate, angular melodies and wild screams.

 

In 2020 they released their eponymous album on John Zorn’s Tzadik Records and it was named The Guardian’s Contemporary Album of the Month and was awarded the prestigious German Record Critics Prize in the crossover category. Together they have performed at prestigious festivals and venues across Europe and have collaborated with musicians such as Seb Rochford, Stephane Galland, Nicolas Stocker, Jim Black and Oene van Geel.

There is a theatricality to Witch ’n’ Monk’s performances and their pursuit to blur the edges between art forms, collaborating with scent artists, visual artists, and embracing unusual spaces in their performances.

 

They have been commissioned by ensembles, festivals and arts organisations such as Staatsoper Stuttgart, Staatstheater Freiburg, Lux:NM, AMOK Festival and Jerwood Arts Foundation to compose or arrange for larger ensembles or to create interdisciplinary work such as ‘Unravelling the Mind’ - a multi sensory performance incorporating live music, video art, immersive staging and live scent design, or ‘Witch ’n' Monk Extended’ a work for chamber ensemble, drums and video art, or their original live music score for Oscar-nominated film ‘Embrace of the Serpent’.

Heidelberg has also been, or is currently involved in various other projects and collaborations, such as ‘Candy Shop’ by Lina Lapelyte, Philipp Ruttgers’ North Sea Jazz Festival Commission ‘Twists of HC Andersen’, Ari Benjamin Meyers’ ‘Forecast’, ‘Wyattando’ - a tribute to Robert Wyatt with Chris Cutler and other musicians, ‘Glaube, Liebe, Hoffnung’ at the Staatsoper Stuttgart and she was a singer in ‘Macbeth’ at the Shakespeare’s Globe, London.

 

Her voice has been featured in films and series such as 'Golda', 'Der Schwarm' and 'Souls' and she has featured as an actress and presenter in radio plays and productions such as 'Common Wealth' (Deutschlandfunk Kultur) and 'Uberredung' (Hessischer Rundfunk).