Sometimes I think that it’s really just a coincidence that I play the saxophone. I’m not that fond of the saxophone, really, I sometimes joke. There are so many other beautiful sounds to make.
And I think that’s what inspired me when I started exploring what a saxophone could do, listening to musicians who were experts on these alternative techniques. Playing chords with multiphonics, making percussive sounds and beats with slap tonguing, or layering sounds using a looper…

Usually in jazz, where I came from, the saxophone is a soloistic instrument in the foreground. Now I was creating sounds that could be in the “middle ground”. It’s interesting for me listening to older recordings of myself – I was so proud of these discoveries – I almost showed them off. Now, filtered through the years, I think the most powerful ones remain, and they just appear, like any other note or musical idea, when I improvise.

And maybe that’s why I started whistling in my concerts, too. When I suddenly dared to make music without my main instrument, the next step was obvious: to open up further and start singing! I was just waiting for an inspiration – how, and when? And in 2009 I heard opera for the first time — live in New York. Since then I have been building another instrument. And it has really changed me, and also changed how I approach the saxophone.

So now my musicianship is a coincidence within a coincidence – a Russian doll of coincidences.