ensemble für intuitive musik weimar (efim)
was founded in 1980. Its central idea is to provide the performers with the freedom and space necessary for individual creative activities and self-expression. The efim is not, however, a genuine improvisation group. Its formula can be described as mediation between fixed and open forms. At the outset, the ensemble supported the activities of composers whose works were taboo in the former German Democratic Republic, a gesture which led to intensive collaboration with Karlheinz Stockhausen, who promoted the efim in various ways.
Essential to the ensemble's work process is the expansion and differentiation of tone-colour. For this purpose, the efim explores and employs the various possibilities offered by live electronics.
For the last decade, the efim has referred to the Bauhaus tradition and devoted much attention to synaesthetic projects. In 1987/88 it realized the 'abstract dia-phonie' Vom Klang der Bilder (About the Sound of Images), an interaction of colours and sounds. In 1989/90 the 'abstract colour variations in the universe' Vom Klang der Sterne (About the Sound of Stars) were performed at the Zeiss Planetariums in Jena and Berlin. These were followed in 1990 by the multimedia project Klang-Farbe-Bewegung (Sound-Colour-Movement), which blended music, light, colour and dance.
In recent years, the efim has made numerous film, television and radio productions. One of them was the surrealistic defa film Wind sei stark, in which the efim members performed as actors-musicians (1989/90).
The ensemble has been invited to such prestigious festivals as the Wiener Festwochen, the Kasseler Musiktage, and 'Inventionen'. Foreign tours have taken it to South America (in collaboration with the Goethe Institut, 1993), and to Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Hungary (1997). It has produced a cd ('Ausbruch der Klänge').