Hidra

Hidra is a collaboration of the artists Juan Belda and Markus Breuss that had its origin in “The score of the Cosmos”, a documentary by filmmaker Juanma Betancor and the team of astrophysicists of the IAC (Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias) that deals with the movement of the stars and in which besides Belda and Breuss participated other musicians such as Suzanne Ciani, Pierre Bastien or Suso Saiz.

“Hidra, a distant star similar to our sun, was the one we were assigned for the project, and from which we developed a music inspired by the movement of the stars,” says Belda. But Hidra, the final name of the proposal, also refers to the movement of our cells and our atoms; it is a journey from the macrocosm to the microcosm, from the apparent order of the universe to the apparent chaos of the smallest particles that shape our world.

Hidra is a duo in which styles such as Free, Cosmic, Psychedelia, Experimental and Electroacoustic converge.

Juan Belda

Eclectic composer, arranger and pianist / keyboardist / multi-instrumentalist from Tenerife (Canary Islands, Spain). He began his musical career in the 70‘s, as a student of the musicians Juan Hidalgo and Luis Vecchio, to enter the universe of electronic music in its most experimental aspect in the 80’s. He also obtained a degree in Philosophy.
Since the early 80s, his musical proposals have always seemed to be one step ahead of what was being done in Spain at the time.
A pioneer of electronic experimentation in Spain, his work is the result of hours of listening to those who in the sixties were one step ahead (Zaj, Fluxus, John Cage, Stockhausen, Ligeti), as well as to krautrock references (CAN, Tangerine Dream, Krafwerk…), sixties
jazz, Davis, Parker, Coltrane and Coleman.
He began to take risks at the beginning of the 80’s with the seminal band Arte Moderno, and he continues to do so in multiple projects afterwards, moving between coordinates ranging from electronic music to Jazz, with a preference for free improvisation and sound experimentation and the most unstructured rock. 16 Lp’s have been recorded since his beginnings as a soloist and in other formations led by himself.
A multidisciplinary artist, he has also been responsible for installations in art galleries and performances in this format (Art Futura, Festival de Música Visual de Lanzarote, Espacio P, El Tanque de Tenerife, Fundación Jorge Castillo (Madrid), Círculo de Bellas Artes Madrid, Manchester, Berlin, Lithuania, India, Japan…) and has composed music for ballet, theatre, television and cinema, and was considered one of the twenty five most influential Spanish musicians at the 25th anniversary of Radio 3.

Markus Breuss

Born in Switzerland, Markus Breuss is a sound designer, improviser/composer —an architect of sound galaxies-; he explores the limitless possibilities of trumpets, electronics, and other instruments.
Navigating the musical landscapes that emerged after serialism, his work gravitates toward free jazz, electroacoustic music, with frequent approaches to free improvisation. Early influences such as Sun Ra, Alban Berg, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Don Cherry shaped his approach to sound.
Breuss has collaborated with Llorenç Barber, Malcom Goldstein and Fátima Miranda, among many others. As a trumpet player, he has collaborated in concerts and recordings with multiple groups on the Spanish pop and rock scene, from Pekenikes to Esclarecidos, Lions in Love and Dead Capo.
Breuss’s music bridges the seen and unseen, the known and the unknown. His eclecticism reflects a deep curiosity for diverse musical traditions, transcending genre constraints. His compositions drift between electroacoustic explorations and free jazz, creating multidimensional sonic experiences.
He has performed at renowned venues and festivals worldwide, including the National Auditorium and Reina Sofía Museum (Madrid), New Jazz Festival Moers (Germany), Airegin Jazz Club (Yokohama), MACBA (Barcelona), Juan Miró Foundation (Barcelona), Copenhagen International Jazz Festival, and the Internationales Theaterfestival Salzburg.
His electroacoustic compositions weave intricate sonic textures, mirroring the complexity of the cosmos—ever-shifting, multilayered, and infinite in depth. Breuss continues to chart new courses through uncharted musical and cosmic frontiers.