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viewing 1 To 9 of 9 items
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BTL 033CD
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"Giorgio Occhipinti Global Music Nonetto: Sonia Slany (violin), Joanna Lewis (violin), Nico Ciricugno (viola), Tiziana Cavalieri (cello), Giuseppe Guarrella (double bass), Matteo Gallini (soprano, bass clarinet), Olivia Bignardi (soprano, bass clarinet), Antonio Moncada (drums, kettledrums), Giorgio Occhipinti (piano, direction). Composer/pianist Giorgio Occhipinti, who was born in Ragusa, Italy in 1969, considers the basis of his working technique, which he has dubbed 'organized chaos', to be a controlled collision of a variety of different sources of inspiration. His main source of inspiration is 20th century music, albeit refracted by the prismatic effect of his Italian -- or, more precisely, Sicilian -- origins. This special Mediterranean outlook on life informs his novel interpretation and evaluation of the music of the last century. Folk music, contemporary classics, jazz and rock, opera, marching music -- such diverse musical genres are usually deemed incompatible. From Occhipinti's highly personal perspective, however, such diametrically opposed facets can very well be combined in a kind of controlled chaos. In Occhipinti's composing process, tradition does by no means merely serve as a host of patterns released for reproduction or deconstruction. Occhipinti draws from its overall effects and considers it to be the foundation of his aesthetic design, which is unique in the European jazz and new music scene."
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BTL 032CD
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"Christine Tobin: vocals, ensemble plus, Peter Herbert: Dirigent Bassist / composer. Peter Herbert presents a new work, the main part of which, You're my Thrill, for jazz vocalist, jazz piano and nonet, is an homage to Billie Holiday. The life of the singer, legendary even in her lifetime and probably the one most important voice in jazz, was marked by professional triumphs and private fiascos. From the songs Herbert used, including 'Gloomy Sunday', 'Solitude' or 'Porgy', he only kept the text and intimations of the melody. The music for the Ensemble plus (a chamber orchestra of the Vorarlberg Symphony Orchestra) is Peter Herbert's own composition completely. The overwhelming result, for which UK singer Christine Tobin of course deserves her fair share of the credit, is acoustic chamber music based on songs interpreted by Billie Holiday. The title of the second part of the production is 'Communications Error' for nonet and tape. In New York, social distinctions are particularly pronounced. A homeless person: 'Would you have some change? Think of me as your son, Happy Mother's Day.' Hardly anyone takes notice, let alone gives some change. A 'subtle' communications error. A cry for help ignored. 'Communications Error' for nonet and tape is about feeling one's way towards possible nuances -- perhaps some sort of musical reconciliation for hopelessly entangled human situations. The tape plays noises Peter Herbert recorded in the subway and in the streets of New York."
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BTL 031
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"Moritz Eggert used gentle irony to create the music for the memory chambers of Anne Sexton's existential poems: terrible, funny, strange, brilliant. Shortly before her suicide in 1974, American poet Anne Sexton wrote a series of poems in which she evoked rooms and houses filled with strange memories. The maze-like Winchester House near San Francisco, where the Winchester rifles heiress led a spiritistic existence, is just such a place. Composer/pianist Moritz Eggert has placed Sexton's inner world in juxtaposition to the labyrinthine corridors of the Winchester House, the title Wide Unclasp alluding to a Shakespeare quote written on the wall of the Winchester House ballroom: 'Wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts'. Moritz Eggert is a restless spirit, always on the lookout for new musical challenges. He has been awarded numerous prizes for his operas, ballets and works for the music theatre. The Wide Unclasp cycle of songs represents another departure for new shores, as Eggert was attracted by the idea of writing a piece devoted to an unusual theme in the context of his past work: the relationship of notation and improvisation. To this end, Eggert was able to work with an outstanding septet headed by one of the greatest new artistic discoveries of the German jazz scene in recent years: vocalist Céline Rudolph. The other names, too, speak for themselves: Steven Bernstein, musical director of the Robert Altman movie Kansas City; Sebastian Hess, master student of Rostropovich; star drummer Gerry Hemingway; guitarist Ralph Beerkircher, a master explorer of border areas, and Georg Breinschmid, a former member of the Vienna Philharmonic."
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BTL 030
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"Thomas Berghammer (flugelhorn), Otto Lechner (Akkordeon), Hannes Enzlberger (bass), Carla Bley's legendary album Social Studies (1981) seems to be the main source of inspiration for the Viennese bassist/composer Hannes Enzlberger. Enzlberger's Songs to Anything that Moves (BTL 022) also reveal this apparent affinity which Enzlberger explained with a reference to Carla Bley's eclecticism and her disrespect of traditional forms. Social Studies features Carla Bley's 'Reactionary Tango', which Enzlberger long considered a prototype of the tango before he explored the works of Astor Piazzola. For a series of private living-room concerts, Enzlberger composed eight delightfully atmospheric 'tangos' for flugelhorn, accordion and double bass, based on an experiment with tango clichés and with Bley's 'Reactionary Tango' always at the back of his mind. The tangos are performed by the regretfully little-known flugelhorn player Thomas Berghammer, the jack-of-all-trades accordionist of the Vienna scene, Otto Lechner, and the composer himself on the double bass. Hannes Enzlberger's tangos are a sheer delight. They sound relaxed and non-intentional with their well-balanced combination of pain, comedy, sentimentality and grace."
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BTL 029
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"Oskar Aichinger (piano + synthesizer), Stefan Nemeth (synthesizer + computer), Achim Tang (bass), Paul Skrepek (extended drums) Austrian pianist/composer Oskar Aichinger once said: 'I dream of music which is unequivocally committed to art and its complex mysteries -- but is still understandable: simple yet sophisticated, like a good joke'. Deliberately old-fashioned -- he steadfastly refuses to be taken in by the consumerist behaviour of the cell phone society -- the artist who has chosen to make Vienna his home is a consummate master of this intelligent interplay between simplicity and complexity. Oskar Aichinger is the secret star (although 'star' is just the opposite of what he wants to be) of Vienna's underground scene, and with the delicate chamber music on Synapsis, he realises what is perhaps his most essential musical postulate: 'It is possible to find forms that have immediate impact without being banal'."
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BTL 024
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"Lisa Sokolov: voice, Wolter Wierbos: trombone Gerry Hemingway: Drums, Sampler, Voice, James Emery: guitars, John Butcher: tenor sax, Kermit Driscoll: ac / el bass, Ellery Eskelin: tenor sax, Thomas Lehn: analogue synthesizer, Herb Robertson: trumpets, Gerry Hemingway is back! From the beginning of his career in the 70s, the tireless percussionist and composer has been unstoppable in his progression to the absolute front-line of the New York downtown scene. Songs has a fresh, dynamic sound to it. Inspiration came into his life through his marriage to wife Nancy and -- in musical terms -- his new-found interest in song-writing, a first in Hemingway's work. After a series of chamber music works in recent years, Songs is a liberating creative experience. The idea of writing songs didn't come to him over night, however, as Hemingway recounts:'I have been harbouring that wish for quite some time. Songs were always a source of inspiration for my compositions, just as the phrases of singers always influenced my drumming.'What ultimately led to the present collection of songs were the changes in Hemingway's personal life, which obviously gave him a great deal of inspiration -- he is bursting with creative and performing energy. And the optimism has also perceptibly infected the musicians of his excellent band -- so we can really hope that life holds many great things in store for Gerry Hemingway in the coming years."
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BTL 021
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"Franz Koglmann, who likes to cross borders, pursues a dialogue between styles. Using this dialogue, which he consciously allows to include disruptions, Koglmann elegantly and expertly weaves his way along a path that avoids both the classical jazz clichés and the hermetics of e-music. His cool way of bridging worlds is often referred to as the '3rd Vienna School' by critics. On Don't Play, Just Be Koglmann collaborates with one of the world's leading New Music orchestras, the Klangforum Wien, conducted by Emilio Pomárico, and with outstanding jazz soloists. He impressively succeeds in harnessing the traditions of classical modernism and jazz for his very own world of sound. The four movements of the suite Don't Play, Just Be are a dialogue between a jazz quartet the legendary British tenor saxofonist and clarinettist Tony Coe, guitar virtuoso James Emery from New York, Franz Koglmann on the fluegelhorn and Klangforum bassist Uli Fussenegger -- and composed and written processes of European e-music. The dialogue is enhanced by references to a text by Jean Cocteau and the films of Jacques Rivette, as well as hints of French film scores brought in by the accordion and violin."
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BTL 014
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"Lorenz Raab (trumpet), Max Nagl (soprano, altosax), Martin Siewert (guitar), Oscar Aichinger (piano), Achim Tang (bass), Paul Skrepek Jr. (drums). Elements Of Poetry already had listeners enthusing about Oscar Aichinger's masterly command of formal idiom, which occupies an exceptional position in the realm of melodic sound sculptures and sound landscapes. For To Touch A Different Soul, the trio founded by the Austrian pianist was expanded into a sextet by the addition of two brass players and a guitarist. No friction losses occurred as the new formation found original ways of deciphering the signets contained in the leader's compositions without abandoning their own individual creativity. Alternating between written and improvised parts, they craft imaginative arcs of tension.Oscar Aichinger's music leaves abundant leeway for the listener's imagination. A piece like 'Siren Song' seems to bring voices from a crystalline world to a point of convergence with spontaneously emerging musical structures. In 'Cocoon', something we deem familiar -- a hint of a blues riff -- is borne away in the subsequent thematic element like a trace of sound blown there by a chance breeze. Even in the calmer sequences of the session, the spectre of leaden contemplation never raises its head. In Aichinger's music, the pauses between the individual notes are an important structural element. One example of this is the insistence of his percussive accompaniment in 'Phoenix', over which the brass instruments soar in a wondrous choreography. Other passages feature a perplexing playing with the randomness of sound episodes. In 'Ritornell', the way the brass players suddenly come in after a plethora of sublime motif sequences is just one of the imaginative demonstrations of this conception, which is dominated by exquisite melodies and sounds."
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BTL 002
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With Gerry Hemingway (drums), Franziska Baumann (flute, vocals), Nathalie Saudan (violin), Daniela Beltraminelli (violin), Peter Schärli (trumpet), Jean-Jaques Pedretti (trombone), Michel Wintsch (piano), Jean-Philippe Zwahlen (guitar), Martin Schütz (cello), Lucas Niggli (drums), Jean Kéraudren (sound).
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