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Composer Hermann Meier, an unconventional avant-gardist

Hermann Meier (1906-2002) was a school teacher in the village of Zullwil in the so-called Schwarzbubenland and had five children to feed. Despite all this, he always found time to work on his unusual compositions – even if initially merely destined to sit on a shelf, as he experienced no major successes or performances during his lifetime. His legacy has been analysed by musicologist Michelle Ziegler.

An interview with Friederike Kenneweg.

 

Ausschnitt aus dem grafischen Plan von Hermann Meier für sein Stück für zwei Klaviere HMV44 aus dem Jahr 1958. Vergilbtes Papier mit Linien, darauf mit Buntstift in rot, schwarz und blau eingetragene Flächen-
A section of the graphic plan for a piano piece by Hermann Meier from 1958 (HMV44). Hermann Meier called these plans ‘Mondriane’, which he created from the 1950s onwards before he worked out the pieces in musical notation. The composer’s legacy has been at the Paul Sacher Foundation since 2009 – and with it a large number of these prints, rolled up and stowed away in boxes. © Paul Sacher Stiftung.

 

Friederike Kenneweg
‘It all started when I first heard Hermann Meier’s during a concert back in 2011,’ recalls Michelle Ziegler, ‘I was immediately fascinated by it.’ Back then, Tamriko Kordzaia and Dominik Blum played Hermann Meier’s Thirteen Pieces for Two Pianos from 1959.
‘These are thirteen separate sections with very different characters. At that time, I was already working on the realisation of artistic ideas in music, and I found this to be consistently implemented here.’

 

 


The Thirteen Pieces for Two Pianos reveal the multifaceted nature of Hermann Meier’s music, which can be loud and direct, but also delicate and sometimes humorous. Tamriko Kordzaia, Dominik Blum, Concert 19th of May 2011, Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, produced by SRG/SSR.
When Michelle Ziegler learned that the composer’s works were sitting largely unexplored at the Paul Sacher Foundation and that there all kinds of graphic plans were to be discovered there, she found her dissertation project. “That ended up being the focus of my project: Meier’s piano music and his pictorial notation.”

 

Die Musikwissenschaftlerin Michelle Ziegler bei einer Führung durch die Ausstellung "Mondrian-Musik. Die graphischen Welten des Komponisten Hermann Meier". © Daniel Allenbach/HKB
Michelle Ziegler during a guided tour of the’Mondrian-Musik exhibition. The graphic worlds of composer Hermann Meier’ (Kunstmuseum Solothurn, October 2017 – February 2018) © Daniel Allenbach/HKB. .

 

Notes in school notebooks

In order to be able to read Meier’s notes, Michelle Ziegler even learnt a special shorthand writing. The composer, who had unlimited access to exercise books as a primary school teacher, constantly recorded his thoughts in this form: on music, contemporary art and the progress of his work.
‘You could almost call him a graphomaniac,’ says Michelle Ziegler. The large number of exercise books, plans and sheet music that are now in the Paul Sacher Foundation could keep one busy for a lifetime.

 

At odds with his time’s music scene

The fact that, despite his constant productivity, Hermann Meier received little recognition during his lifetime is due to his unconventional compositional path. He had been studying twelve-tone music on his own since the 1930s and initially found a sympathetic teacher in Wladimir Vogel after the Second World War. However, he increasingly turned away from it, first finding an even more radical approach to serial composition and finally, inspired by the visual arts of Piet Mondrian and Hans Arp, moving on to work with sound surfaces. From 1955 onwards, Meier worked with graphic plans in which he visually sketched the structure that he later translated into musical notation.
His way of composing encountered little understanding at the time. Although endeavouredly searching for performance opportunities, he only received rejections, but nevertheless continued to compose unwaveringly, although only for the shelves.

 

Der Komponist Hermann Meier 1979 in Yverdon am Klavier.
Hermann Meier 1979 in Yverdon. © Privat

 

Sound as canvas

Keyboard instruments play a central role in the Meier’s work, as he was himself a very good pianist. A work that Michelle Ziegler particularly appreciates is the 1958 piece for two pianos (Hermann Meier-Verzeichnis HMV 44).
“This is a stunning piece in my opinion. I can listen to it again and again and always hear different things.”

 

 


In the piece for two pianos HMV 44 written in 1958, here played by von Tamriko Kordzaia and Dominik Blum, Hermann Meier experimented with three structural elements dots, lines and areas.

 

 

Ausschnitt aus dem graphischen Plan zu dem Stück für zwei Klaviere HMV44 von Hermann Meier aus dem Jahr 1958. Auf vergilbten Karopapier sind schwarze, blaue und rote Flächen eingezeichnet, mit Bleistift Anmerkungen des Komponisten verzeichnet. © Paul-Sacher-Stiftung, Basel
Detail of the graphic plan for the piece for two pianos HMV 44, in which the three formal elements dots, lines and areas are expressed in different colours. Dots are red, lines blue and areas black. © Paul Sacher Stiftung, Basel

 

Late recognition:Klangschichten’

The fact that Meier’s efforts to have his works performed did not bear fruit was also due to the fact that they were too difficult for the instrumentalists of the time. It is therefore not surprising that the composer turned to electronic music. In 1976, at the age of seventy, he indeed succeeded in realising his first work for tape, Klangschichten, in the SWF experimental studio – with which he was awarded a prize in December of the same year.

 

A new style in his later years

From 1984 onwards, pianist and composer Urs Peter Schneider took an interest in Hermann Meier’s music and premiered some of his works as part of the ‘Neue Horizonte Bern’ concert series.

 


Piano piece for Urs Peter Schneider, played by Gilles Grimaitre
With the late opportunity to see his instrumental pieces performed, Hermann Meier once again developed a new style. Michelle Ziegler discovers this, for example, in the Piano Piece for Urs Peter Schneider from 1987.
Concert HKB Bern 2017, SRG/SSR Eigenproduktion.

 

“The rhythm as well as the element of duration became very important. By then he was already over eighty and changed his composing considerably because he became even more fascinated by other aspects.”

In the meantime, Hermann Meier’s work has received a fair amount of attention. In 2018, his piece for large orchestra and piano four hands from 1965 was premiered at the Donaueschingen Music Festival. Michelle Ziegler particularly enjoys concerts like this. “It’s important to me that Hermann Meier’s music doesn’t just remain on paper, it should be heard.”
Friederike Kenneweg
 

 
The Paul Sacher Stiftung has organised and restored the composers archives and compiled a catalogue. Composer and bassoonist Marc Kilchenmann made the sheet music available as a facsimile edition published by aart Verlag.
Pianist Dominik Blum has recorded the complete works for piano solo by Hermann Meier from 1948 onwards.
Michelle Ziegler published the volume Musikalische Geometrie. Die bildlichen Modelle und Arbeitsmittel im Klavierwerk Hermann Meiers and, together with Heidy Zimmermann and Roman Brotbek, the catalogue for the exhibition Mondrian-Musik. Die graphischen Welten des Komponisten Hermann Meier.

 

Sendung SRF Kultur:
Kontext, 10.1.2018: Hermann Meier, ein lang verkannter Musikpionier, Autor Moritz Weber

neo-profile:
Hermann Meier, Urs Peter Schneider, Gilles Grimaître, Tamriko Kordzaia, Dominik Blum, Marc Kilchenmann

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Wave after wave

Friedemann Dupelius: 40+1 years of Basel Sinfonietta

Friedemann Dupelius
“An orchestra, unlike a chamber ensemble, has a certain inertia that one must first overcome in order to activate all its instruments and sounds,” says Kevin Juillerat. Although the Franco-Swiss composer is not a physicist, he is quite familiar with both properties and treatment of sound waves. Proof is the grey acoustic treatment on the walls of his current Paris residence at IRCAM, the electronic paradise. From there he discusses Waves, his first composition for the large orchestra that will be premiered on January 16, 2022 as 3rd concert of the Basel Sinfonietta’s anniversary season.  

The Sinfonietta’s history has little to do with inertia though. In 1980, enthusiastic musicians founded an orchestra that remained unique to this day with its exclusive focus on contemporary music. The Basel Sinfonietta is still self-governing and democratic with a board consisting of orchestra members and elected from within the ensemble, as is the programme commission. Daniela Martin, its managing director since September 2020 states: “Starting from its free spirit, the orchestra grew to become firmly anchored in the professional music scene”.

 

The Basel Sinfonietta likes to present thematic concerts, like the legendary “Sport and Music” programme, directed by Mark Fitz-Gerald in September 1989.

 

Without a doubt, its 40th year was also Basel Sinfonietta’s most difficult one, marked by uncertainty and distance both from the audience as well as between the musicians, instead of great anniversary celebrations. Suddenly, distances had to be kept, which also brought acoustic consequences – the much-cited distancing takes on an audible quality when the musicians are far apart in the room. With the no less difficult return to a normal line-up, the audience has also been welcomed back and with great news: the number of subscribers having increased during lockdown and times of streaming concerts. This means that the slightly belated anniversary “40+1” can now be celebrated in front of a growing pool of fans and curious people. Daniela Martin speaks highly re the Basel audience: “People get involved and there is a dense atmosphere during the concerts, a palpable enthusiasm. People are not there to criticise, but to listen with open ears to the new and newest music.”

 


Isabel Klaus, Dried – Für Orchester, UA Basel Sinfonietta 2007, in-house production SRG/SSR: One of Basel Sinfonietta’s main goals is to provide a platform for young Swiss composers. Many others have benefited from this before Kevin Juillerat, such as Isabel Klaus with her work Dried.

 
Does a contemporary music orchestra tend to look back or forward when it celebrates an anniversary? “Both.” Daniela Martin says “But mainly we look to the present and the future. What social perspectives and utopias can we illuminate in our programmes?” In this special season, the Sinfonietta is addressing issues such as migration and relationships between Western and non-European music. In October, for example, the Bolivian “Orquestra Experimental de Instrumentos Nativos” was invited to perform an intercontinental programme together with the Basel Sinfonietta, featuring music by South American and Swiss composers.

 


Roberto Gerhard, Sinfonie Nr. 4 „New York“ (UA 1967), Basel Sinfonietta 2003, in-house prodduction SRG/SSR: Migration shaped the life of the Olten-born composer Roberto Gerhard. The Basel Sinfonietta already recorded his 4th Symphony with Johannes Kalitzke in 2003; the first will be performed during the January 16 concert.

 

The concert on the 16th of January at Stadtcasino Basel runs under the motto “Gravity Migration”, implying both external and internal migratory movements – the former, for example, in Roberto Gerhard’s work. This Catalonia born composer, who died in 1970, had family roots in Olten and wrote music from his British exile. He is represented with his 1st Symphony, dating from 1952/53. With Hèctor Parra, the journey goes inwards and at the same time into the widest distances – his 2011 work InFALL is about gravity and cosmological meditations on human existence.  

 

With Waves, commissioned to Kevin Juillerat, the Basel Sinfonietta continues its mission to offer a platform to young Swiss composers – especially those who, like Juillerat, have never written for orchestra before. Does he feel pressured by the task? “Rather challenged, even though I work a lot with electronic as well as rock music influences, I always felt connected to the symphonic tradition. It doesn’t scare me. The orchestra is a great instrument.”

 

Portrait Kevin Juillerat © Didier Jordan / Archiv Basel Sinfonietta

 

The 1987 born composer and saxophonist, thereby reveals his approach to the symphonic entity, which he sees it as a great meta-instrument able to create new timbres through combination and slow processes. He also incorporates techniques from electronic music, such as ring modulation – a simple form of sound synthesis in which two sound signals can be manipulated to create a third and new one.

 

Kevin Juillerat, Le vent d’orages lointains – for piano and strings, Camerata Ataremac / Gilles Grimaitre 2018, in-house production SRG/SSR: Layers of timbre and slowly changing textures can also be found in Kevin Juillerat’s “Le vent d’orages lointains” (2018) for piano and strings.

“In my last electroacoustic pieces, I worked a lot with slowly evolving textures. I wanted to implement that with the orchestra as well, so towards the end of the piece there’s a drone, that is a very long held tone, which is changed in its spectrum through ring modulation.” Specifically, Juillerat puts tones on the drone to go with this modulation, derived from the core cell of his piece: six notes obtained from the letters B-A-S-E-L and SI for Sinfonietta. “I worked a lot on ever changing timbres, trying to disguise the individual instruments in terms of their identification. It’s all about colours,” Juillerat emphasises.  

 

It was this quality of his music that impressed Baldur Brönnimann when he performed a piece by Juillerat with the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne. That’s why the Basel Sinfonietta main conductor suggested Juillerat for the commissioned work, which will make its first waves before the Basel audience on 16 January. As slowly as an orchestra needs to really get going – and, once it is moving, as gracefully as the Basel Sinfonietta would like to tackle the next 40+1 years.
Friedemann Dupelius

You can enjoy a large selection of the Basel Sinfonietta audio and video archive on its neo.mx3 profile.

 

Basel Sinfonietta: Saison 40+1:
upcoming season

IRCAM, Roberto Gerhard, Daniela Martin, Hèctor Parra, Baldur Brönnimann, Orquestra Experimental de Instrumentos Nativos, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne

neo-profiles:
Kevin Juillerat, Basel Sinfonietta, Isabel Klaus, Gilles Grimaitre

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un projet est avant tout une rencontre…

Composer, performer and curator Alexandre Babel has been awarded one of the Swiss Music Prizes of the Federal Office of Culture 2021. The award ceremony took place in Lugano on September, 17 2021. In this interview, Babel explains his point of view on composition and curation and how he combines these two activities.

 

Portrait Alexandre Babel © Felix Brueggemann 2021

Gabrielle Weber
Alexandre Babel, percussionist, composer and curator, can be seen on avant-garde concert stages, at jazz festivals, in galleries and at art biennials. Based between Berlin and Geneva (his hometown), he combines classical avant-garde music, sound art, experimental improvisation and performance.  

There are as many ways of composing as there are composers, says Babel and he therefore prefers to define composition as “the organisation of sounds in time and space”. Curating is also close to this understanding of composition. “Same here, it’s all about setting existing sound objects in motion in a certain place at a certain time and then connecting these objects with other objects.  

Composing and curating are different aspects of the same activity. Babel creates, conceives, stages, networks and interprets.  

Alexandre Babel, born in Geneva in 1980, first found his way to jazz through drum lessons in Geneva. He then specialised in New York with jazz legends such as Joey Baron or Jeff Hirshfield and played in various formations. “What fascinated me about jazz was not just the aesthetics, but rather how musicians interacted to create music. Mixing repertoire and improvisation: that was the basis of making music for me.”  

Also being attracted by the classical avant-garde, Babel soon switched to classical percussion and, back in Europe, found his way to composition. John Cage, Morton Feldman, Alvin Lucier, Heiner Goebbels or Helmut Lachenmann were the ground-breaking figures and inspirators in Babel’s compositional path.

From his very first pieces already, such as music for small audiences for snare drum solo, the importance of the performer plays an important role.
“Music for small audiences was the beginning a real love affair between me and the snare drum..”

 


In one of his first pieces, ‘music for small audiences‘ Babel explores new sounds for solo snare drum and brings the role of percussion in the music business into focus.

 

Performer – Improviser – Composer

As a drummer, Babel is a touring musician wearing many hats: a fine, quiet improviser, loud, experimental drummer, for example with the band “Sudden infant” in a duo with Joke Lanz, or an interpreter of contemporary drum repertoire in various formations.   

Additionally, he composes, curates and develops projects for his own formations, such as the Berlin collective Radial, together with video artist Mio Chareteau.  

“To make music includes several processes in my opinion. First of all ‘thinking’ the music, which means composing, then transmitting the music and finally perform it for an audience: I’m fascinated by all of them.”   

All of his activities are linked by a convergence of creation and interpretation, as well as an interest in the visual, spatial and performative aspects.

“What do I want to see and what do I want to hear…. ”

For Babel, composing always begins with or even boils down to an encounter. Thus, his compositions are mostly created for specific musicians.  

He always has the performers in mind when writing and is also inspired by their movements and gestures. In the piece The way down for Duo Orion, for example, Babel took the duo’s interplay as starting point and staged it acoustically and also performatively.

 

Alexandre Babel, The way down pour violoncelle et piano, Duo Orion (Gilles Grimaître, piano, Elas Dorbath, Cello) 2020

 

“At the beginning of a project I ask myself: ‘What do I want to see and what do I want to hear’: To me, the visual side is just as important as the sound. Duo Orion, for example, has a special physicality when performing. I developed a piece for them in which the gestures are almost athletic. It almost became dance or a choreography,”.

Curating as a permanent dialogue

Babel says that his three activities – composition, interpretation and curation – have ideally come together in the artistic direction of les amplitudes Festival (La-Chaux-de-Fonds, autumn 2020). “I had the chance to combine all aspects within one object -the festival and at the same time the city of La Chaux-de-Fonds: I thought of the festival as a giant composition in separate parts – an art exhibition, live performances, drum sets and spatial compositions blending together in one new unity”.  

Since 2013, Babel has led the percussion ensemble Eklekto Geneva Percussion Center, consisting of some 20 musicians in a loose line-up. “Eklekto offers me the opportunity to develop unusual percussive situations. All projects are created in close exchange and collaboration with the composers and the musicians. “Curating is a permanent dialogue with the musicians involved”.  

 

Attentive listening

Pauline Olivero’s piece Earth ears, a so-called ‘Sonic Ritual‘ from 1989 for free instrumentation, is characteristic of Babel’s understanding of curation: “The musicians play by ear and there is no written score. One has to listen to himself as well as to the whole ensemble and react to it. The piece is about sound, space and attentive listening: to me, those are the basics of making music”.

 


Pauline Oliveros’ piece ‘Earth ears’, a ‘sonic ritual’ and openly interpretable piece from 1989, is characteristic of Babel’s approach to curation.

 

Another important project is his large percussion ensemble with 15 percussionists from the Eklekto pool. “We have clear rules: we play by heart and there is no conducting: playing without a leader creates an enormous energy and presence and at the same time opens up new ways of communication, in an almost radical way”.

 

Choeur mixte reflects the classical setting of chamber music and at the same time puts the often underestimated classical instrument ‘snare drum’ in a new spot-light. Another declaration of love to the snare drum.

 

In the piece ‘choeur mixte’ for 15 snare drums, the percussionists play their instruments standing in the shape of a wedge, on a lit, empty stage. They act strongly in relation to one another and the piece radiates power as a group and at the same time individual responsibility of the performers.

 

Music without sound

 

Among other things, Babel is currently working on a composition commissioned by the Venice Art Biennale 2022, designing the Swiss pavilion together with Swiss-based Franco-Moroccan visual artist Latifa Echakhch. Babel faces a special challenge in this case, as Echakhch wants him to create a composition without real sound. “This is an important and special task for me: through the joint creation process, we are approaching solutions on how music can sound without sound,” says Babel. At the moment, short pieces of music are being created for this purpose, which will form the basis for the final Music of Silence. Gabrielle Weber

 

Portrait Alexandre Babel ©Felix Brueggemann (2021)

 

On Friday, September 17, 2021, the Swiss Music Price ceremony will take place at Lugano Arte e Cultura (LAC) in Lugano. During that weekend, some of the prize winners will perform as part of Lugano’s Longlake Festival.  

This year’s Grand Prix musique went to Stephan Eicher.
The other prize winners are:
Alexandre Babel, Chiara Banchini, Yilian Canizares, Viviane Chassot, Tom Gabriel Fischer, Jürg Frey, Lionel Friedli, Louis Jucker, Christine Lauterburg, Roland Moser, Roli Mosimann, Conrad Steinmann, Manuel Troller and Nils Wogram.

Concerts Alexandre Babel:
Sunday, 19.9.21, 10:30h at Studio Foce, Lugano:
Alexandre Babel e Niton +ROM visuals 

23.4.-27.11.2022 Biennale Arte Venezia: Alexandre Babel & Latifa Echakhch @Swiss Pavilion Venezia Biennale

 

Joke Lanz, Joey Baron, Jeff Hirshfield, Pauline Oliveros, Biennale Arte 2022, John Cage, Morton Feldman, Alvin Lucier, Heiner Goebbels, Helmut Lachenmann, Latifa Echakhch, Kollektiv Radial, Mio Chareteau, Elsa Dorbath

 

Sendungen SRF 2 Kultur:
in: Musikmagazin, 18./19.9.21: Alexandre Babel – Träger BAK-Musikpreis 2021 im Gespräch mit Gabrielle Weber, Redaktion Annelis Berger

Musik unserer Zeit, 16.6.21: Alexandre Babel – Perkussionist, Komponist, Kurator, Redaktion Gabrielle Weber

neoblog, 14.10.2020: La ville – une composition géante, Text Anya Leveillé

 

Neo-Profiles:
Alexandre Babel, Les amplitudes, Eklekto Geneva Percussion Center, Duo Orion, Gilles Grimaître

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Hyper Hyper!

Gabrielle Weber
Hyper Hyper!? Hyper Duo masters the art of escalation to excess. Pianist Gilles Grimaitre and percussionist Julien Mégroz consistently focus on energy, rhythm and satire. There seem to be no musical styles nor performance boundaries for the duo. Moving between classical avant-garde and pop-rock, Hyper Duo transcends common perceptions in a playful and humorous way. Their new programme Hyper Grid will be premiered at the Gare du Nord – Bahnhof für Neue Musik Basel.  

 

Hyper Duo © 2020 Pablo Fernandez. Bienne, le 07 octobre 2020. HyperDuo, séance vinyl 01

The two artists define Hyper Duo as ‘experimental band’. Julien Mégroz comes from Lausanne and after studying there, he specialised in contemporary music at Basel’s FHNW. Gilles Grimaitre, from Geneva, studied at Bern’s HKB and went on winning a scholarship at Frankfurt’s international Ensemble Moderne Akademie. Both describe themselves as performers, improvisers, composers as well as project inventors.  

Overcoming stylistic and genre boundaries and expanding horizons is the central focus of their duo, always in close collaboration with other artists and musicians. Energetic and humorous, Hyper Duo moves between traditional composition from the classical avant-garde, rocking electro-energy and absurd poetry. They draw inspiration both from popular and cultivated music.  

New pieces for their chosen instrumentation as well as modern classics, supplemented with experimental electronics, video or even objects, form the musical core, with compositions provided by likeminded musicians or themselves.  

Several Hyper programmes already stand for the unconventional approach to traditional concert formats, bearing titles like Hyper Cut, Hyper Stuck, Hyper Fuzz oder Hyper Rift.

 


Hyper Rift, Trailer ©Musikfestival Bern 2020

 

Hyper Rift, for example, consisted in a light and sound installation controlled by seismographic data at the Bern 2020 Music Festival. During a live performance inside Bern’s Monbijou Bridge, the duo, together with video artist Pascal Meury, made tectonic shifts audible and tangible. With percussion and synthesizer, they also pushed the volume to a limit just tolerable.  

In Hyper Temper, a trio programme with percussionist Miguel Angel Garcia Martin, the two questioned the grand piano as instrument for its role in the music business, music history, but also as an everyday life object. In Cathy van Eck’s ‘pièce d’ameublement‘, it became an ornamental plant-bearing piece of furniture and thus symbol of bourgeois lifestyle in the 19th century.   

 

In Hyper Grid, the two now perform again on their core instruments – amplified piano, drumset and electronics – as a follow up to their previous projects Hyper Fuzz and Hyper Cut.  

Hyper Cut humorously complemented drumset, piano and electronics with video, voice and objects in new works by Simon Steen-Andersen, Sarah Nemtsov or Wolfgang Heiniger, among others.

 


Hyper Duo: Hyper Cut, Simon Steen-Andersen, difficulties putting it into practice, Video ©Hyper Duo

 

The Hyper Fuzz project, on the other hand, combined new, explicitly groovy pieces and modern classics with references to pop, rock and jazz, supplemented with electronic interludes by young Swiss sound inventor Cyrill Lim. Works by Frank Zappa, who himself combined electronic and electronic music in aesthetic projects, were heard alongside music by Stockhausen or young Lausanne composer Nicolas von Ritter. The programme was performed in classical concert halls and festivals as well as in rock and jazz clubs.

 


Hyper Duo / Hyper Fuzz @Taktlos Festival Zürich 2018, Video ©Hyper Duo

In the new project, Hyper Duo deepens its collaboration with two artists:
Serbian composer Marko Nikodijevic, who joins them himself on electronics for the world premiere of his grid/index [ I ] for the Hyper Duo. In his works, Nikodijevic likes to combine traditional instruments with digital sounds, using techno and pop techniques. Grid / index [ I ] is based on a work of the same name by artist Carsten Nicolai, a huge collection of drawings of two-dimensional grids and patterns. Nikodijevic translates the reference into simple rhythmic and melodic patterns reminiscent of the so-called ‘minimal techno’ of the 90s.  

 

Portrait Kevin Juillerat © zVg Kevin Juillerat

 

Kevin Juillerat, composer from Lausanne, refers to Nikodijevic in his work L’Être-On. His piece is based on a text by the surreal poet Antonin Artaud from a radio programme the artist produced himself in the 1940s. Juillerat explores the analogy between poetry and sound, creating a rhythmic, electronics-infused half-hour ‘mini-oratorio’.

 


Kevin Juillerat, le vent d’orages lointains, for piano and strings, UA 2018

 

 

The two experimental musicians from the French-speaking part of Switzerland never fail to offer subversively funny but also musically poetic programmes, which is plain to see in their numerous videos. Whether hyper hyper can still be intensified is best determined live in the new programme Hyper Grid, on June 2, at the Gare du Nord and from November onwards at several other venues. Especially since live concerts are now possible again, after such a long time.  
Gabrielle Weber

 

Hyper Duo © 2020 Pablo Fernandez. Bienne, le 21 novembre 2020. HyperDuo, séance vinyl 02

The Gare du Nord – Bahnhof für Neue Musik Basel invites ensembles from the French-speaking part of Switzerland during three seasons for the Focus Romandie series. Hyper Grid is the third and last programme of this first season.  

The new works “L’Être-On” for amplified piano, percussion, voice and effect pedals by Kevin Juillerat and “grid/index [ I ]” for drumset, piano and electronics by Marko Nikodijevic will be premiered.  

 

Concerts
2.6. 21 Gare du Nord Basel
4.11.21 IGNM Zürich
17.12.21 Salle Farel, Bienne

Indigne de nous, Hyper Duo’s first studio album will be released on June 5, 2021 by Everest Records. 

 

Marko Nikodijevic, Frank Zappa, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Carsten Nicolai, Antonin Artaud, Sarah Nemtsov, Wolfgang Heiniger, Miguel Angel Garcia Martin

neo-Profiles:
HYPER DUO, Kevin Juillerat, Gilles Grimaitre, Julien Mégroz, Cathy van Eck, Simon Steen-Andersen, Cyrill Lim, Nicolas von Ritter, Gare du Nord

 

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“…play until we drop…”

 

Portrait Urs Peter Schneider ©Aart-Verlag

As part of the Focus Contemporary festival, Musikpodium Zurich is celebrating Urs Peter Schneider’s 80th birthday.
Tribute to a ‘one-of-a-kind’ by Thomas Meyer:

The 60s were a very exciting time for music, as forms dissolved and concepts, happenings, performances, aleatoric concepts and improvisation took the place of written works. While many soon returned to more traditional procedures, one group in Switzerland stubbornly devoted itself to this new openness: “Ensemble Neue Horizonte Bern”, founded in 1968 and still active to this day. “We will” – as one member of the ensemble once stated – “play until we drop”. Without this Ensemble there would probably be no Cage tradition as well as less conceptual music in Switzerland.

Ensemble Neue Horizonte Bern

Swiss Cage Tradition

Urs Peter Schneider has occupied the special position of “Spiritus rector” in this composers and interpreters collective since the beginning. Born in Bern, currently living and happily crafting his compositions, texts, structures and concepts in Biel, he celebrates his eightieth birthday this year.

For this special occasion, Musikpodium Zürich is organising a concert as part of the Focus Contemporary festival: Dominik Blum will perform piano pieces by Schneider, his Neue Horizonte colleague Peter Streiff and Hermann Meier, whose almost forgotten work Schneider has consistently stood up for. In addition to his 1977 “Chorbuch”, the choir “vokativ zürich” will perform the new work “Engelszungenreden” (angel tongues speeches), whose title indicates that Schneider’s music also likes to point up, towards more spiritual directions.


Hermann Meier, Klavierstück für Urs Peter Schneider, HMV 99, 1987

Composer/pianist/interpreter/performer/educator in one, Schneider is one of those ‘one-of-a-kind figures’, that are not uncommon in Switzerland. It is not easy to describe his music as it can be extremely varied and he often changes his procedures. Schneider likes to work with strategies, essentially following the serial techniques in which his music has its roots, often tinkering for a long time and thoroughly with permutation of tones, instruments, volumes etc. until they finally come together. For this purpose, he develops his own radical gestures of persistence.


Urs Peter Schneider, ‘Getrost, ein leiser Abschied’ für zwei Traversflöten und Bassblockflöte, 2015

Radical persistence gestures

But it goes even further, as Schneider applies such strategies not only to tones, but also to words, graphics and theatrical actions, actually to almost everything that surrounds his work, including dates, or credits. The concert programmes are also composed – another important quality of Neue Horizonte. “The components of a performance relate, complement and comment each other in a sophisticated way”. Likewise, when books or CDs are published, his pieces are never loosely assembled, Schneider rather creates a new constellation for the entire oeuvre, being a strategist obsessed with order.

Urs Peter Schneider: meridian-1-atemwende ©aart-verlag

Every element is twisted and turned, in an ongoing discovery and invention of new processes. He can actually be defined as a process composer and thus very close to conceptual music, a genre he dedicated 2016 his book “Konzeptuelle Musik – Eine kommentierte Anthologie” to, which can be considered an exemplary and indispensable compendium.

The spontaneity of these open forms probably also acts as a corrective to strictness. Sometimes the liveliness and flexibility could get lost in these procedures and order might turn out to bury these aspects. But that is precisely when surprising things often occur. For Schneider’s work contains wit, even cheerfulness, in sometimes unusual places, other times with soothing self-irony.
Thomas Meyer

Hermann Meier, Stück für grosses Orchester und drei Klaviere, 1964, HMV 60 ©Privatbesitz

The “Focus Contemporary Zürich” festival will take place from November 27, to December 1: Tonhalle Zürich, Collegium Novum Zürich, Zürcher Hochschule der Künste and Musikpodium Zürich will jointly present a selection between of experimental creations and works by renowned masters in five concerts at venues such as “Tonhalle Maag”, “ZKO-Haus” or “Musikclub Mehrspur” of the “Zürcher Hochschule der Künste”.

Focus Contemporary Zürich, 27. 11.- 1. 12, concerts:
27.11., 20h ZHdK, Musikklub Mehrspur: Y-Band: Werke von Matthieu Shlomowitz, Alexander Schubert
28.11., 19:30h Musikpodium Zürich, ZKO-Haus: Urs Peter Schneider zum Achtzigsten: Werke von Urs Peter Schneider, Hermann Meier, Peter Streiff
29.11., 19:30h Tonhalle Orchester, Tonhalle Maag: Heinz Holliger zum Achtzigsten: Werke von Heinz Holliger und Bernd Alois Zimmermann
30.11., 20h Collegium Novum Zürich, Tonhalle Maag: Werke von Sergej Newski (UA), Heinz Holliger, Isabel Mundry und Mark Andre
1. 12., 11h ZHdK, Studierende der ZHdK: Werke von Heinz Holliger, Mauro Hertig, Karin Wetzel, Micha Seidenberg, Stephanie Haensler

Musikpodium Zürich, Aart-Verlag

Neo-profiles: Zürcher Hochschule der Künste, Collegium Novum Zürich, Urs Peter Schneider, Hermann Meier, Heinz Holliger, Peter Streiff, Stephanie Haensler, Karin Wetzel, Gilles Grimaitre, Dominik Blum