FRIDAY / 12.08, 20.00 – 22.00 / Ensemble Phoenix plays Antoine Chessex / Kasper Toeplitz / Robert Piotrowicz / Kinoteatr Zdrowie

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ENSEMBLE PHOENIX PLAYS ANTOINE CHESSEX / KASPER TOEPLITZ / ROBERT PIOTROWICZ Sanatorium Dźwięku 2016 fot. Tomek Ogrodowyczk
ENSEMBLE PHOENIX PLAYS ANTOINE CHESSEX / KASPER TOEPLITZ / ROBERT PIOTROWICZ Sanatorium Dźwięku 2016 fot. Tomek Ogrodowyczk
ENSEMBLE PHOENIX PLAYS ANTOINE CHESSEX / KASPER TOEPLITZ / ROBERT PIOTROWICZ
ENSEMBLE PHOENIX PLAYS ANTOINE CHESSEX / KASPER TOEPLITZ / ROBERT PIOTROWICZ Sanatorium Dźwięku 2016 fot. Tomek Ogrodowyczk
ENSEMBLE PHOENIX PLAYS ANTOINE CHESSEX / KASPER TOEPLITZ / ROBERT PIOTROWICZ
ENSEMBLE PHOENIX PLAYS ANTOINE CHESSEX / KASPER TOEPLITZ / ROBERT PIOTROWICZ Sanatorium Dźwięku 2016 fot. Tomek Ogrodowyczk
ENSEMBLE PHOENIX PLAYS ANTOINE CHESSEX / KASPER TOEPLITZ / ROBERT PIOTROWICZ Sanatorium Dźwięku 2016 fot. Tomek Ogrodowyczk
ENSEMBLE PHOENIX PLAYS ANTOINE CHESSEX / KASPER TOEPLITZ / ROBERT PIOTROWICZ Sanatorium Dźwięku 2016 fot. Tomek Ogrodowyczk
ENSEMBLE PHOENIX PLAYS ANTOINE CHESSEX / KASPER TOEPLITZ / ROBERT PIOTROWICZ
ENSEMBLE PHOENIX PLAYS ANTOINE CHESSEX / KASPER TOEPLITZ / ROBERT PIOTROWICZ Sanatorium Dźwięku 2016 fot. Tomek Ogrodowyczk

12 August / FRIDAY / 20.00 / Kinoteatr Zdrowie ul.Główna 36

Ensemble Phoenix plays
Antoine Chessex / Kasper Toeplitz / Robert Piotrowicz

Antoine Chessex – “Metakatharsis” (30’)

Kasper Toeplitz: “Rupture & Dissipation” (30’)

Robert Piotrowicz: “Grund” / “Apendic” (30’)

The “Ensemble Phoenix Basel” invites annually experimental musicians with rather non-academic background to cooperate. These artists come from areas such as noise, free improvisation, sound art, etc. From this series of concerts, which we call “blank”, the cooperation with the Polish sound artists Kasper Toeplitz and Robert Piotrowicz and the Swiss saxophonist and composer Antoine Chessex originated. The invited musicians are commissioned to design one work for the half of a concert. This “conceptual composition” is then rehearsed in the presence of the artists during an intensive week and leads to a concert – in most cases performed together with the creators of the works. The musical ideas are often not transported in these projects through traditional notation, but can be based on graphics, sound files, verbal instructions, timelines, etc. and need to be “translated” into music. This requires of the participating members of the ensemble additional knowledge in the field of electronics and openness for unusual musical paths. Precisely because of this different creative process arises an innovative music.

Swiss composer Alex Buess is connected with the “Ensemble Phoenix Basel” by a decade’s long friendship. He works both as a sound mixer and as a composer with us. His compositions are his musicians written on the body and are developed together with them.

Musicians: Jürg Henneberger -Conductor/Piano,  Christoph Bösch -Flutes, Toshiko Sakakibara -Clarinets, Jens Bracher -Trumpet, Remo Schnyder -Saxophone, Samuel Wettstein – Synthesizer/Piano, Sebastian Hofmann -Percussion, Maurizio Grandinetti -E-Guitar, Aleksander Gabrys -Doublebass, Thomas Peter -Electronics, Christof Stürchler -Soundengineer

 

Personnel

The Ensemble Phoenix Basel was founded in 1998 by Swiss conductor and pianist Jürg Henneberger, flutist Christoph Bösch and percussionist Daniel Buess. Right from the start, this highly versatile orchestra for contemporary music had a significant impact on the cultural scene of its home city. Today, it is one of the most important groups of its kind in Switzerland and has also gained an international reputation.

The number of musicians onstage can range from two to almost thirty, making the ensemble ideally suited for performing the works of contemporary composers. This might be fairly common practice in companies these days, but what gives the Ensemble Phoenix Basel its unique edge is how it incorporates, and is driven by, the impulses and preferences of its individual members.

Location and Orientation

The Ensemble Phoenix has had close ties to the cultural centre Gare du Nord ever since its opening. The centre, located in Basel’s German railway station Badischer Bahnhof in the north of the city, not only serves as a venue for the ensemble’s annual concert series, but is also where the group works and rehearses as orchestra-in-residence.

One could certainly describe the Ensemble Phoenix as a „railway station orchestra“ of sorts, but very importantly, it is also a touring company: constantly on the move, exploring new horizons, and coming back with even more projects and new contacts.

This quest for new experiences is characterized by both constancy and curiosity. It allows the group to keep expanding the scope of its activities, from the aforementioned concert series at Gare du Nord to small tours in Switzerland or appearances at international festivals. As Ensemble Phoenix Basel could celebrate its 15-year anniversary on December 12th 2013, its musicians are in full stride: for a decade and a half, they have been cultivating and promoting a form of diversity without which Basel as a music city would be lacking essential impulses in the contemporary field.

Stages

Even a cursory glance at the group’s schedule reveals an extraordinary range of concert activity. For example, during the last couple of years alone, the ensemble not only performed at numerous events all over Europe (such as the Venice Biennale 2010, or the Bludenz Contemporary Music Days), but also in the U.S. (2011 BEAMS Electronic Music Marathon, Boston), Mexico (Festival del Centro Historico), Argentina (Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires), and China. As part of the Culturescapes Festival, the group visited Turkey and the Baltic countries.

The ensemble’s original programmes developed for Gare du Nord usually get performed in other Swiss cities as well. Over the years, the group has built up a fruitful long-term collaboration with particular venues, such as the cultural centre Dampfzentrale in Bern. The Lucerne Festival, meanwhile, has already hosted three successful performances of the group. For additional productions, the ensemble frequently works with partners such as ISCM Basel, the Basel Music Academy, the city theatre and various choirs and groups from the region. One example of such a partnership is the yearly „Final Concert for Compositions“ at Basel’s University of Music, which is traditionally performed by Ensemble Phoenix as part of its young composer’s support program.

Focus points

The Ensemble Phoenix believes that staging world premiere performances of new compositions, together with all the organisation and commissioning work involved, is an excellent way of supporting and coaching new talent. Numerous young musical creators and composers from Switzerland and elsewhere have benefited from this program – not just occasionally, but on a regular basis. The list of composers that have repeatedly worked together with the ensemble is impressive. Other types of collaboration with composers are also explored, including the joint improvisational creation of concert pieces or even entire programmes. Concept developments and cross-over projects have been realised with musicians such as Kasper Toeplitz, John Duncan, Helmut Oehring, Z’EV, or Zbigniew Karkowski. Projects of this kind require a solid background in electronic music, which Ensemble Phoenix is able to provide thanks to its members Alex Buess and Thomas Peter, both of them composers and specialists in the field. Yet another type of experimental performance are double-bill concerts with other orchestras, such as Ensemble ö! orEnsemble Vortex from Geneva. The close contact and creative friction resulting from such encounters are always a source of stimulation and mutual inspiration.

Contemporary musical theatre plays an important, even central, role in the work of the Ensemble Phoenix. After past collaborations with the Theatre Basel – «The Unanswered Question» with Christoph Marthaler (2000), Mauricio Kagel’s «Mare nostrum» (2002) or Georg Friedrich Haas‘ «In vain» (2003), to name a few – commissions for musical theatre have increasingly been initiated autonomously in recent years. Helena Winkelman’s chamber opera «Envidia» (2011, in collaboration with Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires), Matthias Heep’s «L‘orient n‘existe pas» (2011), or Helmut Oehring’s «Gunten» (2008) are just some of the most recent examples. Besides that, Jürg Henneberger and other ensemble members can often be found among the cast of Gare du Nord’s own musical theatre productions. Acting and scenic know-how are skills that directors have come to expect from ensemble members.

United

A series of CDs documenting the different stages of the group’s development is available, while a concert/portrait CD highlighting the ensemble’s live qualities has been released by Musiques Suisses(Grammont). Moreover, the group has founded its own label, United Phoenix Records, that will compile and regularly release new concert recordings online, along with older treasures from the audio and video archives. United Phoenix Records will also be open to solo and group projects of various Phoenix members. The label aims at establishing a network of „performers, composers and artists“.

Swiss Radio DRS 2 has often been on location at concert evenings of the Ensemble Phoenix Basel, which is why these events are now among the most frequently recorded and broadcast contemporary music productions in the country.

Prices

Ensemble Phoenix Basel received on September 13th 2003 during the „European Culture Award“ ceremonies in Lucerne the „Ensemble Award «Thies Knauf» New Music“, in 2003 the „European Culture Prize“ of the Foundation Pro Europe and both in 2004 and 2006 the Prizes of the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation.

In March 2014, Ensemble Phoenix Basel was nominated among 14 other Swiss music creators from any music branch for the first „Swiss Music Award“ of the BAK. The first „Swiss Grand Prix Music“ will be presented on September 19th 2014 by Federal Councillor Alain Berset at the festival „Label Suisse“ in Lausanne.

André Fatton

http://ensemble-phoenix.ch/en/

Kasper T. Toeplitz

is a composer, electric bass player and musician who has developed his work in the no man’s land between “academic” composition (orchestra, ensembles, opera) and electronic “new music” or “noise music”.

He has won several prizes and distinctions ; 1st prize for orchestral composition at the Besançon Festival, 1st prize at the “Opéra autrement/Acanthes” competition, Villa Médicis Hors les Murs (New York), grant Leonardo da Vinci (San Francisco) , Villa Kujoyama (Kyoto), DAAD (Berlin), Giga Hertz Prise (ZKM, Karlsruhe), Hors-les murs (Poland), got numerous commissions from the French Governement, the radio and Works with electronic studios such as Ircam, GRM , GMEM, CRFMW, EMS, GRAME..
He also works with experimental or unclassifiable musicians such as Zbigniew Karkowski, Dror Feiler, Art Zoyd, Eliane Radigue, Phill Niblock, Francisco Lopez, Ulrich Krieger, z’ev and others…….. and through all those years he has collaborated with numerous projects of contemporary dance, always proposing live music
He has definitively integrated the computer into the very heart of his work, as a tool of thought and composition, and as a live instrument, working on the sheer electronic noise or hybridising more traditional instruments such as his bass.

http://sleazeart.com/

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Robert Piotrowicz

sound artist, composer, improviser.

He has authored radio dramas, sound installations, and music for theatre productions, and collaborates regularly with other artists on audio-visual performances. As an instrumentalist, Piotrowicz works mainly with his own live performance setup, developed around the electric guitar and analogue modular synthesiser. His music has as much in common with contemporary electro-acoustic compositions as it does with sound art. His concerts feature saturated, detailed musical forms created with analogue synthesizers and computers. He has developed his trademark sound of intense dynamics seized in dramatic and balanced structures.

PIotrowicz has released several solo albums as well as collaborations with artists such as Burkhard Stangl, Anna Zaradny, Jérôme Noetinger, C. Spencer Yeh and Kevin Drumm. Other collaborators in recent years included Valerio Tricoli, Oren Ambarchi, Martin Klapper, Zbigniew Karkowski, Łukasz Szałankiewicz, Lasse Marhaug, John Hegre, Kasper Toepltz, Xavier Charles,Tony Buck and others.

Co-founder of the Musica Genera Festival and the Musica Genera label.

robertpiotrowicz.net 
robertpiotrowicz.bandcamp.com

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soundcloud.com/rurokura 

 

Born in Vevey in 1980, Antoine Chessex is a composer and sound artist whose works assume a wide diversity of forms spanning compositions for ensembles, solo performances, sound installations and transdisciplinary projects.
His compositions are characterized by textural density and microtonal tensions often resulting in sound-masses exploring the physical dimensions of spaces. The works of Antoine Chessex have over the years crossed the boundaries between noise, modern composition, improvisation and electronic music. His background as a saxophone player saw him performing extensively in different experimental music contexts over the past decades.
Recent chamber music commissions include DUST (2010) for three violins and electronics, Chute (2011) for the Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin, Schichten (2012) & Ritournelle Fulgurante (2013) for the oh ton Ensemble,Metakatharsis (2011) & Damage is Done (2015) for the Phoenix Ensemble, Furia (2013)  for the Ensemble Werktag in Zürich and Plastic Concrete (2014) & Accumulation (2015)  for the Apartment House in London.
While living in Berlin from 2002 to 2013, Chessex took part in a broad range of artistic projects and developed solo performances playing his horn through electronic devices, guitar amps and PA systems resulting in intense live actions. He performed solo at numerous international festivals and venues worldwide. Chessex is also a founding member of the noise band Monno with whom he toured extensively.
His works have been presented at Cafe OTO (London), Transmediale festival (Berlin), Ultima contemporary music festival (Oslo), Videotage (Hong Kong), Diapason Gallery (New York), Issue Project Room (New York), The Lab (San Francisco), The Compound (San Francisco), Berghain (Berlin), Tuned City festival (Berlin), Sonic Protest festival (Paris), Unsound festival (Krakow), Archipel festival (Geneva), Women (Los Angeles), Ultra Hang festival (Budapest), Parnassos concert hall (Athen), Vaal Gallery (Tallinn), Dom (Moscow), All Ears Festival (Oslo), Corsica Studios (London), Sound Forest festival (Riga), Urban Guild (Kyoto), Urga (Tokyo), Ochiai Soup (Tokyo), Namba Bear (Osaka), Center of contemporary arts (Warsaw), Fundacion Serralves (Porto), Palace Akropolis (Prague), Mezzo Cielo Festival (Roma), Audio Art Festival (Krakow), LUFF festival (Lausanne), Ruin Festival (Wien), Echo festival (Belgrade), Fylkingen (Stockholm), Sendesaal Bremen, DNK (Amsterdam).

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photo by Anton Lukoszevieze, London, 2015

http://www.soundimplant.com/achessex.html

 

ALEX BUESS – is a musician, saxophonist, composer, producer who was born in Basel. He collaborates (has collaborated) with Stephan Wittwer, Paul Schütze, Kevin Martin, Peter Brötzmann, William Parker, Raoul Björkenheim, Toshinori Kondo, Bill Laswell, Kevin Shields, Tim Hodgkinson, Michael Wertmüller and many other musicians in the wide field of improvisation, electronics, electroacoustic music and composition.
He plays/played in the groups ICE, GOD, Phantom City, the Bug, Sprawl, Cortex and his own group 16-17. Buess has written compositions for various contemporary music ensembles and also works as a producer and sound engineer. His compositions are performed in Europe and throughout the world.
Alex Buess has received various prizes and sabbatical years including those offered by the Musikkreditkommission of Basel City in 1992 and the Robert Thyll-Dürr Foundation in 1998. His studies include electronics, acoustics, musicology, phonetics,semantics and composition.
He has appeared at various festivals including Huddersfield New Music Festival (England), Rostrum for Electroacoustic Music (Austrian / Swiss contribution 1997 Radio DRS 2), Tampere Festival (Finland), Musique Action Vandœuvres-les-Nancy (France), Taktlos 1995 (CH), Tonart Festival 2000 (CH), Festival de Musica Contemporanea in Quito (Ecuador), and the Encuentro de Compositores Bolivianos in Sucre (Bolivia),Lucerne Festival (2005), Warsaw Autumn (2006), Donaueschingen Music Festival (2007), Tage für Neue Musik Zürich(2013) and various concerts and festivals in Japan, Australia and China.
Buess’s work reflects his experience with electronic technology, written contemporary music, film music, new mixing and production techniques and computer music.

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http://www.alexbuess.com/en/