ECM: März 2024

Der Frühlingskalender ist vollgepackt mit vielen Konzerten von ECM-Künstlern, darunter Dominic Miller, John Scofield, Mark Turner, Nik Bärtsch, András Schiff, Elina Duni und anderen.

Nachfolgend finden Sie einige der Tour-Highlights und eine vollständige Konzertliste auf unserer Website.

Das Dänische Streichquartett wird in den kommenden Monaten nicht nur über 20 Konzerte geben, sondern übernimmt auch die künstlerische Leitung des 12. jährlichen Frühlingsfestivals auf der Insel Rügen vom 8. bis 17. März.

Ihr hochgelobtes Prism-Projekt wurde 2023 abgeschlossen und ist auf fünf CDs erhältlich, die eine bestimmte Bach-Fuge mit einem späten Beethoven-Quartett verbinden, das wiederum mit einem Quartett eines späteren Meisters verbunden ist.

Ein weiteres Highlight wird vom 8. bis 11. Mai das ECM Festival Freiburg im Südwesten Deutschlands sein. Die viertägige Veranstaltung präsentiert Auftritte von Nitai Hershkovits, dem Dominic Miller Quartet, dem Maciej Obara Quartet und Zsófia Boros.

Freitagabend ist eine Hommage an Anja Lechner mit Auftritten von François Couturier, Pablo Márquez und Mona Matbou Riahi. Tickets gibt es hier: LINK

Im Sonderangebot dieser Woche haben wir eine Auswahl an Alben zusammengestellt, die das Repertoire des Varieté-Streichquartetts hervorheben.

Neue Alben:

Hervorragende Reaktionen auf die letzten angekündigten neuen Alben von Vijay Iyer und John Surman: 

“The pianist’s group improvises with entrancing dynamism. This second offering from Mr Iyer’s trio invests yet further in the qualities that make the ensemble singular, not least a shared fascination with nuances of rhythmic expression on a communal sense of flow. It revels in dynamics that are calibrated with great care and […] achieve startling force”, schrieb Larry Blumenfeld im WALLL STREET JOURNAL über Iyers Compassion. “Die drei Musiker spielen zusammen, als hielten sie telepathisch Kontakt zueinander. Als könnte das freie Gespräch die Probleme der Welt in Schönheit auflösen”, befand Tobias Rapp im SPIEGEL. Und der britische GUARDIAN kürte Compassion zu seinem ’Jazz album of the month’.

Über John Surmans Words Unspoken wiederum urteilte Jack Kenny im britischen Portal JAZZVIEWS: “The writing on the album is the kind that dissolves imperceptibly into improvisation. The subtlety and the artistry are adventurous. The album is a deeply satisfying, significant experience from one of Europe’s leading voices.”

Der März steht für uns in diesem Jahr ganz im Zeichen des Vinyls:

ECMs audiophile Vinyl-Reissue-Serie Luminessence wird in diesem Monat März 2024 mit drei Veröffentlichungen fortgesetzt. Gerade erschienen die titelgebende Jan Garbarek-Aufnahme von Keith Jarrett-Kompositionen für Streichorchester und Saxophon – Luminessence – aus demJahr 1975, sowie Garbareks erstes Album für das Label, Afric Pepperbird, aufgenommen im Jahr 1970.

Am 29.03. folgt das Debütalbum von Azimuth, das ursprünglich 1977 veröffentlicht wurde und die besondere Synergie von Norma Winstone, John Taylor und Kenny Wheeler dokumentiert. Die Serie ist konzipiert als ein Kaleidoskop, das die Juwelen des umfangreichen Label-Katalogs in eleganten, hochwertigen Editionen beleuchtet.

Im April kommt ein neues Solo-Album von Fred Hersch. Mehr Einzelheiten dazu in Kürze.

ECM: The Next Door von Julia Hülsmann Quartet

 

On The Next Door Julia Hülsmann returns with the quartet from 2019’s Not Far From Here, and presents her unique pianistic voice in a varied programme of almost exclusively original music, composed by herself and her colleagues – tenor saxophonist Uli Kempendorff, Marc Muellbauer on double bass and drummer Heinrich Köbberling. A deep respect for the jazz tradition, as cultivated in the post-bop and modal jazz of the 60s, permeates this session and, with the quartet’s modern twist, sets the stage for highly expressive soloing and profound interplay.

ECM: Naked Truth

ECM releases new Avishai Cohen album 'Naked Truth'. There is a searching, yearning quality to 'Naked Truth', and a raw beauty and vulnerability in Avishai Cohen’s trumpet sound on his most improvisational ECM recording to date. Very much music-of-the moment, found and shaped in the course of a remarkable recording session in the South of France,

Naked Truth takes the form of an extemporaneous suite. For most of its length the Israeli trumpeter painstakingly leads the way, closely shadowed by his long-time comrades – pianist Yonathan Avishai, bassist Barak Mori and drummer Ziv Ravitz - who share an intuitive understanding, hyper alert to the music’s subtly-changing emphases.  At the album’s conclusion, Cohen recites “Departure”, a poem by Zelda Schneurson Mishkovsky, whose themes of renunciation, acceptance and letting go seem optimally-attuned to the mood of the music.

ECM: Nik Bärtsch - Entendre (Vinyl)

 

Today we release the vinyl edition of the fascinating new solo recording from the Swiss pianist, composer
and conceptualist Nik Bärtsch, best known as leader of the bands Ronin and Mobile. Entendre offers deeper insight into his musical thinking. As the title implies, Entendre is about hearing as a creative process, referencing the patient unfolding of Bärtch’s modular polymetric pieces, with alertness to the dynamics of touch, finding freedom in aesthetic restriction, serving the flow of each piece’s development while also taking the music to new places. 

This is a 3 sided 2-LP set in high quality tip-on gatefold packaging and pressed on 180g vinyl. Nik Bärtsch - Entendre ECM 2703 2-LP available now! 

Other new albums available on vinyl are Garden of Expression by Joe Lovano Trio Tapestry, Jakob Bro - Uma Elmo, Shai Maestro - Human, Uneasy by Vijay Iyer

ECM: Keith Jarrett zum 76. Geburtstag

Over the last few months, ECM released the 10-LP facsimile edition of Keith Jarrett's Sun Bear Concerts - recorded in 1976 - as well as his 2016 performance in Budapest, spanning 40 years of solo piano improvisation. Tomorrow on May 8th, the master pianist celebrates his 76 birthday.

'Budapest Concerts was lauded by 'Le Monde' as "a fantastic physical experience of total improvisation." while The New York Times connected the musical dots of that night's performance: "The embrace of folkloric music by Bartók and other Hungarian composers further nudged Mr. Jarrett toward a dark quality – (‘a kind of existential sadness, let´s say, a deepness’)  – powerfully present in the concert´s first half. The second half features a few of Mr. Jarrett´s most ravishing on-the-spot compositions. Those ballads, like ‘Part V’ and ‘Part VII’, spark against briskly atonal or boppish pieces, gradually building the case for a mature expression that might not have been possible earlier in his career. A magnificent achievement."

Wolfgang Sandner's biography of Keith Jarrett is full of detailed musical analysis and cross-references to other artistic genres. Sandner has collected new information about Jarrett’s family background, much of which is thanks to the translator, Keith Jarrett’s youngest brother Chris. The book explores Jarrett’s work with his American and European Quartets and the Standards Trio with Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette. It  charts the development of his solo concerts, investigates his work in the classical sphere, and covers his unparalleled relationship with ECM and Manfred Eicher. This new English edition is an extended and updated version of the German original.

A new photo book titled "Keith Jarrett - A portrait" by Italian photographer Roberto Masotti has just come out.
The large format hardcover edition features numerous pictures of Jarrett  -  alone and with Miles Davis, with his own ensembles, and more. The book includes introductory observations by Geoff Dyer and Franco Fabbri and a note by Masotti, who witnessed Keith in action over a period of 50 years.

"The photos are the result of my intimate and objective attention to an artist who I have followed and admired for a long time, but these pictures represent also his response that is conscious acceptance, and above all, participation. His sound, the only one, is made of peculiar music that this series of photographs aims to evoke and make resound." - Roberto Masotti

ECM: Anouar Brahem

 

Released in April 1991, Barzakh was the ECM debut of Tunisian oud master Anouar Brahem, and an album that immediately captured the attention of press and public with its gracefulness and authority.

Brahem is joined here by Bechir Selmi, the sensitive violinist from the Musical Ensemble of Tunis, and percussionist Lassad Hosni,  whose earthy frame drum and speeding darbouka would come to be important components of later Brahem recordings including  Conte de l’incroyable amour and Astrakan Café.

As Stéphane Ollivier has written: “Brahem is the oud’s conjuror, a master at bringing out the acoustic magic which this age-old traditional Oriental lute carries inside its calabash: the musical heritage of the Arab and Islamic worlds.” Brahem undertook a mission to restore the oud to the status of an emblematic solo instrument in Arab music, and at the same time expanded the tradition by working with musicians from other idioms.

During his thirty years with the label, Brahem collaborated with some of the world's most talented musicians, whatever the genre or tradition, including Barbaros Erköse, Jan Garbarek, Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette, Django Bates, John Surman and Richard Galliano.

His discography includes Conte de L'Incroyable Amour (1991), Madar (1994), Khomsa (1995), Thimar (1998), Astrakan Café (2000), Le Pas Du Chat Noir (2001), Le Voyage De Sahar (2006), The Astounding Eyes Of Rita (2009), Souvenance (2014) and his latest album Blue Maquams (2017)

 

We’re celebrating Anouar’s past as well as his present this week, and would like to offer you his rich ECM catalogue in this week's special offer.

ECM: György Kurtág at 95

György Kurtág, a master of musical concision widely considered one of the greatest living composers turns 95 today, an anniversary marked with careful celebrations.  The Budapest Music Centre, Kurtág’s home in recent years, has a four-day online festival with events and presentations.  These include: - A Meeting of Generations: Ligeti-Kurtág-Eötvös; Petite Musique Solennelle, a concert conducted by András Keller; Messages, Games – Scenes from the Kurtágs’ Life, with 15 short films by Judit Kurtág; and a concert bringing together music of Kurtág and András Szőllősy, the senior member of the Kurtág/Ligeti generation.

Amsterdam’s Musikgebouw, meanwhile, is streaming a broad selection of  Kurtág’s works including Signs, Games & Messages, Hommage à Robert Schumann, Samuel Beckett – What Is The Word,  A Ligatura for Martá and more.  Performers include the Asko/Schönberg ensemble.

ECM New Series has been a primary source for music of Gyorgy Kurtág since the mid-90s, when the label released Hommage à R. Sch, including Kurtág’s tribute to Robert Schumann, with Kim Kashkashian, Robert Levin and Eduard Brunner. Kashkashian went on to record Kurtág’s early Movement for Viola and Orchestra with the Netherland’s Radio Chamber Orchestra under Peter Eötvös, as well as solo viola music on the Grammy-winning album Kurtág/Ligeti. Other major recordings include Kurtág's Collected Works for Ensemble and Choir conducted by Reinbert de Leeuw, Kafka-Fragmente, with András Keller and Julianne Banse, Signs, Games and Messages with Kurtág’s settings of Hölderlin and Beckett, as well as the very special recordings of Márta and György Kurtág playing György’s Játékok miniatures and Bach transcriptions. These can be heard both on the CD Játékok and, in a later rendition live from Paris’s Cité de la Musique, on the DVD/Blu-ray release Hommage à Haydée.

 

György Kurtág - 12 Microludes for String Quartet, Op. 13 (Keller Quartet)

Neu bei ECM

Das ECM Leader-Debütalbum des französischen Saxophonisten Matthieu Bordenave ist ab sofort erhältlich.

"La traversée" - The Crossing - präsentiert sein Trio mit dem Pianisten Florian Weber und dem Bassisten Patrice Moret, die beide eine bedeutende Rolle in anderen ECM-Aufnahmen spielten.

Die Musiker entwickeln drei eigenständige Stimmen, interagieren, kreuzen Wege oder entwickeln einen roving kontrapunkt - in einem post-Giuffre-Idiom - Bordenave führt mit seinem sehr unverwechselbaren Saxophonsound, der kürzlich von DownBeat als "leicht, aber texturiert und autoritär" charakterisiert wurde, den Weg.

 

La traversée

Matthieu Bordenave

Der erste Leader-Termin des französischen Saxophonisten Matthieu Bordenave für Das ECM stellt mit dem deutschen Pianisten Florian Weber und dem Schweizer Bassisten Patrice Moret ein neues Projekt vor. Auf La traversée - The Crossing - erkundet Bordenave den musikalischen Boden zwischen zeitgenössischer Komposition und Jazz, subtil beeinflusst von den Innovationen des Jimmy Giuffre 3 mit Paul Bley und Steve Swallow, die "neu Terrain eröffneten, das für Improvisatoren bis heute relevant ist." ... Weitere Informationen. 

ECM: Arvo Pärt wird 85

Heute feiert der estnische Komponist Arvo Pärt seinen 85. Geburtstag. Herzlichen Glückwunsch zu seinem Jubiläum.

Seit 1984, mit der Veröffentlichung von Tabula Rasa und der Gründung der ECM New Series, beherbergt das Label alle ersten Aufnahmen von Pärts Hauptwerken unter engagierter Mitwirkung des Komponisten. Dieser Meisterwerkkatalog umfasst Miserere (1990), Te Deum (1993), Litanei (1995), Kanon Pokajanen (1997), Passio (1998), Lamentate (2005) und Adam es Lament (2012).

ECM: Dino Saluzzi wurde 85

DIno Saluzzi      © Juan Hitters

Dino’s first ECM album Kultrum was recorded 38 years ago. Since then his art has found expression in many formats on more than twenty further recordings, where he’s been heard in chamber music and orchestral contexts, as well with his family band, with jazz musicians, and alone. In each situation, he remains a unique musical narrator offering new insights into his homeland, history and memories.  As Dino has said, “If you're authentic and open to receiving influences from your surroundings, surely you'll express your surroundings.”

If Argentinean associations abound in  Dino’s compositions, he has welcomed many international contributors into his world – among them Anja Lechner, the Rosamunde Quartet, Marc Johnson, Palle Danielsson, Jon Christensen, Palle Mikkelborg, Enrico Rava, Charlie Haden, Pierre Favre -   and he has also lent his creative energies to the music of others: see for instance his contributions to  Giya Kancheli’s “Themes from the Songbook” or  Tomasz Stanko’s “From the Green Hill”.


The evocative quality of his work has been recognised by film directors who have incorporated the characteristic sound of his bandoneon into their works – from Jean-Luc Godard’s Nouvelle Vague and Histoire(s) du Cinéma to Fernando Meirelles’ The Two Popes. Listeners can look forward to more Saluzzi on ECM later this year, when a new solo album, Albores, will be released. 

Our special offer this week focuses on Dino Saluzzi’s contributions to the ECM catalogue.

ECM: Dominic Miller - 'Etude' from the album: ABSINTHE

Dominic Miller: guitar Santiago Arias: bandoneon Mike Lindup: keyboards Nicholas Fiszman: bass Manu Katché: drums With Absinthe, his second release for ECM, guitarist Dominic Miller has created an album colored by a distinct atmosphere. “The first thing that came to me before I wrote any tunes was the title,” he says. “Living in the South of France, I am fascinated by Impressionism. Sharp light and witchy mistrals, combined with strong alcohol and intense hangovers must have driven some of these artists toward insanity. Skies that are green, faces blue, perspective distorted.” While Miller’s ECM debut, Silent Light, emphasized intimacy in solo and duo settings, Absinthe finds the guitarist fronting a quintet that brings his ever-lyrical compositions to textured life. Miller, switching between nylon- and steel-string acoustic guitars, has a key harmonic-melodic foil in the bandoneon of Santiago Arias. The vivid presence at the drum kit is Manu Katché, an ECM veteran and for years a colleague with Miller in the band of Sting (whom the guitarist has accompanied now for three decades). Mike Lindup’s keyboard tones add a ghostly air to such highlights as the title track, while bassist Nicholas Fiszman roots the sound. As for Miller, JazzTimes described him as a guitarist who “milks every note, thriving on the pauses between them and whispery effects of fingers sliding across strings,” while Stereophile agreed, declaring that “his ability to express emotion through a guitar is amazing to hear.” Dancers: Coline Omasson, Jocelyn Laurent Video Director: Marcel Hartmann

ECM: Rückblick auf August

Helsinki Songs, das neue Album des norwegischen Saxophonisten Trygve Seim, wurde

größtenteils in der finnischen Hauptstadt komponiert. Aufgenommen im Januar 2018 in den Osloer Rainbow Studios mit dem Pianisten Kristjan Randalu, dem Bassisten Mats Eilertsen und Markku Ounaskari am Schlagzeug, und von Manfred Eicher produziert, präsentiert es u.a. Stücke, in denen das Quartett auf Igor Strawinsky und Jimmy Webb anspielt und vor Ornette Coleman und Bill Evans indirekt seine Hüte zieht.

„Entspannung als ein graziöser Zustand, der unendlich tief berühren kann – großartig”, schrieb der ‚Independent on Sunday‘ über Tord Gustavsens Being There, erschienen 2007. In den folgenden zehn Jahren hat der Pianist dann mit anderen Gruppierungen und Formaten experimentiert. Nun kehrt er mit The Other Side – aufgenommen in den Rainbow Studios in Oslo im Januar 2018 – entschieden zum Klaviertrio zurück. Mit dabei: Schlagzeuger Jarle Vespestad und Bassist Sigurd Hole. Produziert von Manfred Eicher, wird das Album am Vorabend einer großen Tour veröffentlicht. 

Seit 2010 ist das Near East Quartet zu einer Größe in der koreanischen Musik avanciert. Seinen reinen Klangerkundungen stellt es Elemente des zeitgenössischen Jazz und traditioneller koreanischer Musik gegenüber, um so neue Formen zu schöpfen. Saxophonist und KlarinettistSungjae Son und Gitarrist Suwuk Chung sind Gründungsmitglieder der Gruppe, die durch den Pansori-Sänger Yulhee Kim und den Schlagzeuger Soojin Suh verstärkt wurde. Auf seinem ECM-Debüt spielt das NEQ fünf Kompositionen von Sungjae Son und drei koreanische Traditionals. Das Album wurde in Seoul eingespielt und in den Studios La Buissonne von Nicolas Baillard, Manfred Eicher und Produzent Sun Chung abgemischt. 

„Beim dynamischen Wechsel der Betonung”, bemerkte der ‚Independent‘, „zeigt Dénes Várjon die wertvollste aller Begabungen: die Fähigkeit, so zu spielen, dass man das Vertraute neu erleben kann.” Diese Fähigkeit steht im Vordergrund, wenn der ungarische Pianist sich auf dem Album De la nuit an Schumanns Fantasiestücke, Ravels ‚Gaspard de la nuit‘ und Bartóks ‚Im Freien‘ feinfühlig herantastet – eine Reise durch drei Welten poetischer Imagination, wie Jürg Stenzl im Booklet ausführt. „Alle drei Werke waren – über ihre Entstehungszeit weit hinausreichende – kühne Aufbrüche zu einer grundsätzlich neuen Musik. Die Unterschiede dieser drei ‚poetischen‘ Werke sind Folge ihrer Ausgangssituationen. Gemeinsam ist ihnen hingegen ein Drittes: Sie erfordern Pianisten, die über eine größtmögliche, selbstverständliche Virtuosität verfügen; die pianistische Akrobatik ist Voraussetzung einer Interpretation, welche die musikalische Poetik dieser drei Meisterwerke bis in die feinsten Verästelungen hinein nachhörbar werden lässt.“ Das Album wurde im April 2016 im Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI in Lugano von Manfred Eicher produziert.

Im September kamen Neuheiten von Mark Turner & Ethan Iverson, dem Marcin Wasilewski Trio, dem Bassisten Barre Phillips,  dem Danish String Quartet und dem Shai Maestro Trio. Mehr dazu in Kürze.

ECM: Goodbye Tomasz Stanko

Tomasz Stanko (1942-2018)


The great Polish trumpeter Tomasz Stanko has died, aged 76. An innovative force in the music, with an immediately identifiable sound - integrating, by his own description, “Slavic melancholy and the blues” - Stanko first came to broader attention in the early 1960s with the groups of composer-pianist Krzysztof Komeda, playing on the soundtracks of Polanski’s films and contributing to the Komeda album Astigmatic, one of the defining recordings of new European jazz. The trumpeter would reassess this period of his life on the widely-acclaimed Litania in 1997.

Tomasz made his ECM debut in 1975 with the great Balladyna album featuring Tomasz Szukalski on tenor sax, Dave Holland on bass and Edward Vesala on drums. Stanko and the Finnish drummer enjoyed a close artistic friendship, playing together in various configurations including Vesala’s large ensemble on Satu.

Like his early hero Miles Davis, Stanko was a discerning bandleader and each of his groups had its own distinct character. Mattka Joanna and Leosia, with Bobo Stenson, Anders Jormin and Tony Oxley balanced lyricism and turbulent free play.

The band on From The Green Hill – with its unusual frontline featuring Stanko, John Surman, Dino Saluzzi and classical violinist Michelle Makarski - grew out of an experimental session at an ECM festival in Badenweiler.

Soul of Things introduced the world at large to the talents of Marcin Wasilewski, Slawomir Kurkiewicz and Michal Miskiewicz, and on Suspended Night and Lontano, one could hear their improvisational capacities opening up under Stanko’s guidance. Wasilewski and co always hailed Tomasz as their mentor, a claim he would modestly wave away: “No, no – I’ve learned just as much from them.”

Dark Eyes pooled the talents of young improvisers from the North, with two Danes (Jakob Bro and Anders Christensen) and two Finns (Alexi Tuomarila and Olavi Louhivuori) in a programme referencing music originally written to accompany plays of Swedish writer Lars Norén, as well as a title track inspired by an Oskar Kokoschka painting. “Everything you experience gets into the music,” Tomasz said, “but I’ve always been touched as much by art as by anything else in life. Fiction, poetry, film, the theatre. The visual arts especially. The way a painter uses paint, or the way he approaches form, distorting it to abstraction, or painting naturalistically or poetically ... these aspects can be paralleled in my musical language, in the way I shape a melody line.”

By the early 2000s, Stanko was splitting his time between New York and Warsaw, subsequently founding a New York Quartet, strikingly free of native New Yorkers, for the album Wisława with Cuban born pianist David Virelles, Detroit drummer Gerald Cleaver, and Californian bassist Thomas Morgan, replaced on December Avenue by Reuben Rogers from the Virgin Islands.

In all of his groups Tomasz encouraged freedom of expression and he derived great pleasure from the improvisational contributions of his musicians. Before becoming ill earlier this year he was looking forward to touring in a new quintet with fellow trumpeter Enrico Rava, pianist Giovanni Guidi and the New York Quartet rhythm team of Reuben Rogers and Gerald Cleaver. Friends since 1965, Stanko and Rava had touched on almost all aspects of modern jazz in the course of their long careers – from the freest free playing (both had worked with Cecil Taylor and with Globe Unity) to the tenderest Chet Baker and Miles Davis-inspired balladry – and in concert were developing a broad programme to reflect all of this.

ECM: NIK BÄRTSCH’S RONIN mit dem neuen Album AWASE

NIK BÄRTSCH’S RONIN

AWASE


Release date: 04.05.2018
ECM 2603
CD € 17.90
2-LP € 28.00

„Awase”, ein Ausdruck aus der Kampfkunst, bedeutet so viel wie „verschmelzen” oder „harmonisieren”, Energien aufeinander abstimmen – eine treffende Metapher für die aufgeweckte Präzision, die mosaikartigen Grooves und den graziösen Minimalismus von Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin. Sechs Jahre sind vergangen, seitdem die Schweizer ihr letztes Album veröffentlicht haben. Vom Quintett zum Quartett verkleinert und um den Bassisten Thomy Jordi erweitert, hat sich die Gruppe in dieser Zeit fast unmerklich gewandelt. Bärtsch selbst spricht von einer neugefundenen Freiheit und Flexibilität im Umgang mit dem Material, von „größerer Transparenz, mehr Interaktion, mehr Freude bei jeder Performance”. Hier bedeutet Freiheit vor allem das Aufgreifen früherer Spielarten Bärtschs, ihre Vermischung mit neuen Kompositionen, darunter – zum ersten Mal auf einem Ronin-Album – ein Stück von Sha. Awase wurde im Oktober 2017 im Süden Frankreichs, in den Studios La Buissonne, eingespielt und von Manfred Eicher produziert.

Goldener Löwe für das Lebenswerk an KEITH JARRETT

Keith Jarrett  (C) Gnu Common License

Keith Jarrett will be awarded the ‘Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement’ at the 62nd International Festival of Contemporary Music of the Biennale di Venezia on September 29th.

From the jury statement: “Unanimously acclaimed as one of the most important pianists in the area of improvisation and jazz music Keith Jarrett is an artist who has experimented with extraordinary talent and creativity in various genres including classical music, creating work that is both refined and blistering at the same time. His huge discography bears witness to a boundless art and a unique personality in the field of jazz, with an approach and signature style that are so personal as to make him a universal master in the history of music”.

The 62nd International Festival of Contemporary Music of the Biennale di Venezia will be held from September 28th to October 7th 2018.

In the past, the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in Music has been awarded to Goffredo Petrassi (1994), Luciano Berio (1995), Friedrich Cerha (2006), Giacomo Manzoni (2007), Helmut Lachenmann (2008), György Kurtág (2009), Wolfgang Rihm (2010), Peter Eötvös (2011), Pierre Boulez (2012), Sofija Gubajdulina (2013), Steve Reich (2014), Georges Aperghis (2015), Salvatore Sciarrino (2016), and Tan Dun (2017).

Congratulations to Keith Jarrett!



Weitere Informationen:

http://www.labiennale.org/en/news/2018-lion-awards-music

Hörprobe: TRIO MEDIAEVAL

Oslo’s Trio Mediaeval presents a reconstruction of a 

13th century votive Mass to the Virgin Mary, based 

on surviving manuscripts from a Benedectine Abbey 

in the English Midlands. Inserted amid the medieval 

music are a Credo and Benedicamus Domino specially 

composed for this programme by Gavin Bryars: the 

old and the new intermingle in the work of this vocal 

ensemble. Anna Maria Friman: “The members of Trio 

Mediaeval feel that performing medieval music today 

gives us the freedom to let our imagination and ideas 

flow, as though we are creating contemporary music.”

Hörprobe: Gianluigi Trovesi

Italy’s great musical archaeologist and one of 

the outstanding improvisers of his country, 

Gianluigi Trovesi with “Profumo di Violetta” 

indulges in his love for the emotional drama 

and musical beauty of Italian opera. (The title 

simultaneously alludes to the protagonist of 

Verdi’s famous opera “La traviata” and to the 

flower’s sweet perfume.) Accompanied by the 

characteristic North-Italian provincial “banda”, 

a large wind orchestra with percussion as we 

find it in the on-stage-music of most Verdi 

operas, Trovesi takes us on a humorous journey 

through the history of the genre.

It starts with Monteverdi’s “Orfeo”, includes 

many highlights from “La traviata” before briefly 

visiting Mascagni and Puccini.

The popular and the sublime, irony and unrestrained 

pathos meet with an improvisational spirit that 

conveys the pure joy of music making. One of 

the most unorthodox albums in this year’s release 

schedule, Trovesi’s opera project is likely to win 

many enthusiastic listeners among opera lovers 

and open-minded jazz enthusiasts.

Hörprobe: Tomasz Stanko Quintet

On “Dark Eyes” (2005), Jakob Bro, the young guitarist heard 

on ECM on Paul Motian’s “Garden of Eden” is cast 

most often in the role of subtle colourist, while fellow 

Dane Anders Christensen, on electric bass throughout, 

provides the band’s throbbing pulse. The programme 

features new Stanko compositions, including “The Dark 

Eyes of Martha Hirsch”, inspired by an Oskar Kokoschka 

canvas, plus a new version of “Last Song” from Tomasz 

ECM debut “Balladyna”, as well as “Dirge for Europe” 

and “Etiuda baletowa nr. 3” from the pen of Krzysztof Komeda.

Hörprobe: Tarkovsky Quartet

Link

The unique band founded by François Couturier 

continues to draw inspiration from the films of 

Andrey Tarkovsky as its frame of reference expands. 

Allusions to Pergolesi, Bach and Shostakovich are 

to be found in the compositions here, as are 

compelling group improvisations. As the Irish Times 

wrote of the earlier “Nostalghia - Song for Tarkovsky” 

album (recorded 2005): “Mixing classical rigour with 

improvisation both formal and free, what emerges is 

austerely beautiful, etched in sombre hues and redolent 

of an unslakeable thirst to connect with a deeper well of the spirit.”

ECM: Terje Rypdal wird 70

Terje Rypdal

Terje Rypdal, tone poet of the Fender Stratocaster, turns 70 on August 23. The Norwegian guitarist and composer has been a hugely influential figure, inspiring players across the genres. Terje first appeared on ECM in 1970, as a member of Jan Garbarek’s quartet on Afric Pepperbird. This was followed a few months later by the album just called Terje Rypdal, his leader debut for the label. Over the decades he has partnered musicians ranging from Miroslav Vitous and Jack DeJohnette to the Hilliard Ensemble, the Bergen Big Band and the Riga Festival Orchestra and led dynamic rock/jazz bands including Odyssey, the Chasers and more, in a discography that is rich and strikingly original throughout. In celebration, we offer a selection of his albums at special prices….


https://www.ecmrecords.com/news/1502279562