"Frank Gratkowski, saxophone. Born in Hamburg, 1963.

Started playing the saxophone at 16 and, following a period at the Hamburg Conservatory (Hamburger Musikhochschule), moved in 1985 to study at the Cologne Conservatory of Music with Heiner Wiberny, graduating in 1990.

Further studies with Charlie Mariano, Sal Nistico and Steve Lacy.

Frank Gratkowski has been working as a soloist in various international formations (Grubenklang Orchester, Klaus Koenig Orchester, Musikfabrik NRW, Tony Oxley Celebration Orchestra, Bentje Braam, BikBentBraam, All Ears, Zeitkratzer, WDR Big band, etc.). Since 1990 he has been giving solo performances throughout Europe, Canada and USA. With his first solo program, he was a 1991 prizewinner in the Musik Kreativ contest. The release of the solo CD "Artikulationen" followed the same year and a new one "Artikulationen II" in 2002.

Since 1992 he has been working in a duo with the pianist Georg Graewe (CD "VicissEtudes"). The duo is often extended through the participation of different additional musicians, such as drummer Paul Lovens (CD "Quicksand") and bassist John Lindberg (CD "Arrears").

In 1995 he founded the "Frank Gratkowski Trio" with Dieter Manderscheid (Germany), bass, and Gerry Hemingway (USA), drums, (CDs "Gestalten" and "The Flume Factor" ). In 2000 the trio has been extended to a quartet by Dutch trombonist Wolter Wierbos (CDs "Kollaps", "Spectral Reflections", "Facio" and "Le Vent et la Gorge"). Since 2003 also appearing as a Double Quartet plus Tobias Delius, Herb Robertson, Wilbert DeJoode and Michael Vatcher. In 2005 he got the SWR Jazzprize.

In 1999 the duo with the Italian trombonist Sebastiano Tramontana has been formed and since 2001 Frank Gratkowski has been performing with a trio including Wilbert De Jode (NL) on bass and Achim Kaufmann (D) on piano (CDs "Kwast" and "Unearth"). Since 2006 he's working with the Trio Gratkowski / Brown / Winant (CDs "Wake" and "Vermilion Traces/Donaueschingen 2009"). He is also a co-leader / composer of the Multiple Joy[ce] Orchestra and got a commission to compose for the ensemble Apartment House by "November Music " (Den Bosch NL) and the "Huddersfield Comtemporary Music Fesitival" (England) in 2009. Further actual projects are Fo[u]r Alto, a saxophone ensemble dedicated to microtonal music and "Artikulationen E" a solo program for saxophone with 8 channel live electronic.

Frank Gratkowski played on nearly every German and on numerous international Jazz and contemporary music Festivals including Vancouver, Toronto, Chicago, New York, Seattle, Quebec, Les Mans, Muelhuus, Groeningen, Nickelsdorf, Barcelona, Lithuania, Warsaw, Zagreb, Prague, Bratislava, Sofia, Bucharest, Odessa and Roma, Huddersfield, London.

He has been teaching saxophone and ensembles at the Cologne, Berlin and Arnhem Conservatory of Music and is giving workshops all around the world.

Furthermore he has performed with Robert Dick, Phil Wachsmann, Radu Malfatti, Herb Robertson, Marcio Mattos, Eugenio Colombo, Peter Kowald, Ray Anderson, Michael Moore, Ken Vandermark, Greg Osby, Kenny Wheeler, Louis Sclavis, John Betsch, Jane Ira Bloom, Connie and Hannes Bauer, Xu Fengxia, James Newton, Muhal Richard Abrams, John Lindberg, Michael Formaneck, Ernst Reijseger, Fred van Hove, Theo Jörgensmann, Phil Minton, Peter Brötzmann, Mark Dresser, Mark Feldman, Hamid Drake, Michiel Braam, Han Bennink, Mal Waldron, Misha Mengelberg a.m.o."

-Frank Gratkowski Website (http://gratkowski.com/biography/)
9/11/2024

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"Maria Gstättner: bassoon

Born 1977 in Mürzzuschlag / Austria.

Lives and works in Vienna and Burgenland.

She graduated with distinction from the bassoon instrumental studies, the bassoon teaching qualification and the postgraduate course in cultural management at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, as well as the artistic doctorate (Dr. artium) from the Graz University of Art.

Works by Maria Gstättner were created for numerous well-known ensembles such as for the Ensemble Kontrapunkte, the Wiener Concertverein, the next step, the ensemble plus +, Granmo / Berg and are performed in various contexts e.g. wien modern, styriarte, cultural museum chicago, Klangspuren schwaz, Vienna Music Association.

Her musical oeuvre ranges from the Vienna Philharmonic, the Vienna Symphony, the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Vienna Volksoper to contemporary ensembles such as the Klangforum Wien, the Ensemble Kontrapunkte, die reihe, the Ensemble Phace and the Sonic Fiction Orchestra.

She also plays on the stages of the Burgtheater and the Volkstheater Wien, appears internationally as a soloist and chamber musician and works in the fields of interdisciplinary performance art and free improvisation.

She works as an artistic and scientific researcher in the field of musical improvisation / intuition and teaches at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna."

-Music Austria (https://db.musicaustria.at/node/82648)
9/11/2024

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"Martin Siewert (born 11 May 1972) is a German guitarist and film composer.

Siewert has been living in Vienna since the age of 10. He studied guitar at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz. As a guitarist, he started his public performances in 1995. In his early performances, he played with Herwig Gradischnig, Freier Fall, Franz Hautzinger, and his band Duckbilled Platypus. With this band, he recorded two albums for the label Extraplatte.

He began to separated himself from the jazz idiom and developed an abstract sound on guitar. He became a member of Efzeg with Burkherd Stangl and Hauf and Komfort. He invited Dafeldecker, Hinteregger, Wayne Horvitz and Tony Buck to the group Komfort. In the group Trapist, he played with Joe Williamson and Martin Brandlmayr. On My Kingdom for a Lullably, he played with Christof Kurzmann, Axel Dšrner, and Billy Roisz, the video artist of Efzeg. He was a member of the guitar quartet SSSD with Taku Sugimoto, Werner Dafeldecker, and Burkhard Stangl.

He has worked with Oskar Aichinger, Christian Fennesz, Wolfgang Mitterer, Elliott Sharp, Franz Koglmann, Thomas Lehn, Karlheinz Essl, Ken Vandermark, Michael Sarin, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Kammerflimmer Kollektief, Georg GrŠwe, Frank Gratkowski, Michael Vatcher, and Klangforum Wien. He has composed music for, ballet, film, theater, remix recordings, and sound art."

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Siewert)
9/11/2024

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"Joanna Lewis: Violin.

1st Violin - Koehne Quartet, Vienna; Guest Violinist - Radio Symphony Orchestra, Kangforum & Philharmonia, Vienna

Australian Hometown: AdelaideEducation: Adelaide Conservatorium; Hochschule für Musik, Vienna

Studied violin, cello and composition in Adelaide and violin with Spiros Rantos in Queensland.

1985 received the Carl Ludwig Pinschof Scholarship for study in Vienna, where she studied at the Hochschule for Music and the Performing Arts with Wolfgang Schneiderhan, Gerhard Hetzel and Günter Pichler, receiving a diploma with excellence.

Numerous performances as a soloist and together with Lisa Moore, Dave Liebman, Wayne Horvitz, Peter Herbert, Koehne Quartet, Radio Symphony Orchestra Vienna, Ensemble of the 20th Century, Music On Line, Vienna Art Orchestra, Austrian-Hungarian Haydn Philharmonie, Vienna Concert-Verein, Vienna Symphony, Otto Lechner Quartet, Max Nagl Quintet and Ramasuri (Max Nagl Double-Quintet), Velvet Lounge (Hannes Loeschel Octet), Giorgio Occhipinti Nonet, Australian World Orchestra, Ensemble Kontrapunkte, Klangforum Vienna and Camerata Schulz."

-Australian World Orchestra (https://www.australianworldorchestra.com.au/1080-joanna-lewis/)
9/11/2024

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"Asja Valcic, at 18 completed the music academy in her home city of Zagreb. She followed that with studies at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow and at the Hochschule für Musik in Detmold. She has given solo performances among others under the direction of Zubin Mehta and Kazushi Ono; her chamber music partners have included members of distinguished ensembles such as Alban Berg, Brodsky and the Melos Quartet. She was awarded the "Concours international de jeunes concertistes de Douai" in France in 1995. The cello leads a sonorous, if not largely inconspicuous, existence outside of the classical music world. Emerging from this background, the cellist, Asja Valcic has solidified a conspicuous place for herself in the European music scene. Parallel to her engagements and recordings in classical subjects, Asja Valcic has increasingly turned to improvisation and new forms of expression for her instrument. Both the radio.string.quartet.vienna, which she cofounded in 2004, as well as duos with the Austrian accordionist and composer, Klaus Paier (2009) represent stylistic crossovers, which enjoy international recognition. Since 2012 she is also a member of Iiro Rantala String Trio. The native of Croatia works as an arranger, composer and lecturer. "As a musician, who grew up in chamber music, Asja Valcic imbues her jazz with powerful and unusual vitality," according to a review in the British GUARDIAN. "Valcic's cello emits everything that fingers and bows can entice from strings: everything from stunning bass pizzicati to whispering flageolets," writes the BADISCHE ZEITUNG. "She is a cunningly smooth instrumentalist," emphasizes the culture magazine, MIKADO (Hessischer Rundfunk). Since 2007 have been released 10 CD's with Asja Valcic at ACT."

-ACT Music (https://www.actmusic.com/en/Artists/Klaus-Paier-Asja-Valcic/Biografie)
9/11/2024

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"Georg Graewe began composing and performing professionally at the age of 15. He has since been leading a variety of ensembles - ranging from trio to chamber orchestra formats - which have involved some of the leading instrumentalists in contemporary music. His compositions, which include chamber music and works for full orchestra as well as scores for films, theater productions, radio drama, and video, have been performed and broadcast around the world.

Graewe has had a long-standing trio with Dutch cellist Ernst Reijseger and US-based percussionist Gerry Hemingway since 1989. He has also performed and/or recorded with Anthony Braxton, Evan Parker, Dave Douglas, Phil Minton, Roscoe Mitchell, Barry Guy, Barre Phillips, Hamid Drake, John Butcher, Robert Dick, John Butcher, Mark Dresser among others.

Over the last 10 years, he has also written three operas. Kopenhagen (based on the same-titled play by Michael Frayn) was produced by OPER KÖLN (Cologne Opera House) in 2003. His second opera, Quicksilver, (a commission by Semperoper Dresden) came out in November 2006. And his most recent opera, Barbara Strozzi oder die Avantgarde der Liebe, was staged by Theater Luzern in Switzerland in 2010 and Oper Bonn in Germany in 2011.

Since 1999, Graewe has been closely associated with CNMAT (Center for New Music and Audio Technology) at UC Berkeley. From 2002 - 2007, he taught at Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler in Berlin.

In 2010, Graewe curated a series of 27 events that presented different aspects of resonance between music, poetry, visual arts, and science as part of the European Cultural Capital RUHR 2010. A catalogue plus DVD edition documenting this project has been published on his own Random Acoustics label."

-Nuscope Records (http://nuscope.org/musicians/georg-graewe/)
9/11/2024

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"Peter Herbert: Born Leap Day of 1960 in Bludenz, AustriaBassist Peter Herbert has been living in Paris since 2003 (in New York from 1989-2003) and leads a busy schedule with an average of 100 concerts annually performing throughout the world.Trained as a classical pianist/bassist, after years of successful 'main stream' jazz activities, he is now developing his own voice in the field of improvised music. Recent activities include solo concerts, in 2002 in New York (Glassfarm), London (The Vortex), Moscow (The Dome), Vienna (Porgy&Bess), a.m.o. (CD: 'Naked Bass' ) and a focus on small ensembles like his duos with David Tronzo (CD: Segmente, AZM 1001), Carol Robinson (bass-clarinette/electronics) or his Parisian Trio with Jean-Charles Richard (sax) and Christophe Marguet(dr), He is also involved in arabic music with artists like oud-master Marcel Khalife or Simon Shaheen.Herbert is also a prolific and versatile composer, mostly commissioned by European orchestras and ensembles. He has written for orchestras, choirs and chamber groups, designed experimental movie soundtracks and incidental music for European avant-garde theatre groups (Cd:Aktionstheater Ensemble 2000 music for theater, AZM 102).As a Jazz musician, he has worked with many artists and groups such as the John Abercrombie/Marc Copland Quartet, Bobby Previte's "The Horse", John Clark Octet, Art Farmer and Woody Shaw. His work has been well documented on over 120 recordings (please see COMPLETE DISCOGRAPHY).Herbert was recently awarded the Hans Koller-prize as 'musician of the year' This prize is given to a jury chosen person, who had 'significant impact on the Austrian music scene for a long time'. He also established his own internet-based label Aziza Music in 1999."-Aziza Music (http://www.azizamusic.com/bio.html)
9/11/2024

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"The Austrian as well as the international jazz scene would not be the same without Wolfgang Reisinger, who has been one of the most distinctive European drummers for over 30 years due to his independent style of playing and his broad musical spectrum. Reisinger combines tonal sensitivity and form awareness of a European background with the flexibility and lack of blinkers of American instrumental colleagues. His musical horizon ranges from European modernism to jazz, from chamber music and large-format improvisation concepts to electroacoustic material layers. Versatility is undoubtedly one of the characteristics that can be considered essential for the Austrian drummer. A quality that is also due to the double socialization in classical music as in jazz, a circumstance that was sometimes perceived as a dichotomy in his youth, which Reisinger productively processed with conscious stylistic openness.

Trained as a classical pianist and percussionist, the Viennese-born soon turned to improvisation. His early biography is linked to the "Vienna Art Orchestra", as an interpreter of New Music also with Beat Furrer, Thomas Pernes or Luciano Berio. "Part of Art" and "Pat Brothers" with saxophonist Wolfgang Puschnig as well as "Air Mail" with the brilliant guitarist Harry Pepl are their own projects from the 1980s. Lively international concert activity and numerous CD productions, some of which have won awards, follow. In 1989, an invitation from French bassist Jean-Paul Celea led to intensive contact with the Paris jazz scene. In the following years Reisinger became a member of the groups of Dominique Pifarely, Louis Sclavis, Francois Couturier, Michel Godard and Jean-Charles Richard, and he also worked with many musicians from the European and American scene, such as Steve Lacy, Michel Portal, Evan Parker and Roscoe Mitchell , Enrico Rava, John Abercrombie, Agusti Fernandez, Franz Koglmann, Albert Mangelsdorff or Jasper van't Hof. In addition to the current membership in the trios of pianists Georg Graewe and Joachim Kühn, the decades-long collaboration with Dave Liebman occupies a special position, both in the duo and in the much-acclaimed trio with Jean-Paul Celea. Over the years Reisinger has also proven stylistic openness and independence in his interactions with Moroccan Gnawa drummers or in a duo with the Japanese koto virtuoso Kazue Sawai, as well as in his long-term collaboration with the Austrian electronic sound tinkerer and composer Wolfgang Mitterer.

For a long time, Wolfgang Reisinger has also been pursuing the solo project "Extended Solo Drumming", in which he structures his dense percussionist textures using specially programmed sample pad electronics like a one-man orchestra. Reisinger has an almost pianistic approach to the drums, which is expressed in finely graduated nuances of color and touch dynamics, as well as in a pronounced harmonic consciousness that manifests itself in open tritone moods. A consciousness, according to which the drum part is not only an accompanying addition, but seeks a center in itself, stands for itself as a richly differentiated, microcosmic sound universe and claims expressiveness."-Andreas Felber

-Wolfgang Reisinger Website (Translated by Google) (http://www.wolfgang-reisinger.com/)
9/11/2024

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"Didi Kern, the human rhythm machine of Bulbul, Broken Heart Collector, Fuckhead, Wipeout, Die Mäuse, Wenzl Dnatek (among others), feels at home in almost any genre: noise, rock, techno, free jazz - you name it."

Didi Kern musician in rock, improvised- and electronic music, playing the drums since childhood, starting in rural marching bands. Since the 90s he is best known for his contributions in bands like Bulbul or Fuckhead.

-Elevate Website (https://elevate.at/websites/2013/art/artist/didi_kern_philipp_quehen/)
9/11/2024

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"Wilbert de Joode (1955) is a veritable research scientist of bass pizzicato and bowing techniques. A self-taught musician, he has been playing the double-bass since 1982. He began working in groups that improvised within a jazz framework. Other musicians were soon drawn to his idiosyncratic style, and in the mid 80s he played in groups led by Vera Vingerhoeds, Armando Cairo and Ig Henneman where he further developed his improvisation skills. He came into contact with such musicians as J.C.Tans, Rinus Groeneveld, Michiel Braam, Han Bennink, Han Buhrs (Schismatics) and Ab Baars.

De Joode is currently one of the most active bass players on the European improvised music circuit. His individual style and musicality transforms the double bass into an equal partner in the most varied ensembles. A personal tone colour, exploration of the outer registers, quirky improvisations and the use of gut strings contribute to an instantly recognizable and intriguing sound.

The seventeen improvised pieces on his first solo cd Olo (distributed by ToonDist) show how rich and complex his sound on the double bass is."

-DOEK Festival Website (http://www.doek.org/project/wilbert-de-joode/)
9/11/2024

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"California native Michael Vatcher, now residing in Amsterdam, quickly progressed from hitting household furniture to taking vibraphone and snare drum lessons as a child. In California, he played with reedist Michael Moore, with whom Vatcher has had a long musical relationship, John Handy, and Terry Gibbs. After spending a year in New York City, Vatcher moved to Holland in 1981.

Since arriving in Holland, Vatcher has played with such groups as the Tristan Honsinger Sextet, the Martin Altena Ensemble, John Zorn, The Ex, Roof (with Phil Minton, Tom Cora, and Luc Ex), and Van Dyke Parks. Vatcher is also a regular accompanist with the School for New Dance Development in Amsterdam, and has an ongoing musical relationship with dancers Katie Duck and Eileen Standley."

-All About Jazz (https://musicians.allaboutjazz.com/michaelvatcher)
9/11/2024

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