"Pierre-Antoine Badaroux is a Paris-based alto saxophone player, composer and producer. He is working as a freelance composer since 2006, focusing on relations between sound, notation and the role of the musician in an ensemble. In 2008 he became an active member of record label and collective Umlaut Records, producing his own albums from the deconstructed Bebop of Peeping Tom to the original Composition No. 6, to a historical project on arrangers of Swing music with Umlaut Big Band that he leads, to the improvised music of r.mutt."

-Umlaut (http://www.umlautrecords.com/people/pierre-antoine-badaroux/)
3/29/2023

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"Bertrand Denzler is a tenor saxophone player. He has played in Europe and Latin America both as a solo act and with musicians such as Xavier Charles, Peter Frils Nielsen, Jean-Luc Guionnet, Barry Guy, Ninh Lê Quan, Urs Leimgruber, Günter Müller, Bob Ostertag, Norbert Pfammatter, Hasse Poulsen, Mark Sanders, Mathieu Werchowski, and Otomo Yoshihide. He is a member of the groups Hubbub, Nanocluster, Laps, Denzler-Mariage, A3/1, and Chamaeleo Vulgaris. He has put out a number of compact discs on various labels."-ActuelleCD.com (http://www.actuellecd.com/en/bio/denzler_be/)
3/29/2023

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"Oliver Schwerdt (born 13 November 1979) is a German musicologist and musician (piano, percussion) in the field of free improvisation.

Born in Eisenach, Schwerdt attended school in Eisenach until his university entrance qualification and received classical piano lessons at the municipal music school there. He did his military service as a piano accompanist in the training music corps of the German armed forces. He began his studies of music and cultural sciences as well as art history at the Leipzig University in 1999 and completed them in 2006 with a master's thesis on Georg Simmel and Dadaism submitted to Klaus Christian Köhnke [de]. In 2012 he received his doctorate from Sebastian Klotz at the Institute for Musicology at the University of Leipzig [de], for which he also worked as a lecturer. His dissertation focuses on the musical strategies of central actors in the scene of free improvised music in the wake of Free Jazz and their spatial theoretical interpretation. He has taught at the Museum of Musical Instruments of Leipzig University and with the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation.

From his musicological work, Schwerdt identified the challenge facing contemporary museum practice in relation to the "reinvention of the drum set combination" as they are "in European improvised music" of the 20th century became reality. He is committed to securing the "acutely endangered, historically so delicate, aesthetically highly fascinating and epistemologically valuable object complexes". the first generation of European free jazz or contemporary improvised music. As an author of music-critical articles, Schwerdt wrote for the Neue Musikzeitung, the Jazzthetik [de] and the Jazzzeitung [de], among others. He also wrote accompanying texts for albums by Günter Sommer/Wadada Leo Smith and Alexander von Schlippenbach/Evan Parker/Paul Lovens and Urs Leimgruber. In 2003 he founded the publishing house Euphorium Productions.

Since 1999 Schwerdt has been artistic director of the EUPHORIUM_freakestra, a project ensemble between contemporary improvisation, jazz, Neue Musik and theatre with Günter Sommer, Friedrich Schenker, Rudi Mahall, Paul Rutherford, Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky, Frank Möbus, Wadada Leo Smith, Axel Dörner, Barre Phillips, Alexander von Schlippenbach, Evan Parker, Paul Lovens, Sven-Åke Johansson, Ulrich Gumpert, Manfred Hering, Dietmar Diesner, Roger Turner, Barry Guy, Akira Sakata and others worked together. At the 2009 33. Leipziger Jazztage, he performed with the project Transatlantic Freedom Suite Tentets at the Leipzig Opera.

From the project ensemble the quartet ember with Urs Leimgruber developed, Alexander Schubert and Christian Lillinger. From 2006 to 2016 Schwerdt worked with Lillinger and Petrowsky in the New Old Luten Trio. The recording of Petrowsky's late works, documented from 2013 to 2015 with the albums Tumult!, Krawall!, Rabatz! in a quintet formation expanded by the double bassists John Edwards and Robert Landfermann received great attention. With Schubert and Friedrich Kettlitz, Schwerdt operates the electrified Noise-Ensemble trnn.

In 2006, Schwerdt received the Leipzig Jazz Young Talent Scholarship of the Marion-Ermer-Foundation for his performance as pianist and ensemble leader. The critics Ken Waxman (Jazzword) and Rigobert Dittmann (Bad Alchemy) hear reminiscences of Oscar Peterson, Bill Evans, Cecil Taylor and Alexander von Schlippenbach in Schwerdt's piano playing.

Schwerdt uses the following pseudonyms: Edithrakneff Weinermond, Frautastem!, Ingrid Ingulfwieher, Rita Deixis, Solveig Reberp-Klamt and Elan Pauer."

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Schwerdt)
3/29/2023

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"Daniel Beilschmidt (Organ)

Born: 1978 - Zeulenroda, Theringia, Germany

The German organist, Daniel Beilschmidt, studied organ with Stefan Johannes Bleicher, Arvid Gast, Ullrich Böhme, Volker Bräutigam, Hans Fagius, Søren Christian Vestergaard, Michael Kapsner and Bernhard Klapprott in Leipzig, Copenhagen and Weimar, graduating with his "Konzertexamen" in 2008.

In 2009, Daniel Beilschmidt was assigned as University Organist in Leipzig. From 2009 to 2015, he was assistant organist at St. Thomas (the church, where Bach had worked from 1723 to 1750). Since 2015 he is teacher for both organ playing and improvisation at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy" in Leipzig. In 2017 the New University Church, St. Pauls in Leipzig, was inaugurated, where he has the privilege to work with two new organs (Metzler, II/P, 7 and Jehmlich, III/P, 46).

Except in Germany Daniel Beilschmidt has played recitals in Scandinavia, Belgium, Spain, Poland, Russia, Georgia, Ucraine, Argentina, Mexico and the USA. He dedicades to the whole repertoire from earliest organ music sources to music from the 21st century, focussing especially on Renaissance organ music, Bach, Messiaen and improvisation.

Besides improvisation in liturgical context Daniel Beilschmidt has been working in various projects and collaborations, as with percussion, electronics, literature, dance theatre, free jazz and crossover, i.e. with double bass player Barry Guy, drummer Günter "Baby" Sommer, mexican group "Ampersan", Eva Milner from "Hundreds" or the former experimental Leipzig band "Mud Mahaka".

Daniel Beilschmidt is also active as composer, right now preparing the premiere of Deine Nacht, a Passion after St. John with the GewandhausChor in the New Univerity Church Leipzig in March 2020."

-Bach-Cantatas (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Beilschmidt-Daniel.htm)
3/29/2023

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Friedrich Kettlitz is a German guitarist & prepared guitaris, known for his work with Euphorium_Freakestra, Elan Pauer, Oliver Schwerdt, Ra Ra da Boff, and Ribo Flesh.

-Discogs (https://www.discogs.com/artist/2094735-Friedrich-Kettlitz)
3/29/2023

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"Whether performing today's most challenging double bass repertoire, developing his own music, or working sound systems with his bass guitar or a set of turntables - John Eckhardt is testing the limits of being a bassist on planet earth in the 21st century, working towards a broader vision of what bass always was and can become in the future.

Seeking to combine scope with depth, John Eckhardt is constantly involved in the creation of new music and has both collaborated with a wide spectrum of artists and created his personal brand of solo projects. He worked with many composers including Helmut Lachenmann and Pierre Boulez, top new music groups such as Ensemble Modern, Klangforum Vienna and musikfabrik, improvisors from Evan Parker, Elliott Sharp and Peter Evans, to today's new blood in a wide field of today's music.

John Eckhardt has performed on over 30 recordings, among them Iannis Xenakis' masterpiece "Theraps" (Mode Rec.) and three internationally acclaimed solo releases. These share an interest in low frequency and spectral immersion, spatial depth, and themes of repetition and evolutional process.

The Evan Parker produced "Xylobiont" (Psi Rec. 2008) turned into a work in progress with 40 solo double bass recitals all over the world up to today. "Forests" (Depth of Field Music, 2014) expanded these themes into a set of branching, overdubbed bass string quartets. Along with high resolution audio and 200 photographs, they were released on a wooden USB memory stick in a transparent box containing actual forest material - nearly selling out an edition of 250 within one year.

As Forresta, John Eckhardt performs on bass guitar and live electronics, and released "Bass, Space & Time" (Depth of Field Music, 2016) in a special edition of 100 moss-green, marbled double-vinyl records in a hand made, embroidered carton box. Each contains a foto print as front cover chosen by the listener from 100 images of John Eckhardt's corresponding photographic project. This music is also the musical foundation of visual bassic, his long standing collaboration with analog light projection artist Katrin Bethge.

Driven by curiosity and passion for different styles, cultures and artistic means, John Eckhardt keeps drawing new connections and expands a bass cosmos of unusual dimensions. The latest addition is his Basswald DJ project that presents a diverse spectrum of bass music with a special ear for sound system culture. It is accompanied by a steady flow of downloadable podcasts.

John lives within earshot of the Hamburg harbor."

-John Eckhardt Website (https://www.johneckhardt.de/bio)
3/29/2023

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"Barry John Guy (born 22 April 1947, in London) is a British composer and double bass player. His range of interests encompasses early music, contemporary composition, jazz and improvisation, and he has worked with a wide variety of orchestras in the UK and Europe. He also taught at Guildhall School of Music.

Born in London, Guy came to the fore as an improvising bassist as a member of a trio with pianist Howard Riley and drummer Tony Oxley (Witherden, 1969). He also became an occasional member of John Stevens' ensembles in the 1960s and 1970s, including the Spontaneous Music Ensemble. In the early 1970s, he was a member of the influential free improvisation group Iskra 1903 with Derek Bailey and trombonist Paul Rutherford (a project revived in the late 1970s, with violinist Philipp Wachsmann replacing Bailey). He also formed a long-standing partnership with saxophonist Evan Parker, which led to a trio with drummer Paul Lytton which became one of the best-known and most widely travelled free-improvising groups of the 1980s and 1990s. He was briefly a member of the Michael Nyman Band in the 1980s, performing on the soundtrack of The Draughtsman's Contract.

Guy's interests in improvisation and formal composition received their grandest form in the London Jazz Composers Orchestra. Originally formed to perform Guy's composition Ode in 1972 (released as a 2-LP set on Incus and later, in expanded form, as a 2-CD set on Intakt), it became one of the great large-scale European improvising ensembles. Early documentation is spotty - the only other recording from its early years is Stringer (FMP, now available on Intakt paired with the later "Study II") - but beginning in the late 1980s the Swiss label Intakt set out to document the band more thoroughly. The result was a series of ambitious, album-length compositions designed to give all the players in the band maximum opportunity for expression while still preserving a rigorous sense of form: Zurich Concerts, Harmos, Double Trouble (originally written for an encounter with Alexander von Schlippenbach's Globe Unity Orchestra, though the eventual CD was just for the LJCO), Theoria (a concerto for guest pianist Irène Schweizer), Three Pieces, and Double Trouble Two. The group's activities subsided in the mid-1990s, but it was never formally disbanded, and reconvened in 2008 for a one-off concert in Switzerland. In the mid-1990s Guy also created a second, smaller ensemble, the Barry Guy New Orchestra.

Guy has also written for other large improvising ensembles, such as the NOW Orchestra and ROVA (the piece Witch Gong Game inspired by images by the visual artist Alan Davie).

His current improvising activities include piano trios with Marilyn Crispell and Agusti Fernandez. He has also recorded several albums for ECM, which often focus on the interface between improvisers and electronics, including his work in Evan Parker's Electro-Acoustic Ensemble and his own Ceremony.

Guy's session work in the pop field includes playing double bass on the song "Nightporter", from the Japan album Gentlemen Take Polaroids.

He is married to the early music violinist Maya Homburger. After spending some years in Ireland, they now live in Switzerland. They run the small label Maya, which releases a variety of records in the genres of free improvisation, baroque music and contemporary composition.

Guy's jazz work is characterised by free improvisation, using a range of unusual playing methods: bowed and pizzicato sounds beneath the bass's bridge; plucking the strings above the left hand; beating the strings with percussion instrument mallets; and "preparing" the instrument with sticks and other implements inserted between the strings and fingerboard. His improvisations are often percussive and unpredictable, inhabiting no discernible harmonic territory and pushing into unknown regions. However, they can also be melodious and tender with due regard for harmonic integration with other players, and at times he will even play with a straight jazz swing feel.

Similarly, in his concert works, Guy manages to alternate harmonic and rhythmic complexity worthy of 1960s experimentalists such as Penderecki and Stockhausen with joyous, often ecstatic, melody. Works such as "Flagwalk" for string orchestra and "Fallingwater - Concerto for Orchestra" display Guy's compositional skill in handling extended forms and writing for large instrumental groups.

Some of his compositions, such as "Witch Gong Game" for ensemble, use graphic notation in conjunction with cue cards to lead performers into playing and improvising material from numbered sections of the score.

He is also an architect."

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Guy)
3/29/2023

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"Burkhard Beins, born 1964 in Lower Saxony, lives in Berlin since 1995. As a composer/performer working in the fields of experimental music and sound art he is known for his definitive use of percussion in combination with selected sound objects. Furthermore, he works with live-electronics/analog synthesizers and has conceived several sound installations.

Since the late 1980's he is performing at internationally renowned venues and festivals throughout Europe, America, Australia and Asia as diverse as the LMC Festival (London), Int. Ferienkurse (Darmstadt), SKIF (St. Petersburg), Musiktage (Donaueschingen), Musique Action (Nancy), Choppa Festival (Singapore), Cave 12 (Geneva), The Now now (Sydney), ZKM (Karlsruhe), Kaleidophon (Ulrichsberg), Kid Ailack Music Hall (Tokyo), Gaudeamus Festival (Amsterdam), Liquid Architecture (Australia), Meteo (Mulhouse), Taktlos (CH), Berghain (Berlin), Konfrontationen (Nickelsdorf), Serralves (Porto), Wien Modern (Vienna), MoMA (New York), New Music Festival (Hanoi), Irtijal (Beirut), or Maerzmusik (Berlin).

Alongside his solo work he is a member of the ensembles Polwechsel, Activity Center, The Sealed Knot, Perlonex, Sawt Out, Trio Sowari, Tree, Junk Orbit, Fracture Mechanics, and Splitter Orchester and also works with composers/musicans such as Sven-Åke Johansson, Andrea Neumann, Keith Rowe, Axel Dörner, Tarek Atoui, John Tilbury, or Charlemagne Palestine.

Burkhard Beins gives workshops based on his graphic score system Adapt/Oppose, has published several articles on music theory, and is a co-editor of the book "Echtzeitmusik Berlin - Self-Defining a Scene" as well as the curator of a follow-up 3CD compilation featuring the Berlin Echtzeitmusik scene. Meanwhile he has released more than 50 CDs and LPs on labels like Zarek, Erstwhile, 2:13 Music, Hat Hut, Potlatch, Absinth, alt.vinyl, God Records, Mikroton, or Confront."

-Burkhard Beins Website (http://www.burkhardbeins.de/cv.html)
3/29/2023

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"Günter "Baby" Sommer (born 25 August 1943 in Dresden) is a German jazz drummer.

He studied music in Dresden. He rose to fame in the GDR. He is part of the European free jazz avantgarde. He was part of the trio with Conny Bauer and Peter Kowald. He is now professor for drums and percussion in Dresden. The drummer and composer Christian Lillinger was one of his former students. The album Three Seasons "(HGBS 2014 with Michel Godard and Patrick Bebelaar) was awarded " Album of the Year 2014 " by The New York City Jazz Record."

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BCnter_Sommer)
3/29/2023

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