The Squid's Ear Magazine


Schwerdt, Oliver: Storming Bauhaus [2 CDs] (Euphorium)

Eschewing his many monikers (Birg Borgenthal, Elan Pauer and Ra Ra da Boff) pianist Oliver Schwerdt steps away from EUPHORIUM_freakestra, uses his given name, and takes the stage of the Bauhaus building in Dessau where such legends as Fred van Hove and Alexander von Schlippenbach have played, to record these four exemplary and extended, kinetic & free solo piano improvisations.
 

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Oliver Schwerdt-grand piano


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Label: Euphorium
Catalog ID: EUPH 055
Squidco Product Code: 30731

Format: 2 CDs
Condition: New
Released: 2019
Country: Germany
Packaging: Jewel Case
Recorded at Bauhaus, in Dessau, Germany, on June 18th, 2015, by Torsten Schroth.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"Now Oliver Schwerdt, long-term leader of the miraculous EUPHORIUM_freakestra formerly coming up with such illustrious pseudonyms as Birg Borgenthal, Elan Pauer and Ra Ra da Boff introduces himself on behalf of his civil name as a stakeholder in the art of piano solo.

After his adventurous collaborations with as many as ten (!) masters of contemporarily improvised music which, from Barre Phillips to Robert Landfermann, released influential unaccompanied solo records during the while of six decades Schwerdt's approach is nothing less than to perform an arc of tension lasting about three quarters of an hour - only on the keys.

Climbing that height Schwerdt, who worked there for a period of ten years, decided to perform his solely kinetic studies at the Bauhaus building in Dessau. Everybody knows that the circle working there in the 1920s was about spending their talents to the most influential catapult of modern conceptualizing of space. But there are few who still have in mind that in the 1970s and 80s the same place developed a hot spot of contemporary music improvisation. Some dozens of famous free jazz and improvising artists then pulled out there radical sonic impacts at the eyes and ears of the legendary GDR audience and made clear where Arnold Schönbergs, Kandinsky's friend's revolution had went.

Oliver Schwerdt spreads out his fingers on that stage where workers like Fred van Hove and Alexander von Schlippenbach theirselves were once laiding the foundation stone of this music. Listen to "Training At The Bauhaus", "Voicing In The Bauhaus", "Rolling On The Bauhaus" on the first and finally to the ultimate of "The Storming Of The Bauhaus Dessau" on the second CD! Getting aware of this title design Schwerdt is not coming along without bowing his thanks to his magnificent friend and musical leader Baby Sommer."-Euphorium Records


Artist Biographies

"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)
3/25/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



CD1



1. Training At The Bauhaus 31:03

2. Voicing In The Bauhaus 19:55

3. Rolling On The Bauhaus 18:45

CD2



1. The Storming Of The Bauhaus Dessau 1:00:56

Related Categories of Interest:


Improvised Music
Jazz
Free Improvisation
European Improvisation, Composition and Experimental Forms
Piano & Keyboards
Solo Artist Recordings

Search for other titles on the label:
Euphorium.


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