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| About the Album |
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A beautiful daydream turns into a nightmare: With the silent film »Phantom«, Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau staged an "Amour fou par excellence" against the background of bourgeois small-town life. The poor bookworm and leisure poet Lorenz Lubota is hit by the coach of the beautiful and rich Veronika Harlan. On the one hand the accident, on the other hand the beauty of Veronica confuse the virtuous Lorenz so much that he takes on vice and debts in order to get closer to the unattainable phantom of his desire...
Wolfgang Mitterer, twice awarded the Austrian Film Prize in the “Best Music” category and one of the most accomplished and experimental composers of the present, has set this psychological drama to music on behalf of the Wiener Konzerthaus, the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg and the Ensemble PHACE. |
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| Lineup |
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Lars Mlekusch, conductor
Ensemble PHACE
Thomas Frey, flute
Walter Seebacher, clarinet
Stefan Obmann, trombone
Spiros Laskaridis, trumpet
Mathilde Hoursiangou, piano
Berndt Thurner, percussion
Samuel Toro Perez, electric guitar
Ivana Pristasova, violin
Roland Schueler, cello
Alexandra Dienz, double bass
Alfred Reiter, sound design
Live recording by Wolfgang Racher (ORF) from the Wiener Konzerthaus on January 10th 2020. |
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| About the Artists |
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Wolfgang Mitterer
Mitterer studied organ, composition and electroacoustics in Vienna and Stockholm. He is not only one of the Austrian specialists for electronics as well as being equally brilliant on the keyboard and on the slide controls, but is also one of the most innovative composers. His work oscillates between composition and open form. Apart from music for organ and orchestra, a piano concerto and an opera he has produced electronic pieces, conceptualized sound installations, and engaged in collective improvisation with diverse groups, developing a language of extremes, tension and complexity. The pleasure he takes in experimenting leads him to combine contrasting elements in the creation of unpredictable musical events. In one major composition, for instance, he juxtaposes musical bands and children’s choirs with specialized instrumentalists and singers, while filling the hall with surround sound created by live electronics. But his work transcends the merely spectacular, precisely because of his musical presence and the high – deeply moving – intensity and complexity of his compositions. Listening intensely to low sounds has its place just as much as the “installing” of exploding sound fragments in the listeners’ minds. Far from being smoothly pleasurable, Mitterer’s music is still uncannily beautiful at times.
Lars Mlekusch
Following his career as a concert saxophonist, Swiss/Austrian musician Lars Mlekusch now also appears as a conductor in venues including Musikverein Wien, Wiener Konzerthaus, Cité de la Musique Strasbourg, Het Concertgebouw and Muziekgebouw Amsterdam, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Casa da Música Porto, Teatro Nacional de Cuba, National Concert Hall Taipei and at festivals such as Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Festival Wien Modern, impuls festival Graz or Salzburg Aspekte. He has conducted ensembles and orchestras such as Klangforum Wien, Ensemble PHACE Vienna, OENM Salzburg, Georgisches Kammerorchester Ingolstadt, Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional de Cuba, Ensemble Schallfeld Graz, Cantus Ensemble Zagreb and others.
He works with composers such as Helmut Lachenmann, Georges Aperghis, José María Sánchez-Verdú, Johannes-Maria Staud, Bernhard Lang, Germán Toro-Pérez, Francesco Filidei, Sarah Nemtsov, Alberto Posadas, Wolfram Schurig, Germán Toro-Pérez, Agata Zubel, Simon Steen-Andersen, Klaus Lang, Wolfgang Mitterer, Xu Yi or Christian Utz and conducted many first performances. As a saxophonist he has performed regularly with ensembles such as Klangforum Wien, Ensemble PHACE and the SWR Orchestra. He has recorded for KAIROS, Edition Zeitklang, Label PHACE and many radio stations. Since 2015 Lars Mlekusch is professor of saxophone, chamber music and contemporary music at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK). From 2005-2017 he was professor of saxophone and chamber music at the Musik und Kunst Privatuniversität Wien (formerly Konservatorium Wien University). His students are winners of international competitions and hold professorships at music universities and are successful as performers. He is regularly invited to teach masterclasses at renowned institutions including Conservatoire de Paris CNSMD, Conservatorium van Amsterdam, Fryderyk Chopin University of Music Warsaw, Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi Milano, Royal College of Music London, Beijing Central Conservatory, Northwestern University Chicago, Eastman School of Music, Manhattan School of Music, New England Conservatory and has also been on the faculties of the European Saxophone University Gap, impuls academy Graz and Arosa Music Academy.
He served as a jury member at the major international saxophone competitions and at the M-Prize Chamber Arts Competition Michigan USA and the Deutscher Musikwettbewerb. Lars Mlekusch studied saxophone in Basel (Marcus Weiss) and Chicago (Frederick L. Hemke) and conducting with Arturo Tamayo and Emilio Pomàrico. From the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna he holds a MAS in Art Management. He is a Selmer Paris artist. He also enjoys spending time with his friends, reading, cooking and eating, running, hiking, visiting art museums and painting or drawing for pleasure.
Ensemble PHACE
Performing the music of today unbound by differences in genre with passion, fire and unlimited excitement: removed from the ivory tower, and embedded in the multifaceted world of contemporary music. With great enthusiasm the eleven soloists of PHACE and their artistic director Reinhard Fuchs aim to take their audiences on journeys into rich, poetic worlds. PHACE has presented unconventional concerts, musical theater productions and interdisciplinary projects with dance, theater, live performance, electronics, video, turntables, installations and much more for many years. Since its founding in 1991 by conductor and composer Simeon Pironkoff as “ensemble on_line” and relaunching in 2010 under the name PHACE, the group has sought out deep artistic collaborations with numerous renowned composers, conductors and musicians. In this way more than 200 works have been commissioned and premiered, and many of those have been published on numerous recordings. Openness and curiosity to experiment at the highest artistic standards are the hallmarks of the ensemble, which are regularly furthered through collaborations with other musicians and guests from varied artistic disciplines. |
1CD | III Edition | Contemporary |
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| Recommendation |
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Axis Mundi - a fine selection of contemporary works for prepared piano w/ electroacoustics - magnificently played by Hélène Pereira.  |
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| A dark glowing sound in contemporary jazz: the picture-rich and atmospheric debut album by the Austrian trio VOS! |
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| BONECRUSHER: music ranging from sound-sculpture noise drones to walls-of-Jericho-collapsing blasts to delicate webs of air and tone, resonating overtones with layered articulations. |
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