Réka Csiszér is a singer, composer, multi-instrumentalist and performer. Classically trained in piano, violoncello and flute, she completed her studies in jazz singing at the ZhdK in 2017. Csiszér repeatedly builds bridges between different genres with projects in theater and film. Now she wants to realize an ambitious solo project with “VÍZ”. An interdisciplinary total work of art (performance-film sound), which, in collaboration with other artists, generates an audio-visual space in which Réka Csiszér not only explores her stylistic range of ambient, classical, avant-folk and electronic music, but at the same time wants to deepen the relationship to her Hungarian mother tongue and her Transylvanian roots.
«Get Going!» has existed as a FONDATION SUISA funding offer since 2018. With this new form of a grant, creative and artistic processes that do not fall within established categories are given a financial jump-start.
The composer and musician Isandro Ojeda-García is pursuing a solo career as an audio-visual performer. He is also a member of the Insub Meta Orchestra (IMO) as well as musician and artistic co-director of the band TRES OJOS and the festival unfold-LAB, which is co-produced in collaboration with the University of Geneva. For years, the Geneva-based artist has been working on interdisciplinary projects between the conflicting priorities of composition and improvisation, of music and video art, together with various artists of different origins. With his large-scale project “alt_A|V-LIB”, one of his aims is to overcome the classical score on a technical and artistic level by developing an alternative, transversal and hybrid communication system between musicians of different traditions and artists of the performing arts. isandroojedagarcia.tumblr.com
arttv Portrait –––––––––––––––––––
ISANDRO OJEDA-GARCÍA
14.09.2021
«Get Going!» has existed as a FONDATION SUISA funding offer since 2018. With this new form of a grant, creative and artistic processes that do not fall within established categories are given a financial jump-start.
Joy Frempong and Marcel Blatti make up OY. The Swiss duo, Berliners by choice, plan to go on a sustainable tour and find inspiration as they stroll through cities they are visiting. The «Get Going!» grant from FONDATION SUISA supports them with their “Messages from Walls” project.
Together with the Bern musician, Marcel Blatti, the Zurich singer, Joy Frempong, deliberately pushes the boundaries of musical genres in the duo OY and transforms them into garish avant-pop with meaningful content. OY’s albums are always conceptual and deal with sociopolitical issues in a variety of ways – often enriched with audiovisual elements or texts and images in book form. With their “Messages from Walls” project, the duo living in Berlin want to search for messages on walls in public spaces during the upcoming tour that have the potential to bring these walls down. With the help of partners, this content will be visually condensed into an artistic political statement, which will subsequently lead to an album of the same name and an accompanying blog.
Joy Frempong and Marcel Blatti, the last OY album “Space Diaspora” was very successful. The next one will be released soon. What can we expect?
Marcel: We’ve summarised our last two albums musically. Joy’s lyrics are consistent throughout these albums and that’s where we pick up from and develop everything further.
Joy: The record reflects what’s happening around us. It’s both post-past and pre-future (laughs). It’s about identity, injustices, but it also conveys positive aspects of our time.
You are going on tour with this album – and this is where your «Get going!» project comes in.
Both of them: Correct!
How did you come up with this project?
Marcel: We’ve been on tour very often in recent years. That’s something which we’re very fortunate to have experienced, but sometimes things also get very hectic. You travel to the venue, give a concert on the same day, and the tour continues the next day. During this period, we felt a yearning to stay longer in the respective places and to use the stay for research and writing new songs. The ideas that arise during this process are also meant to lead to a live blog – an alternative way of staying in contact with fans far removed from the monopolised Facebook channels. However, this “slow touring” can’t be funded through the usual tour budgets, which is where «Get Going!» comes into play.
Joy: At the same time, we’re thus also able to travel in a more environmentally friendly way. Touring whilst not forgetting the increase in global warming is an important issue for many. We’re in a paradoxical situation because we’re not a local band, but are generating interest throughout the whole of Europe. One of the reasons people practice this profession is because they like to move around. And artists should have the opportunity for cultural exchange. At the same time, we also have a duty to achieve this in a more sustainable way.
Marcel: However, not in a form whereby everyone just sits at home streaming concerts. The coronavirus lockdown has clearly shown that this doesn’t work. You have to be able to physically experience the energy of a concert.
An additional component of your project is dealing with statements found on urban walls.
Joy: If you walk through Berlin, you’ll encounter a lot of street art and political graffiti. Sometimes it’s aimed directly at the neighbourhood, but it can also be philosophical or witty. There is, for example, a jogging track where you can read the following spray-painted text each time you complete a round: “Can’t keep running away”. Not all slogans work as lyrics, but it’s a different approach to getting to know a city and its culture if you try to explore an area based on such statements.
Wall hunting?
Marcel: (Laughs) exactly! It’s all about keeping your own senses sharpened and the question of how what you see then interacts with your own imagination.
After all, OY is more than just music. The visual implementation, the costumes, the accompanying books – that really is heading towards a complete art form. Was that the plan?
Marcel: We simply have a wide range of interests. And if you put your whole heart and soul into a band, then everything else that fascinates you automatically flows into it as well. We’ve always had very good contact with other art forms and this has increased over the years. We put a lot of love into our projects – from stage design to the cover.
The OY blog says: “There is hope our society could learn lessons”. Optimism in a world where nothing seems to work?
Joy: Sometimes you feel powerless against those who call themselves realists. However, I think that a change in the right direction is under way. Sometimes crises trigger upheavals. There’s a fear that people want to return to the “normal” state of affairs after COVID-19, but like many others, we want to change something, and we’re using this turning point as a catalyst for fundamental change.
What do you think of «Get Going!» as a funding model?
Marcel: We are progressive in Switzerland where cultural funding is concerned. Nevertheless, it’s time to find new forms that better cater to creative artists’ daily needs. «Get Going!» is therefore not only a huge stroke of luck for us – it’s also a groundbreaking format.
Joy: Funding is usually tied to productions. «Get Going!», on the other hand, is more open and intended, for example, as support for the creative process. Especially in our case, all the preparatory work for a new project is very important. “Get Going!” is therefore a huge relief. It’s as if a new window were opening on the horizon. That’s such a great feeling.
FONDATION SUISA started awarding new grants in 2018. Under the heading of «Get Going!», creative and artistic processes that do not fall within established categories are given a financial jump-start.
Electronically processed everyday sounds are combined with elements of ländler music to create a new listening experience: this is what the double bass player and composer, Pirmin Huber, wants to develop and realise for his new project. The «Get Going!» grant is supporting him with this project.
The Schwyz composer and double bass player, Pirmin Huber, has been experimenting with new ways of combining Swiss folk music with other genres to create new sounds since he completed his jazz studies (majoring in composition) at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts. Whether as a soloist or as a member of the “Ländlerorchester” (Ländler Orchestra), “Stereo Kulisse”, “Ambäck” or of the “Gläuffig” formation: Huber redefines folk music and blends it with techno, jazz, classical or electronic music. Now Pirmin Huber wants to conduct a type of “field recording” research with the help of electronically manipulated everyday noises and the folk music sounds of his double base and other instruments he plays. The whole thing should lead to a work that challenges our listening habits, thus reflecting the world at this extraordinary time.
Pirmin Huber, how did the idea for this project come about?
Pirmin Huber: I started out playing folk music, that is to say acoustic music, and I have increasingly delved into electronic music. By tinkering with new recording techniques, I have come up with ideas that I want to develop further. I grew up on a farm, and we also had a carpenter’s workshop there. I was as fascinated by the sounds of the saw as I was by all the other sounds, and I already tried to imitate them with my musical instruments at that time. In my «Get Going!» project, I start with the sounds I can create with my instruments, double bass, Schwyzerörgeli (an accordion first made in the canton of Schwyz), guitar, piano or Glarus zither, and combine them with typical everyday sounds that I make seem unfamiliar with the help of electronic music. Since my youth, I have been asking myself the following question: how can you make music from these sounds. Now I can afford quite a few tools, thus giving me the opportunity to get deeply involved with the project.
What comes first? The sound collection and then the composition or is it the other way around?
It’s a mixture of the two. New opportunities keep opening up while I work. It’s all part of the process. It’s important to me that I create a very specific mood with my music. The finished work will consist of several pieces that flow together or at least relate to each other. It could be described as a type of suite.
You shift from one style to the next with ease. As a double bass player, you always set the tone. Can connections or interfaces between folk music, classical music, jazz, pop, rock or techno be identified from this position?
Perhaps. In any case, techno and ländler music are very closely related genres. This may be difficult to understand from the outside (laughs), but the energy that comes from playing is the same for techno as it is for ländler music, which is after all also dance music. I think you first have to have played both to experience this common feature. In my project, I am trying to create a kind of modern ländler music with electronics and grooves.
Nature and urban life: do you get the inspiration you need from these conflicting elements?
I need both. As soon as one of them is no longer there, it feels like something is missing. That’s probably why it’s logical that I want to bring these two opposing poles together. I’ve had three strings to my bow for a long time: folk music, contemporary music and techno. However, I feel that they are one.
The «Get Going!» grant is intended to provide start-up financing without any result-related expectations. What do you think of this funding model?
I think it’s great! The freedom it gives us serves as motivation to really achieve something great. After all, I had conceived the idea for my project a long time ago, but then things kept getting in the way. And much ultimately depends on whether you can afford to execute such a project and also implement it without any stress. «Get Going!» allows me to do just that.
FONDATION SUISA started awarding new grants in 2018. Under the heading of «Get Going!», creative and artistic processes that do not fall within established categories are given a financial jump-start.
On the one hand, the centuries-old tradition of choral music and, on the other, the almost endless possibilities offered by electronic music. Jérémie Zwahlen and Félix Bergeron experiment in the area of tension between these two polar extremes with the aim of creating something completely new. The «Get Going!» grant is supporting them with this project.
As is generally known, opposites attract. Jérémie Zwahlen and Félix Bergeron, both 33 years old, sit in a café in Lausanne, discussing their project to redefine the long tradition of choral music with the aid of electronic experimentation. Bergeron also uses the conversation about this project for a brainstorming session. Exactly as it should be for a drummer, when the rhythms become more complex, he accurately describes more and more options of how it would be possible to combine old and new, traditional and avant-garde. Zwahlen listens with stoic calm, from time to time making his own contribution with incisive sentences. He does not seem to be a stranger to this kind of dialogue. „Félix is like an extremely strong cigarette and I am the super-filter that is used to smoke it,“ reckons Zwahlen and both of them laugh.
Actually, when they were young the two of them went to the same school near Lausanne, after which they went their separate ways. As early as when he was just six years old, Bergeron played the drums, but never found real fulfilment until he heard Lucas Niggli play a drum solo at the Willisau Jazz Festival. „As well as drums, he used electronic equipment. I was completely gobsmacked and knew that was what I wanted to do,“ recalls Bergeron. Zwahlen, on the other hand, grew up in the brass tradition and was a trumpeter in a band, just like his father and grandfather before him. For her part, his mother sang in a choir. „At grammar school,“ according to Zwahlen, „they told me I would make a good music teacher and that’s how I started my training.“
They both attended the Haute École de Musique Lausanne (HEMU), „but I studied jazz and Jérémie classical music“, comments Bergeron, adding „which were in two different buildings.“ The thing both of them didn’t know: their life partners were friends and they eventually met again at a party after many years. When Zwahlen then asked Bergeron to provide electronic support for „Chœur Auguste“, the choir he led, they arrived at the idea of a collaboration which was intended to go above and beyond the familiar and what people had heard before. „Needless to say, people have amalgamated choral music with electronics before,“ says Bergeron, „but in those cases, the organ or piano was simply replaced by a synthesizer. That kind of thing doesn’t interest us.“
Both of them are predestined to tread new ground, and in their individual projects they were already scratching the stylistic limits and attempting to remap the musical landscape. With his incisive and conceptually unusual arrangements of the music of Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Camille and Queen, Zwahlen not only redefined the laws of choral music, but also regarded the choir in its entirety as one body: „The choir is like a sculpture that breathes and which you can work on. And Félix also works with vibrations you can feel physically. In the end, you must be able to literally feel the music.“
In fact, Bergeron is heavily influenced by the sculptural. Apart from his many projects ranging between abstract improvisation, folk, punk and jazz, he also works for the theatre and dance companies. In his „Brush Paintings“, chance results in visual art, in that he dips his drumming brushes in paint and equips his cymbals with canvasses. „In spontaneous work with electronics, it is also possible to work with arbitrariness. That interests me. I see countless possibilities there for breaking down the traditional forms of choral music.“
Music as sculpture, which should also reveal to the audience the secrets behind its creation. „We want the audience to see what is happening. How composition, chance, arrangements and improvisation all influence one another. The audience should be able to experience our project with all their senses,“ is the way Zwahlen describes the starting point and stresses: „It is my obsessive desire to reprocess all music genres in such a way that they offer pleasure to everyone. Irrespective of whether we are dealing with classical music, folk, jazz or experimental music.“
They both think that there are so many musical, content-related and visual possibilities, with which you can experiment in such a project, and they emphasise just how important the factors of time and money are for such an undertaking. „Thanks to the «Get Going!» grant, for the first time it became possible for us to tread new ground to such a great extent,“ beams Bergeron.
Jérémie Zwahlen and Félix Bergeron: two people obsessed with music, who also pass on their enthusiasm to coming generations as teachers at HEMU and the Ecole de jazz et musique actuelle (EJMA) in Lausanne and – in the case of Bergeron – also at the Ecole Jeunesse & Musique in Blonay. Together they form the only cigarette in the world that is not damaging to health. Quite the opposite.
Rudolf Amstutz
arttv-Portrait –––––––––––––––––––
ZWAHLEN / BERGERON
24.08.2020
FONDATION SUISA started awarding new grants in 2018. Under the heading of «Get Going!», creative and artistic processes that do not fall within established categories are given a financial jump-start.
Searching for her personal identity is the force that drives her creativity. It has enabled Jessica Plattner, alias Jessiquoi, to create a complete audiovisual work of art. The 31-year-old Bern resident says that she is brim full of ideas. Thanks to the «Get Going!» grant, there is no longer anything standing in the way of her goals.
„Once I am a grown-up, I would like to have a grand piano on stage,“ says Jessica Plattner, laughing at her own turn of phrase. Needless to say, at 31 years of age, she has already been a grown-up for some time, but her statement also indicates that she sees herself as an artist on a path to further development that has not yet reached its end. And this is in spite of being one of Switzerland’s most impressive acts with her alter ego Jessiquoi. She composes and produces herself. She is responsible for the visuals, continually creating fantastic worlds, in which Jessiquoi reinvents, redefines herself with the aid of electro-sound environments that are sometimes aggressive, sometimes gentle.
„For me, identity is something that is fluid,“ comments Jessica, quoting well-known drag queen, RuPaul: „You’re born naked. The rest is drag.“ Then adding: „I believe that every person has the freedom to reinvent themself. Also, no justification is necessary if someone steers their life in a completely new direction. It is like in a video game, where each and every player can specify their own avatar.“
The quest for an identity is the creative driving force: in Jessica’s case, this has its roots in her extraordinary life-history. She was born in Bern. Shortly afterwards, her family emigrated to Australia. When she was a teenager, her father was offered a job at the Bern Conservatory, so the family moved back to Switzerland. This steered her still young career down other paths. Jessica had wanted to be a professional dancer and trained accordingly in Sydney. In addition, the Plattners spoke exclusively English at home. „If I had wanted to pursue my career as a dancer, I would have had to go to Rotterdam or Berlin. But I wanted to be with my family,“ she says. „At the beginning, I felt like I was a foreigner in Bern and like I was being excluded. It was only when I started to speak the Bernese dialect that everything was suddenly OK. The language came to her easily, her German teacher even giving her the nickname „tape recorder“, „because I could play back everything so perfectly,“ she laughs.
The search for her identity in this strange homeland then led her to music – with dance falling by the wayside. „We always had a piano at home, but I never touched it in the beginning. I’d had lessons for a short time, but I hated them. Then I suddenly started writing songs of my own every day,“ is the way she describes her musical beginnings.
But if the loss of her familiar environment was not bad enough, seven years ago Jessica suffered the most painful stroke of fate that anyone could possibly imagine. Her brother, who was two years younger than her, died. „We shared everything and were often even mistaken for twins,“ she says before explaining how her brother inspired her interest in the world of video games and film soundtracks.
And it was precisely in these worlds where you can reinvent yourself that Jessica found her new home as Jessiquoi. “You could say that Jessiquoi is a fictional character, but in truth she is actually a different version of me,“ she says and adds: „This character can also scare you, because Jessiquoi does not inhabit our fixed system of clear gender roles and national identities.“
On her albums, she now tells us about these strange worlds, in which the valleys are contaminated, so people flee to the mountain tops, and where pilots are able to fly in the direction of a better existence. On stage, she brings about this alternative existence all by herself. She has electronic instruments and a command centre for the visual effects on a wooden cart and dances, playing the part of Jessiquoi as absolute ruler of the stage, which is a place of self-determination and constant repositioning. Jessiquoi creates a complete artwork that is impressive thanks to its uncompromisingness, and with which she has also already drummed up enthusiasm in Seville and New York.
The wooden cart – or „trolley“ as she calls it – is like a Chinese harp, which she plays live, and is reminiscent of Chinese culture, for which she possesses great affinity. “In the language school, one of my Chinese friends got me interested in her culture. And once when I was in China – it was three o’clock in the morning in Shanghai – I wanted something to eat and there was this old lady with a wooden cart on which she was cooking food. This old cart in the middle of this great metropolis: that’s an image I will never forget. I wanted to be this woman,“ she explains, chuckling.
Self-determination with no ifs or buts, as well as the freedom to keep her own identity in a fluid state are things that Jessica sees as being essential for her art. „For me, the main job of an artist is to dream about the future of our civilisation anew or to make it visible, because this is what absorbs, analyses, criticises and reformulates the world and the people around them.“
Thanks to the «Get Going!» grant, nothing stands in the way of this exciting development. „I have had to finance myself by playing concerts, which meant I had less time to craft new songs. I now have my annual budget available at a stroke,“ she beams. Where this journey ultimately leads her is totally open: „I don’t know what music I will be making tomorrow. It comes easily to me. But I will never let reasons of market strategy stipulate what my music must sound like. I am working on my identity. Me. Just me, nobody but me.“
Soak up as much as possible and then process it. That is Michel Barengo’s creed. The 37-year-old Zurich resident will have nothing to do with any comfort zones and now, thanks to the «Get Going!» grant, can pursue his creative urges on the Japanese underground scene.
Cowbells, the bleating of goats, squeaky doors, cackling hens, the gentle rustling of the wind in the trees, police sirens or lapping water: there is nothing in the world of sound that would not be of interest to Michel Barengo. He is a tireless collector of sounds who has created a substantial audio library of all kinds of sounds in his home studio. „Just sit for ten minutes in a bus station with your eyes closed. It’s incredible what is going on there,“ he beams and the passion of this sound architect is unmistakeable from the way his eyes light up.
Now, the 37-year-old Zurich resident is not only a tinkerer with a tendency to make his own music, but is also one of the most in-demand protagonists when it comes to soundtracks for video games or sound backdrops for the theatre. In 2016, he won the FONDATION SUISA prize for the best video game music. But such commissions are just one part of the work of this jack-of-all-trades, who promotes his distinct musical identity with clear ideas.
The skills he has developed enabling him to implement his creative ideas professionally are very impressive. At the age of five, he started playing the violin and drums and afterwards he played in various garage bands with his brothers. They played punk, metal and alternative rock. Influenced by Mr. Bungle and Fantômas, the projects of Californian singer Mike Patton, Barengo followed his path and inevitably discovered the music of New York experimental saxophonist, John Zorn. “Grand Guignol“, the album by Zorn’s band Naked City, was, without a shadow of a doubt, the most influential experience in the still young Michel Barengo’s life. In a primitive yet subtle manner, Zorn deconstructs and reconstructs the music at breathtaking speed and creates an explosive sound cloud that has never been heard before from countless tiny fragments.
„Zorn’s affinity with the Japanese underground led me to begin to take more and more of an interest in the grindcore and experimental scenes there. Bands like Ground Zero, Korekyojinn and Ruins with Tatsuya Yoshida on drums, as well as Otomo Yoshihide on turntables and guitar. That was decisive when it came to my own experimental pieces,“ explains Barengo. The influences in both of his band projects, the jazzcore trio Platypus and grind noise band Five Pound Pocket Universe(5PPU) must not be overlooked.
The facts that Barengo can move with ease through his sound cosmos and can build bridge after bridge between his own artistic path and his commissions, over which he dances nimbly, are to do with his professional training. He trained as a jazz drummer at the Winterthur Academy for Modern Music (WIAM) and at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) he obtained his Master’s in composition for film, theatre and media.
Whether opulent sounds reminiscent of Hollywood for a video game, roughly honed small pieces with his band 5PPU or finely crafted sound sample collages with Platypus: Barengo’s eclecticism is invariably fed by his urge to create a completely distinctive aesthetic. One that denies predictions and will not allow the listener to get any peace, because behind every individual sound another one might be lurking which surprises, questions or totally remaps the path laid down beforehand at lightning speed.
The nature of the work is also motivated by the character of its creator. „I’m a restless person,“ comments Barengo about himself. „There is so much that interests me. I also get bored quickly. I simply have to try things. Ultimately, that’s what drives you: soak up as much as possible and then process it. I like extremes and lots of variety,“ he says and then adds, laughing: „It’s probably all down to the fact that I heard ‚Grand Guignol‘ when I was just 13. That’s what it did to me.
Barengo only feels good when he goes out of his comfort zone. And his Get Going! project is also based on an area of tension with two extremes. It has to lead him to a place where tremendous creative tension in the discrepancy between tradition and modern has prevailed for centuries. Barengo’s love of the Japanese underground led him to visit this country around a dozen times and now he wants to get a three-part project going there. “I actually have in mind a project in three phases consisting of two periods of residency in Japan followed by one in Switzerland for reviewing the work and processing it further,“ he explains. „Firstly, using improvisation sessions with the Tokyo underground scene, I would like to get to grips with Japanese traditional music and its integration into contemporary music. After this I will meet up with 12 Japanese musicians in 12 hotels, with whom I can record a track in one room consisting of noises I recorded in that particular hotel. And last but not least, back in Switzerland I will review all the material I recorded, archive it for future composition projects and process it for my personal sound library.“ The thrill of anticipation about this is great and all thanks to being able to bring it to fruition with financial support from the «Get Going!» award. „My project doesn’t fit into any existing categories. It’s neither an album production nor a tour. And it’s not working in a studio either. As I follow my creative path, «Get Going!» frees me from all constraints and compromises. Quite simply ingenious!“ he beams. And even though his journey now had to be delayed until next year due to the coronavirus: back at home, the sound collector and tinkerer is unlikely to lose his ideas quickly.
Despite her outstanding training and commercial successes in a number of bands, Anna Gosteli hid her light under a bushel far too often.The 35-year-old resident of Solothurn is now stepping into the limelight and has found her too long-awaited musical identity, thanks to all of her many experiences. The 2019 «Get Going!» grant gave her the necessary financial independence.
Parts of a puzzle like mosaic pieces – before they are put together, they shimmer in all the colours under the sun, but: the full picture is just not there. The correct arrangement, the right sequence of events which gives the finished picture its identity, is missing. „Jack of all trades and master of none“ is the way Anna Gosteli describes the state of affairs in which she found herself for years. And this is despite how these individual parts of the puzzle can be seen or heard: piano lessons at the age of 7, then the clarinet, followed by the school choir. At home in the Vorarlberg region of Austria, her mother played the guitar and her father the saxophone. „Even as a child I came into contact with all sorts of musical genres, with golden oldies and pop songs, and in our house there were always instruments available to play.“
At the age of 14, she moved to Switzerland. Yet another piece of the puzzle, followed by more new pieces at regular intervals. When she was 21, she joined the Basel-based art-pop collective, The Bianca Story. Nothing seemed to stand in the way of a stellar career. Appearances at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, recording at Abbey Road Studios in London, however: „In the beginning I was the timid one in the band,“ the 35-year-old comments today, quickly adding: „This was entirely something I felt myself, and had nothing to do with the guys in the band, who always treated me as an equal.“ In spite of Gosteli’s international success, this extremely talented singer was always the second voice. Combined with her reserved nature, she was left with the feeling that there could be more to her than meets the eye.
Her liberation began when she attended the Jazz School in Basel. Composition with Hans Feigenwinter, singing with Lisette Spinnler and harmony lessons with Lester Menezes. She is able to laugh about it today, but „at that time I was moved to tears when an irritated Lester once again pointed out to me that what I was doing was boring. My singing tended to be ‚too sweet‘.“ Ultimately, this love-hate relationship turned out to be an important driving force in her breaking out of fixed roles and listening to her inner voice. Slowly but surely, the parts of the puzzle that had been collected over the years seemed to be fitting together. A feeling of certainty grew that a bigger, more coherent picture was possibly hidden inside her.
Along with Fabian Chiquet of The Bianca Story, she founded Chiqanne. Working together, they created great pop songs with depth. „Suddenly, I was writing lyrics in German and standing at the very front of the stage.“ But the decisive step in completing the puzzle only appeared as a result of the album, „Dr Schnuu und sini Tierli“, with a collection of songs for children, and most importantly, for their parents as well. Like so many things in her varied career, this was not planned. „I never know where things will take me. But somehow that can also be a way of doing things,“ she laughs.
It happened at Christmas, when Anna, now the mother of a six-year-old son, was looking for presents for the children of her friends. „And because I was really short of money at that time, I wrote a song and gave each child a verse. After the song about „Poultry“, came „Biber (Beaver)“, which she gave to the film composer, Biber Gullatz, by way of thanks for a stay in his Berlin apartment, when she was frequently cooperating with him on television film soundtracks. „Only then did the idea come to me of writing a collection of children’s songs.“
It was behind these actual songs that almost all of the musical experiences that Gosteli had gathered throughout her career were hiding, and which suggested that the puzzle would become part of a glittering oeuvre. Thanks to lots of humour, but also immense psychological depth, these songs show off Gosteli’s talents as a lyricist, whilst the music – which she performed on stage in collaboration with guitarist, Martina Stutz, – reflects her stylistic journey from golden oldies to pop songs and ultimately jazz.
„I’m currently bursting with ideas,“ says Gosteli, who teaches singing at the Guggenheim in Liestal, as well as leading a „Female Band Workshop“ for „helvetiarockt“ along with Evelinn Trouble.And, last but not least, she is starting to bring the puzzle nearly to completion in the newly established Kid Empress band. „At last,“ states Gosteli, „I’ve found three musical kindred spirits. We make decisions together and without having to make any compromises.“
The „Schnuu“ and genre-crossing sound of Kid Empress already clearly indicate that the initial „Jack of all trades and master of none“ is being condensed into an independent identity. „The «Get Going!» grant gives me the necessary financial breathing space at just the right time to be able to immerse myself in this new, creative adventure.“ And at this point, she beams all over her face once more.
Saxophonist Bertrand Denzler is always working on new opportunities to express himself in the delicate balance that lies between improvisation and composition. The 55-year-old musician from Geneva, who is now resident in Paris, now intends to extend the frontiers of his artistic dialogue with others even further using „roaming residencies“. FONDATIONSUISAis supporting this project financially with «Get Going!» funding.
„Tireless“, „adaptable“ and „industrious“ are just three words that could be used to characterise the artistic craft of Bertrand Denzler. Anyone checking out his website for the first time could be forgiven for thinking the sheer number of projects and line-ups might be their kiss-of-death. Denzler laughs: “I’ve laid the whole thing out somewhat more clearly in the meantime.“ In fact: on second glance, it all makes sense. And anyone taking the next step of dipping into the sounds available online will hardly be able to resist Denzler’s artistic vision. At first, the finely balanced sound sculptures seem to reveal a welcoming kind of simplicity. But in the background lurks a complexity with a tremendous pulling effect that is almost hypnotic.
“My compositions are not primarily about the narrative form, but the inner structure. This means my pieces might seem relatively simple, but they are not easy to play. The musician should not be distracted by far too many ideas, but should be able to concentrate fully on the sound and its precision,“ is the way Denzler explains his intentions.
He classifies his process-orientated compositions as „spaces“. For the most part, they do not feature traditional notation, but are predetermined by their structure. „I want musicians to be involved and have to think for themselves,“ stresses Denzler. He adds: “Often it is just the time structure that is specified, and not the rhythmic structure. The predetermined rules always open up lots of opportunities.“
Denzler practises this „space surveying“ with the simultaneous exploration of the ambient sound with very different line-ups, including the Sowari Trio, Hubbub, Denzler-Gerbal-Dörner, The Seen, Onceim and Denzler-Grip-Johansson. At the same time, he is not averse to trying new things, including improvising as a guest musician in such line-ups as Jonas Kocher’s international Šalter Ensemble, in a duo with Hans Koch or quite simply solo.
Denzler actually considers his career to be somewhat typical of a European musician of his generation. He started out with classical music, but at the same time was listening to pop and rock in private. However, an outright thirst for knowledge also made him aware relatively quickly of the most varied ways in this world that music can be played. „And eventually,“ comments Denzler, „jazz became my main sphere of activity, because improvisation, in other words implementing your thoughts in real time, fascinated me.“
After jazz came free-form music, even if Denzler is still to this day impressed by the philosophy and improvisational approach of such greats as Albert Ayler and John Coltrane and will probably continue to be influenced by them. As opposed to many improvisers who never return (if they have occasionally diverted from a compositional approach), Denzler has found a space where he can keep creating new things architecturally from the delicate balance between improvisation and composition. „In the last ten years, I acquired the feeling that I am always improvising in the same system. Suddenly, I once gain felt compelled to build structures within my music.“
Denzler’s artistic vision is not only a kind of journey of discovery in a metaphorical sense: he wants to transport this „space“ to different geographical locations as a „roaming residency“, so as to meet other musicians there and create new music with them. Up to now, the project has failed, not only for financial reasons, but also because such an open project does not comply with the general conditions of traditional subsidies policies. Start-up funding from a FONDATION SUISA «Get Going!» grant is now making realisation possible, because, according to Denzler, „…it allows me to pursue my creativity instead of predefined conditions.“ Beaming with delight, he adds that it’s as if this grant had been specially tailored for him. And in fact his definition almost reminds you of a Denzler composition, in which the structures defined by the creator open up unforeseen possibilities…
Place, time and space play a pivotal role in the works of composer, Beat Gysin. In his six-part „Lightweight building series“, he designs spaces specially for the music, enabling him to confront his audience with shifting tonal and spatial experiences. The second part of his elaborate project is due to be brought to fruition from 2021. FONDATIONSUISA is supporting this project financially with «Get Going!» funding.
Chemistry and music: do they go together? What initially appears to be a contradiction in terms makes complete sense in Beat Gysin’s biography. Although he grew up in a family of musicians, Gysin took the decision to study chemistry as well as composition and music theory. The scientific approach and empirical evaluation of an experimental approach are just as important to him as the musical element. “I never wanted to be famous because of my music. I always wanted to find answers with my music and within it,“ explains the 50-year-old Basel resident.
His catalogue of works is impressive. Even more impressive, however, is the way in which he brings his compositions to the performance stage. Gysin moves systematically beyond duplication and sound recording. Place, time and above all space are obligatory elements in his performance technique. In this respect, Gysin is far more than „just“ a composer and musician. If you are to ultimately understand the Gysin Universe, you must firstly apply such definitions as researcher, architect, facilitator and philosopher.
„I am actually a philosopher at heart,“ he adds. „It’s a matter of awareness, and I notice that the space in which music is performed has lost importance in its overall perception.“ “Nowadays, people regard the music as being detached from its performance,“ he adds and in so doing refers to a key point in his work: the systematic interplay between space and sound. „If you take one of my pieces out of the space, then this is almost as if you were creating a piano solo from an orchestral work. You know the notes, but do not hear the orchestra.“
With remarkable consistency, meticulousness and a passion for experimentation, in his many projects Gysin again and again plumbs the depths of the complex interplay between space, sound and the resulting perception of his music. The performance space becomes part of the artwork, which ultimately not only offers the audience a completely new sensory experience, but Gysin also repeatedly delivers new perceptions, in order to subsequently create yet another new approach to his next project. „I want to find things. And invent,“ is how he describes what drives him artistically in an almost laconic manner. In this respect, he does not necessarily take centre-stage as the composer, but often „only“ as the conceptual leader. In order to encourage an exchange of ideas, he set up the Basel studio-klangraum recording space and founded the ZeitRäume Basel festival.
Whether in churches with their varying acoustic properties, in empty waterworks with an echo lasting anything up to 30 seconds or in decommissioned mines where almost perfect silence prevails: Gysin keeps on discovering new spaces that can be mapped acoustically. And anywhere there is no natural space available allowing him to move forward, they are architecturally designed. The six-part „Lightweight building series“ is not only one of Gysin’s key works because of the expenditure involved. It also represents the next logical step for him: creating spaces that can be transported. Here we are dealing with six abstract space designs, implemented as pieces of architecture in the form of pavilions, which provide unusual listening situations and therefore facilitate a new kind of awareness of the music. „Chronos“ comprised a revolving stage like a carousel and in the case of „Gitter“ the musicians were arranged „spherically“ around the audience. Where „Haus“ is concerned, sound space walks around existing houses were made possible and in „Rohre“ [Pipes], which will take place shortly (world premiere in September 2019 in the inner courtyard of the Kunstmuseum Basel (Basel Museum of Art) as part of the ZeitRäume Basel festival), the audience and musicians meet each other in the literal sense of the word, in other words in pipes you can walk inside.
„In the concluding two parts from 2023,“ Gysin comments, „I would like to investigate the question of mobile set-ups and their influence on hearing. In the case of one of the projects, the musicians and audience sit on little trolleys that never stop moving. Everything remains on the move and the space is constantly redefined. And as regards the last part, it is a question of a suspended space which implodes again and again like a balloon, but can then be re-inflated.“ Such elaborate projects are not easy for an artist to finance. „We are dependent on support right from the initial conception, and that costs money,“ he states in full awareness, adding: „the «Get Going!» grant from FONDATION SUISA is the perfect answer to this challenge. It is a kind of way of financing feasibility studies. Up to now this has not existed in this form.“
In times where culture has to be „eventised“, in that marketing experts pay more attention to form than content, the „Lightweight building series“ also symbolises a kind of artistic counter-movement. „The advantage is that I, as the artist, conceive the event as a whole,“ says Gysin, also commenting: „As a musician, today you are obliged in a world of sensory overload to deal with the location of the music, because it can no longer be understood if taken out of context.“
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