«Get Going!» Portrait Series 2018

In his work, composer Michael Künstle deals with the interplay between tonal dramatisation and dramatic tones. The 27-year-old Basel resident would now like to take the next step forward in his research by making the sound of an orchestra a spatial experience for the listener. FONDATION SUISA is supporting this project financially with «Get Going!» funding.

In his work, composer Michael Künstle deals with the interplay between tonal dramatisation and dramatic tones. The 27-year-old Basel resident would now like to take the next step forward in his research by making the sound of an orchestra a spatial experience for the listener. FONDATION SUISA is supporting this project financially with «Get Going!» funding.

Michael Künstle was completely surprised to win the International Film Music Competition in the 2012 Zurich Film Festival when he was just 21. „At that time, I had just begun my studies,“ he comments today, adding, „I am only just starting to understand the significance of this prize now. It was a kind of springboard, also because it has always been an award for competence that nobody can take away from you.“ 

In the competition, Künstle was up against 144 fellow composers from 27 countries who were all set exactly the same task: composing the score for the short animated film „Evermore“ by Philip Hofmänner. Anyone watching the film today can imagine what might have impressed the jury back then: Künstle came up with amazingly subtle sounds, which enhanced the story of the film.

“The fantastic thing about film music is that it is the result of a close exchange with others. A film represents an interplay between countless people and it is vital to take all aspects into consideration: camera work, use of colour and setting,“ is the way Künstle explains his fascination with the genre. “The biggest challenge in a film is to say something with the music which has not yet been said in words or pictures, but which is essential for telling the story right up to the end.“ 

Whether it is in Gabriel Baur’s „Glow“, „Sohn meines Vaters“ by Jeshua Dreyfus or „Cadavre Exquis“ by Viola von Scarpatetti: the list of films for which Künstle is responsible for the soundtrack keeps on getting longer. The enthusiasm with which Künstle expresses his specialist know-how and thirst for knowledge in conversation is contagious. Also if he is talking about the greats in this field: Bernard Hermann’s knowledge of composition, for instance, or the unique capability of John Williams, „whose works clearly sound like orchestral pieces when listened to without the film, even though they suit the film for which they were written perfectly. This is incredibly difficult to accomplish, because symphonic music traditionally allows closer narrative structures than a film.“

Although he differentiates between concert music and film scores in his own work, he admits „that you can never fully give up one if you do the other.“ Elements that he developed in collaboration with director Gabriel Baur for the film „Glow“ found their way into the piece „Résonance“, performed by Trio Eclipse in 2016. “But in my concert music, it is mainly a question of compositional forms and structural ideas that cannot be expressed in the film.“ 

The idea for the project, that FONDATION SUISA is now going to jointly finance with a «Get Going!» grant, ultimately arose from another important aspect of Künstle’s creativity. Künstle follows, as he emphasises, a philosophy of the „real“ which is as close as possible to an actual recital, thanks to the most up-to-date recording techniques. In collaboration with his working partner, Daniel Dettwiler, who owns the „Idee und Klang“ [Idea and Sound] studio in Basel, and who, for years, has been researching new recording techniques, Künstle would like to create a spatial composition that can be listened to in a way that had not existed before. 

„In contemporary music, the space is often just as important as other compositional elements, such as the subject matter or rhythm, but this essential aspect is often lost in the recording,“ is the way he explains the starting point. “I want to reach a point where people listening on headphones hear the three-dimensional space occupied by the orchestra during recording, as if they could literally ‚feel‘ the music.“ For many years, this research and in a specific way also the conquest of these „orchestral spaces“, was just an idea for Künstle, because, as he stresses, „You can only make this happen in a studio with the best possible sound and the best microphones available.“ Thanks to «Get Going!», the next step in this audiophile revolution can now become a reality and in no-less than London’s legendary Abbey Road Studios with an 80-piece orchestra. Therefore, Künstle will compose a piece in which the space where the recording takes place will play a central role. “I want to turn the composition process on its head,“ is how he underscores the objective of his project. „Just like film music,“ he adds. Again here, first and foremost you start with what you hear. Therefore completing the circle.

Rudolf Amstutz

michaelkuenstle.ch

«Get Going!» Portrait Series 2018

The Eclecta duo, made up of Zurich and Winterthur residents Andrina Bollinger and Marena Whitcher, experiments with sounds that defy established definitions and seeks out interdisciplinary exchanges with other art forms. FONDATION SUISA is supporting this project financially with «Get Going!» funding.

The place where verbal definitions of different arts implode; where stylistic pigeon-holes exist only as relics of past times; where everything can unfold freely and continually move into more and more new arrangements: that is precisely where Eclecta feel at home. Eclecta is a duo featuring Andrina Bollinger and Marena Whitcher, both of whom are solo artists, multi-instrumentalists and singers. And both are, as they describe themselves, „quite simply curious“. Which is something of an understatement. An unadulterated passion for experimentation is their driving force. Although in their late twenties, the couple have not forgotten their youthful enthusiasm, but combine it with mature reflection and are therefore better able to integrate additional elements into their art, which means the result always remains homogeneous.

Andrina Bollinger and Marena Whitcher got to know one another at jazz school, but it was actually the second time they had met. „We had already met as children in the (children’s circus school) ‚Circolino Pipistrello‘,“ says Bollinger. Whitcher laughs, adding: „But we only found out later that this was the case.“ You cannot escape fate, so what was bound to happen inevitably did: „When Marena was asked to do a solo concert, she didn’t have enough material to be able to fulfil the booking on her own. So she asked me. We then amalgamated our songs, which proved to be the start of everything,“ recounts Bollinger.

Their first album from 2016 is called „A Symmetry“, and the play on words concealed in this title says it all, both women are in fact actually confident individuals when it comes to their manner and their art, who have been happy to tread their own path in a large number of collaborations and solo performances. „From the very start, we played two characters that are totally different. Eclecta thrives on this duality, this asymmetry, but at the same time we also have the opportunity to melt into one another,“ explains Whitcher, to which Bollinger adds: „We can blend our voices, so that people can hardly distinguish one from the other. The album title describes this ongoing interplay between symmetry and asymmetry.“

The 15 songs, which, as previously mentioned, refuse to be pigeon-holed and deliberately map the stylistic spaces which contribute to the experiment, when added together become an opalescent kaleidoscope of euphoria and melancholy, of passion and thoughtfulness. And listeners still find „A Symmetry“ astounding even three years after it first appeared, allowing more and more details to be unveiled: for the protagonists, today the record represents only a snapshot of their artistic process. „On our forthcoming album, which we hope to release at the beginning of 2020, we want to advance this play even further, so that the whole thing continues to become more intermeshed.“

What this will sound like, reckon the duo with a wink, „currently remains a secret“. When they talk of their influences, they range from social issues to painting, from theatre to performance art, from literature to philosophy. Whitcher, who has American roots on her father’s side, is enthusiastic about the surrealists and, during her performances, goes into such questions as „What are monsters nowadays and why do we need them?“ or „Having first world problems and creating art – do they go together?“. It is also important to Bollinger to integrate political and social topicality into her creative work. Consequently, she writes about such issues as climate change, freedom of thought and digitisation, as well as searching for places where numbers and codes do not control us. She splits her time between Zurich, Berlin and her Engadine homeland, trying to capture the sounds of these different places, because, as she says, „it is crucial where you are when you are creatively active.“

One of these creative playgrounds is also the stage. With instruments and costumes she makes herself, she transforms a performance into a kind of complete artwork. Therefore, in future they want to make increased use of the medium of video in order to lend a visual aspect to their music. But this is only one of what seems like a thousand ideas with which these two musicians are busy. In the end, Eclecta should also be a statement that contradicts the zeitgeist: „In our individualised society, everyone is focused entirely on themselves, never once glancing at what is going on around them. Whitcher believes „Yet community is a basic requirement of humans“, and Bollinger adds: „I already see it as one of our jobs to reflect the world in our art and to encourage a different way of thinking.“

In any event, they regard the «Get Going!» funding from FONDATION SUISA as something that offers them a great deal of freedom. „It gives us something very precious, namely time,“ comments Bollinger. „Precisely“, emphasises Whitcher, „apart from that, you are never paid for the immensely long period of time it takes to get to grips with specific topics, and to research and write songs.“ When you look at it this way, Eclecta is a fine example of this kind of encouragement, because both of these young ladies are venturing down paths that so far remain untrodden and now no longer risk falling between two stools with their passion for experimentation.

Rudolf Amstutz

eclecta.ch