EUROPEAN VOICES IV

Concert: European Traditions of Soloist Multipart Instrumental Music
Friday, 27 November 2015, 19:00

University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, Haydn-Saal
Anton von Webern Platz 1, 1030 Wien
Admission free.

 

(© Christoph Huber)

Theresa Aigner

Violin

Theresa Aigner, born in Upper Austria, began to play the violin very early on and to perform both classical and folk music, also in a group of four as the ”Geschwister Aigner”. In 2006 she started to study at Anton Bruckner Private University under Prof. Albert Fischer. Since 2012 she has been studying Music Education, specialising in singing, under Prof. Roswitha Randacher at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna.

Theresa Aigner has been an assistant principal violinist and/or concertmaster in various orchestras, such as the Upper Austrian Youth Symphony Orchestra and the Vienna Academic Symphony Orchestra. She has been a member of the ensemble Die Tanzgeiger since 2015. Her other artistic impulses have been provided by Brian Finlayson, Klara Flieder, Rudi Pietsch, Rémy Ballot, Markus Wolf etc.

 

Stefan Hagel

Ancient-Greek musical instruments

Stefan Hagel works at the Institute for Ancient Cultural History of the Austrian Academy of Sciences on issues related to ancient music. He researches melodies which have been preserved as well as the rhythm of Greek poetry, and contributes to the musical interpretation of archaeological findings. He also reconstructs and plays ancient instruments. At the same time he is refining his Classical Text Editor, the world’s leading software for academic text editions.

Stefan Hagel presents reconstructed instruments in lecture-concerts, partly with preserved melodies. He accompanies them on the cithara, the large lyre of the professional singer, playing hymns from the Roman imperial era, particularly those of Mesomedes, a musician from Crete who used to perform at the imperial court. Some of his compositions were copied until the Byzantine handwriting of the Middle Ages, obviously as a widespread pupils’ repertoire, and were therefore the earliest evidence of ancient music known in the European modern era. In lecture-concerts also several variants of Aulos, the famous “double flute” of antiquity, a double reed instrument, resound on ancient rhythms. The range extends from simple diatonic wood instruments to the expensive instruments of virtuosos, on which the scale can be changed with the help of a system of rotating rings or long sliders.

 

Rudolf Koschelu

Schrammel guitar, vocals

Rudolf Koschelu is a composer, songwriter, singer and contra-guitar player. He is a trained typesetter. After singing in various pop bands he became a professional musician in 1978. He has been a member of the group Berg- und Tal-Schrammeln (together with the accordionist Alfred Gradinger) of Weaner Spatz’n (since 1978) and of Vindobona-Schrammeln (since 1995). In addition, Rudolf Koschelu has accompanied the Vienna Trio and has co-operated together with Karl Hodina (on the CD Herrgott aus Sta’) and Joesi Prokopetz.

He plays contra-guitar in the traditional manner of the Viennese song and of Schrammel music. The art of Dudlen, which has only been mastered by a few male singers of the Vienna song repertoire, has its own place in his enormous repertoire of singing and lyrics.

 

Daniela Mayrlechner

Zither, Raffele

 

Her musical career started in her grandmother’s kitchen during their singing together. The first instrument she learned then was the zither. It was followed by others – aquired autodidactically or under the instruction of masters. She studied instrumental and vocal music education (flute) at the University Mozarteum Salzburg and the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (focus on traditional music). Daniela Mayrlechner is currently a flute teacher, speaker and instructor in various educational and training events in the field of music education as well as a lecturer at the Institute for Folk Music Research and Ethnomusicology and the Institute of Music Education at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna.

Artistic, educational and academic research on traditional music languages.

 

Albin Paulus

Historical double reedpipes, jews harp

Albin Paulus is full of enthusiasm about everything which is unusual. He established his reputation as a virtuoso on the jew’s harp, bagpipes and in singing jodler after studying classical clarinet and musicology in Vienna and Cremona. His many projects also include the ensemble Schikaneders Jugend – pop music of the 18th century, and Cantlon – music of the Celtic iron age on self-made reconstructed instruments. In addition, if it is a question of rare instruments he is often invited to join numerous ensembles, such as Unicorn (Austria), Ensemble Baroque de Limoges (France) etc. At the same time he is the first official bagpipe teacher in Austria at the Wiener Musikschule.

 

Răzvan Roşu

Romanian flutes, vocals

Răzvan Roşu was born in 1990 in Satu Mare, Transylvania, Romania. At the moment he is completing a master’s degree in Southeast-European studies in Jena and a PhD in anthropology in Cluj. At the same time he plays and sings traditional music from Țara Moților in the Apuseni Mountains. He performs regularly in numerous countries in Europe on flutes, bagpipes and the tulnic (Alphorn) from Transylvania.

At this concert, Răzvan Roşu will perform on flutes and bagpipes, among other things. He learned these pieces in his family and also through his fieldwork in Țara Moților.

 

Nicola Scaldaferri with Steven Feld, 2005, celebration of the tree ritual of Maggio, in Accettura (© Lorenzo Ferrarini).

Nicola Scaldaferri

Italian bagpipes

Nicola Scaldaferri is an associate professor the University of Milan, where he teaches Ethnomusicology and Anthropology of Music, and leads the LEAV – Ethnomusicology and Visual Anthropology Laboratory.

He was born in the arbëresh village of San Costantino Albanese into a musical family, and since his childhood has played many instruments from his home village and the Mount Pollino area, particularly bagpipes, reed and string instruments. Nicola Scaldaferri collaborates with composers, musicians and music festivals (like MiTo-Settembremusica, and Festival di Portogruaro) in promoting musical dialogues between instruments and music from different cultural areas.

In this concert he will present two different types of bagpipes. The first one is the small Italian bagpipe surdulina, with two drones and two chanters of the same size, on which only a few pitches can be played on the same octave, so each hand plays in a different chanter. The second one is the famous zampogna a chiave with two drones and two chanters of different length tuned on two different octaves.

Scaldaferri will perform fast music for dancing (pastorale; tarantella) and slow “walking” music used for religious processions (sonata appresso al santo) and by shepherds coming back home with their animals (sonata appresso le pecore).

 

(© Stephan Mussil)

Marie-Theres Stickler

Button accordion, concertina

Marie-Theres Stickler was born in 1988 and grew up in the Schneeberg area of Lower Austria. She started to teach herself the diatonic button accordion from the age of 6. In subsequent years she took part in many harmonica events, meeting her first teachers in taverns. From 2006-2013 she studied folk music instruments, specializing in the diatonic harmonica, at the Mozarteum in Salzburg.

For several years Marie-Theres Stickler has devoted herself to diatonic accordions like the Styrian accordion as well as chromatic ones like the Viennese Schrammelharmonika, or even the Chemnitzer Konzertina, an ancestor of the bandoneon.

Apart from her role in the ensemble ALMA, where both traditional and contemporary music blend, Marie-Theres performs Alpine traditional music with the ensemble Die Tanzgeiger in many other projects.

 

Andor Végh

gajde, dude, samica, and other wind instruments

Fanjo Dervár

tambura kontra, vocals

Zsombor Horváth

Violin, samica

These three musicians present drone music on traditional bagpipes of South-West Hungary and Croatia. Soloist multipart piping on the dude and gajde, and pipe imitation on the samica (a plucked lute) and the fiddle evokes the musical atmosphere of a time when bagpipe music still had a dominant role in social life, but pipe tunes were also played on other drone instruments.

Most of the instruments to be heard at the concert come directly from local traditions or were made by Andor Végh, who acquired the art of piping and pipe making during extensive fieldwork in the Baranya and Northern Croatia.

 

 

Simon Wascher

Hurdy-gurdy

Simon Wascher has lived in Vienna as a freelance musician since 1995. The hurdy-gurdy has been his instrument since 1987. He performs as a soloist at many European festivals as well as with different ensembles, such as Schikaneders Jugend, Bilwesz, Hotel Palindrone, Rundgeiger, Alpenland meets Ostseestrand, L'Orfeo Barockorchester, Januzs Prusinowski Kompania and Capella de la Torre.

Simon Wascher plays traditional Alpine music. His repertoire comprises Ländler, Schleunige, Steirische and Jodler. He performs this music in the here and now as improvised contemporary music, and not because of its age, but despite its “age”.

The hurdy-gurdy, often simply referred to as a lyre, had a rare and yet consistently reoccurring presence from the middle of the 18th century until the beginning of the 20th century. In Tyrol, there is evidence of an uninterrupted tradition until today.
Testimony to this ongoing tradition in Vienna is given by the lyre dances, part of the repertoire of many present-day Viennese traditional musicians.

 

Laurens Weinhold

Hardanger fiddle

Laurens Weinhold is a trained violinist in classical music from Norway and has won many prizes. He has studied at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna since 2010. For several years now he has been studying various genres of folk music under Prof. Rudolf Pietsch, focusing on the Hardanger fiddle. He learned Norwegian music with Gunnar Stubseid.

For European Voices, Laurens Weinhold will play a range of traditional pieces from the region of Setesdal. This music is usually played solo. The flat bridge of the instrument makes it possible to play several strings at the same time quite easily, while the aliquot strings under the fingerboard enable rich sound patterns.