Ensemble Recherche | |
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Origin | Germany |
Years active | 1985 | –
Members |
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Past members |
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Website | ensemble-recherche |
Ensemble Recherche is a German contemporary classical music ensemble with nine fixed members. Founded in Freiburg im Breisgau in 1985, the ensemble has premiered more than 1,000 works, dozens of which have since come to be recognised as masterworks of contemporary repertoire.
The ensemble was founded in 1985 and is based in Freiburg. The repertoire is focused on the music of the 20th and 21st century while covering the spectrum from classical modernism and the Darmstadt School to contemporary music, but occasionally also including works composed before 1700, interpreted from a contemporary perspective. The ensemble has commissioned and premiered works by composers such as Hèctor Parra, Brice Pauset, Gérard Pesson, Helmut Lachenmann and Wolfgang Rihm. [1]
The ensemble plays concerts, especially a concert series in Freiburg. In addition, they participate in film, radio and theater projects, provide courses for instrumentalists and composers in Freiburg and at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse, and hold open rehearsals. [1] Together with the Freiburger Barockorchester, Ensemble Recherche organises the annual Ensemble-Akademie Freiburg for ensemble playing. [2]
Current members of the ensemble are Anja Clift (flute), Eduardo Olloqui (oboe), Shizuyo Oka (clarinet), Klaus Steffes-Holländer (piano),Christian Dierstein (percussion), Adam Woodward (violin), Sofia von Atzingen (viola) and Åsa Åkerberg (cello). The Artistic Director is Australian composer Paul Clift.
Starting in 1999, the ensemble began commissioning an ongoing series of short In Nomine compositions for the festival Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik, titled the Witten In Nomine Broken Consort Book. Composers including Brian Ferneyhough, Georg Friedrich Haas, Toshio Hosokawa, György Kurtág, Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf, Gérard Pesson, Robert H.P. Platz, Rolf Riehm, Wolfgang Rihm, Salvatore Sciarrino, Hans Zender, and Walter Zimmermann have submitted works to the collection. [3]
On 22 August 2008, the eightieth birthday of Karlheinz Stockhausen, members of the ensemble played the premiere of Balance, the Seventh Hour of his cycle Klang , for flute, cor anglais, and bass clarinet, in the great hall of the WDR.
Since 2012, Ensemble Recherche has been housed at Ensemblehaus Freiburg.
The ensemble has recorded more than 50 CDs, examples of which include Luigi Nono's Guai ai gelidi mostri (1995), György Kurtág's Omaggio and Hans Abrahamsen's Winter and Schnee (2009). [1]
Their 2-CD recording of 22 In Nomine pieces (2005) was described as follows: "... it provides a common reference point for an unusually large collection of German modernist music, and the production by the West German Radio of Cologne is top-notch." [4]
Several recordings were made in collaboration with the broadcaster SWR and its Experimentalstudio, founded in 1971. [5]
In 1997, Ensemble Recherche became the fourth recipient of the Rheingau Musik Preis, "... in recognition of their services to disseminating contemporary chamber music works, but also to modern classical works and discoveries from the 1920s and 1930s." Their collaboration with composers, vital for the development of chamber and ensemble music was highlighted as well as their sensitive and dramatic approach to the music. [6]
In Nomine is a title given to a large number of pieces of English polyphonic, predominantly instrumental music, first composed during the 16th century.
György Kurtág is a Hungarian composer of contemporary classical music and pianist. According to Grove Music Online, with a style that draws on "Bartók, Webern and, to a lesser extent, Stravinsky, his work is characterized by compression in scale and forces, and by a particular immediacy of expression". In 2023 he was described as "one of the last living links to the defining postwar composers of the European avant-garde".
Wolfgang Rihm was a German composer of contemporary classical music and an academic teacher based in Karlsruhe. He was an influential post-war European composer, as "one of the most original and independent musical voices" there, composing over 500 works including several operas.
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Carolin Widmann is a German classical violinist. She focuses on contemporary music. Widmann plays a violin made in 1782 by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini.
Günter Steinke is a German composer and teacher. He is currently professor of instrumental composition at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen, Germany.
Christian Dierstein is a German percussionist and academic teacher. He has performed internationally as a soloist and as a regular chamber music player with ensemble recherche and Trio Accanto, performing several world premieres. He has been a professor from 2001, with a focus on music beyond Europe and improvisation.
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Helmut Branny is a German conductor, double bassist and professor of chamber music at the Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber Dresden. He is a member of the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, musical director of the Dresdner Kapellsolisten and the Cappella Musica Dresden. With the Kapellsolisten, he has made many recordings, and toured internationally.