Michael Bach (born 17 April 1958 in Worms, Germany), also known as Michael Bach Bachtischa, is a German cellist, composer, and visual artist.
Michael Bach (born 17 April 1958 in Worms, Germany), also known as Michael Bach Bachtischa, is a German cellist, composer, and visual artist.
He studied cello with Gerhard Mantel, Boris Pergamenschikow, Pierre Fournier, and János Starker, then embarked on a career of international concert activity as well as performances on radio, recordings, and television. [1]
He made numerous significant contributions to the art of contemporary cello performance; his publication Fingerboards & Overtones proposes new ideas concerning overtones and harmonics and is considered a pioneering work in the literature on contemporary technique. [2] In 1990, he developed the curved bow (BACH.Bogen) for the cello, violin, viola and bass, which, in polyphonic playing, permits the simultaneous sounding of multiple strings, with the high arch of the bow allowing for full, sustained chords. During the years 1997 to 2001, Mstislav Rostropovich has been intimately involved in its development. [3] In 2001, he invited Michael Bach to Paris for a presentation of his BACH.Bow (7th Concours de violoncelle Rostropovitch). [4]
In 2012, during an exhibition on the theme BACHLAEUFE – The Imprint of Johann Sebastian Bach on Modern Times, held at Arnstadt, Germany, the first prize was awarded to the BACH.Bow. [5] His work as cellist and composer was awarded the Gaudeamus Prize Amsterdam, the Kranichstein Prize Darmstadt, the Japan Record Academy Prize, the Millennium Prize Würzburg.
Several contemporary composers, among them John Cage, Dieter Schnebel, Walter Zimmermann and Hans Zender, have composed works especially for the BACH.Bow. Bach Bachtischa is also a composer. His purely musical compositions are idiosyncratic and highly personal, described by him as “free from compositional conventions.”
In collaboration with the visual artist Renate Hoffleit he has created strikingly original string installations. [6] Their projects (zwischen e and f)² in Stuttgart and IM KLANGSTROM in Ulm, Germany were supported i. a. by the Innovationsfonds Kunst of the State of Baden-Württemberg. The project Schloss Kapfenburg besaitet... was listed in the Guinness Book of Records in 2000.
In the two blogs the bach update and the cello upgrade, Michael Bach documents and analyzes projects and aspects of contemporary music as well as new insights into the solo works for violin and cello by Johann Sebastian Bach.
Michael Bach's visual works include Fingerboards (1990–2010), which capture the hand's choreography on the cello fingerboard as color impressions, Fieldwork (1994), Mit diesen beiden Händen (1994), Lagauche (1995), and Olévano (1995–).
The German postage stamp 75 Jahre Donaueschinger Musiktage, Deutschland 1996 shows his composition and drawing 18–7–92, Scetches to Ryoanji (1992). [7]
In music, a bow is a tensioned stick which has hair coated in rosin affixed to it. It is moved across some part of a musical instrument to cause vibration, which the instrument emits as sound. The vast majority of bows are used with string instruments, such as the violin, viola, cello, and bass, although some bows are used with musical saws and other bowed idiophones.
In music, a double stop is the technique of playing two notes simultaneously on a stringed instrument such as a violin, a viola, a cello, or a double bass. On instruments such as the Hardanger fiddle it is common and often employed. In performing a double stop, two separate strings are bowed or plucked simultaneously. Although the term itself suggests these strings are to be fingered (stopped), in practice one or both strings may be open.
Dieter Schnebel was a German composer, theologian and musicologist. He composed orchestral music, chamber music, vocal music and stage works. From 1976 until his retirement in 1995, Schnebel served as professor of experimental music at the Hochschule der Künste, Berlin.
Martin Smolka is a contemporary Czech composer of classical music.
Zsigmond Szathmáry is a Hungarian organist, pianist, composer, and conductor.
The Donaueschingen Festival, or more precisely Donaueschingen Music Days, is a three-day October event presenting new music in the town of the same name, where the Danube River starts, at the edge of the Black Forest in southern Germany. Founded in 1921, it is the oldest festival for contemporary music in the world.
Jay Schwartz is an American composer living in Europe.
The term Number Pieces refers to a body of late compositions by John Cage. Each piece is named after the number of performers involved: for instance, Seven is a piece for seven performers, One9 is the ninth work for one performer, and 101 is a piece for an orchestra of 101 musicians. The vast majority of these works were composed using Cage's time bracket technique: the score consists of short fragments and indications, in minutes and seconds, during which the fragment can start and by what time it should end. Time brackets can be fixed or flexible.
Bernhard Lang is an Austrian composer, improviser and programmer of musical patches and applications. His work can be described as contemporary classical, with roots, however, in various genres such as 20th-century avant-garde, European classical music, jazz, free jazz, rock, punk, techno, EDM, electronica, electronic music, and computer-generated music. His works range from solo pieces and chamber music to large ensemble pieces and works for orchestra and musical theatre. Besides music for concert halls, Lang designs sound and music for theatre, dance, film and sound installations.
The curved bow for string instruments enables string players to control the tension of the bow hair in order to play one, two, three and four strings simultaneously and to change easily among these possibilities. The high arch of the bow allows full, sustained chords to be played and there is a lever mechanism that affects the tension and release of the bow hair. The stick of the curved bow is bent upwards (convex) and forms a circle segment. Since the four strings of a string instrument are arranged on a curved bridge, the bow hairs must be loosened so that they can reach all three or four strings. Currently used bow sticks are slightly bent in the other direction (concave), that is it is only possible to play two strings at a time and, for a short time with a lot of bow pressure, three strings simultaneously.
Klaus Martin Ziegler was a German choral conductor, organist and Protestant church musician.
Trio Accanto is a contemporary piano trio formed of Marcus Weiss (saxophone), Nicolas Hodges (piano) and Christian Dierstein (percussion). It is based in Freiburg, Germany.
Philippe Borer was a Swiss violinist, scholar and teacher.
Rudolf Gaehler is a German violinist. He uses the curved bow for playing polyphonic music.
Renate Hoffleit is a German sculptor and artist. She lives and works mainly in Stuttgart, Germany.
Ulrich Koch was a German violist.
Rolf Riehm is a German composer who wrote stage and orchestral works as well as music for ensembles and solo instruments. He began as an oboist and music teacher and was later a professor of music theory at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Frankfurt am Main for several years.
Christoph Staude is a German composer.
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.
Martin Christoph Redel is a German composer, music theorist, percussionist and university teacher.
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