John Wolf Brennan (born 13 February 1954) is an Irish pianist, organist, melodica player, and composer based in Weggis, Switzerland.
John Wolf Brennan (born 13 February 1954) is an Irish pianist, organist, melodica player, and composer based in Weggis, Switzerland.
 | This section of a biography of a living person does not include any references or sources .(November 2022) |
Brennan was born in Dublin, Ireland. His family moved to Switzerland when he was seven years old. He began taking piano lessons at age eleven, played bass guitar in a rock band in 1970, then played keyboards in a jazz-rock band. He studied at the University of Fribourg (late 1970s), Swiss Jazz School in Bern (1975–79), the conservatory in Lucerne (1979–84), and the Academy of Church and School Music (1985–87). His brother Peter Wolf, a singer, saxophonist, flautist, and oboist, founded the progressive rock band Flame Dream in 1977. During the same year Brennan founded the free jazz group Freemprovisations, which included Peter Schärli. Two years later he formed the band Impetus.
From 1980 to 1984, he played in Impetus and the Mohrenkopf Afro-jazz band from 1980 to 1982 in Triumbajo with Ushma Agnes Baumeler and Barni Palm. During the 1980s he also worked with Corin Curschellas, Christy Doran, and Urs Leimgruber. In 1988, he worked in New York City for six months, then founded the quartet Pago Libre the following year.
Early in the 1990s he worked with Lindsay Cooper, Daniele Patumi, and Tscho Theissing and established the SinFONietta ensemble in 1991. In 1993, he worked with American drummer Alex Cline in the quintet Shooting Stars & Traffic Lights. Russian hornist Arkady Shilkloper joined Pago Libre and recorded the albums Pago Libre (1996), Stepping Out (2006), PlatzDADA! (2008) and Fake Folk (2009).
In 1997, he lived in London and worked with Julie Tippetts, Evan Parker, and Chris Cutler in HeXtet, which set to music poems by Seamus Heaney, Edgar Allan Poe, and Theo Dorgan. In 1999 he toured in Finland with Ivo Perelman and worked with Gianluigi Trovesi, Gianni Coscia, and Daniele Patumi in the quartet Euradici.
Brennan worked with clarinetist Gene Coleman for the Momentum albums and with Christy Doran and Patrice Heral in the group Triangulation, where he developed "comprovisation", a term he coined in 1989. He released the solo albums The Beauty of Fractals (1989), Pictures in a Gallery (2006), and The Speed of Dark (2009). Following his album The Well-Prepared Clavier (1998), he developed prepared piano techniques, creating non-electronic sounds such as "arcopiano", "pizzicatopiano", "tamburopiano", and "sordinopiano".
In 2010, he created the sound installation "Inner & Outer Spaces" with video artist Susanne Hofer for the Lucerne Art Museum, performing with Gerry Hemingway and Thomas K. J. Mejer. He was in the trio Melos Montis with Hanspeter Wigger and yodel singer Franziska Wigger and in the duo Twinkeys with Esther Flückiger. He formed the band Sonic Roots with Christy Doran, Andreas Gabriel, Marc Halbheer, Heiri Kaenzig, and Marcel Oetiker.
In 2012, he collaborated with overtone singer Christian Zehnder and Arkady Shilkloper. During the same year he recorded Pilgrims with guitarist Marco Jencarelli and percussionist Tony Majdalani. In 2018, he founded the trio SOOON with Majdalani and yodel singer Sonja Morgenegg.
Brennan has composed film music, chamber music, and the operas Güdelmäntig (2004) and Night.Shift (2007, based on the poem "The Age of Anxiety" by W. H. Auden). The first volume of his Sonic Roots series of books (for piano, inspired by Celtic Country Dances) was premiered at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2010 and published by Pan-Verlag. The second and third (for violin) were published in 2011, the fourth (for clarinet) in 2013, the fifth (for alto saxophone) in 2014.
The Percussion Art Ensemble Berne premiered his composition "Oscillating Orbits" in 2013 for marimba, vibraphone, timpani, and percussion featuring violinist Misa Stefanovic. In 2015, the Neues Orchester Basel commissioned "Traumpfade", a piece for orchestra and overtone soloist Christian Zehnder. For the 30-year anniversary of the Zurich James Joyce Foundation he wrote "Winds of May" for soprano and piano based on Joyce's Chamber Music IX . He wrote a hymn for his Swiss hometown, Weggis, called "s'Wäggiser Lied". For the Alpentöne Festival 2017, he composed "Got hard", an alpine jazz suite for wind orchestra, Pago Libre & Friends (released by Leo Records in 2018). In August 2018, the Tonhalle Orchester Zürich performed his work Traumpfade with soloists Arkady Shilkloper (alphorn) and Christian Zehnder (overtone voice, global yodeling) at the Festival Stubete am See.
In 2019, he wrote most of the choir arrangements for the program Inland by the Zurich female choir "die vogelfreien". He composed music for the play Fluctus and released the albums Nevergreens, Cinémagique 2.0, and Youchz.
Jamaaladeen Tacuma is an American jazz funk avant-garde bassist, composer and producer born in Hempstead, New York. He was a bandleader on the Gramavision label and worked with Ornette Coleman during the 1970s and 1980s, mostly in Coleman's Prime Time band.
Han Bennink is a Dutch drummer and percussionist. On occasion his recordings have featured him playing soprano saxophone, bass clarinet, trombone, violin, banjo and piano.
Marilyn Crispell is an American jazz pianist and composer. Scott Yanow described her as "a powerful player... who has her own way of using space... She is near the top of her field." Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote: "Hearing Marilyn Crispell play solo piano is like monitoring an active volcano... She is one of a very few pianists who rise to the challenge of free jazz." In addition to her own extensive work as a soloist or bandleader, Crispell is also known as a longtime member of saxophonist Anthony Braxton's quartet in the 1980s and '90s.
Mark Helias is an American double bass player and composer born in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
Gerry Hemingway is an American drummer and composer.
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Robert Dick is a flutist, composer, teacher and author.
Alex Cline is an American jazz drummer.
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Steven Argüelles Crook is an English jazz drummer, producer and is the proprietor of the Plush record label. He has also worked in film and theatre. He is the elder brother of saxophonist Julian Argüelles. Stephen currently lives in Paris, France.
Christy Doran is a jazz guitarist born in Dublin, Ireland, and raised in Lucerne, Switzerland.
Pierre-Yves Borgeaud is a Swiss film director. Borgeaud has a bachelor's degree in arts at the Lausanne University in 1990, with a thesis about the influence of jazz on French writers. He has worked as an independent journalist, writing about music and moving images in different media. He also played the drums in jazz and funk bands and worked as a music producer.
Max Eugen Keller is a Swiss composer, jazz pianist and improvising musician. He was one of the first free-jazz musicians in Switzerland. Since 2007 he is chairman of the Swiss Society for New Music.
Don Li is a Swiss composer, musician and music producer of reductive music.
Arkady Shilkloper is a Russian multi-instrumentalist and composer, currently living in Berlin. He is known as one of the best jazz performers on horn and alphorn.
Gebhard Ullmann is a German jazz musician and composer.
Christian Wolfarth is a Swiss jazz percussion player.
Oliver Schwerdt is a German musicologist and musician in the field of free improvisation.
Creative Works Records is an independent Swiss record label.
8 Pieces on Paul Klee is the debut album of the Ensemble Sortisatio. It was recorded in February and March 2002 in Leipzig, Germany and in August 2002 in Lucerne, Switzerland. It was released in 2003 by Creative Works Records.
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