About
Often things are very far apart - and yet they can be combined well with each other, as the extraordinary trio consisting of the two members of the Berlin Philharmonic Martin Stegner and Matthew McDonald and the Chinese musician Wu Wei proves. Already the lineup is extraordinary, as here viola and double bass from Western orchestral music meet with the Chinese mouth organ Sheng. For the joint work, the three musicians draw on the experience they have already made as individual artists apart from classical music.
Martin Stegner tried as a teenager in addition to classical music in other music styles, toured with German gypsy musicians throughout Europe, played in various formations (including Nils Landgren, Herbie Mann, Diane Reeves and Wynton Marsalis) at well-known jazz festivals, founded in 1999 the Berlin Philharmonic Jazz Group and in 2008 the ensemble BOLERO BERLIN, which dedicates itself to the South American music, and combines since 2011 with the Berlin band Cyminology Persian lyric with chamber music jazz. He is actually violist with the Berliner Philharmoniker, if he is not just improvising, his love is the songwriting Robert Schumann, of which several highly acclaimed CDs testify.
Even for the first double bass player of the Berlin Philharmonic Matthew McDonald, jazz and rock music was always an important part of his musical career right from the beginning of his musical career as an instrumentalist. The flexibility between the styles of music not only benefits the Australian in the orchestra: "The contrabass group has to be an incredibly flexible engine." The double bass player was able to open his eyes to new sounds with visiting professorships at the Royal Academy of Music in London, the Essen Folkwang University and HfM "Hanns Eisler" Berlin also u. a. as a soloist of the Ensemble Modern (2003-2006) and as a chamber musician at international chamber music festivals such as the Plush Chamber Music Festival in Dorset, Zagreb and Winchester with musical partners such as Imogen Cooper, Radovan Vlatkovic, Mark Padmore and the Kuss Quartet.
Chinese Sheng virtuoso Wu Wei has been an experienced commuter between cultures since receiving a scholarship at the HfM "Hanns Eisler" Berlin in 1995 through the DAAD. His curiosity about new compositional techniques and techniques for the 4,000-year-old Sheng opened the former soloist of the Shanghai Chinese Orchestra away from traditional Chinese music numerous appearances and applications in the "Western" concert life. For this reason, the Berlin electorate is appreciated by both composers and audiences as an avant-garde artist who is constantly expanding his repertoire for his instrument. In addition to his own compositions, he brought more than 280 works for Sheng u. a. by John Cage, Unsuk Chin, Toshio Hosokawa and Jörg Widmann for the premiere. As a soloist, he was a guest at well-known festivals around the world. a. accompanied by the Berlin Philharmonic (Kent Nagano), the LA Philharmonic (Gustavo Dudamel), the Radio France symphony orchestras (Myung-Whu Chung) and the BBC (Ilan Volkov), the Ensemble intercontemporain and the Ensemble Modern.
Now the musicians as a trio venture the experiment to combine works of European art music with the Far Eastern sounds of the Chinese mouth organ and open up new listening worlds with their transgression beyond the genre boundaries. For this, the musicians have selected works that merge the Western orchestral instruments and the sounds of the Chinese Sheng that are unusual for European ears. Whether old music such as Monteverdi arias, Bach's trio sonatas and Vivaldis Folia, a late Romantic song by Gabriel Fauré or own free improvisations such as x menesis: overcoming the drawer thinking on all levels and the focus on the joy of playing music and experimenting draw these three musicians off and become audible.