Born in Zurich in 1949, Daniel Fueter studied piano at the Zurich Academy of Music and graduated with a teaching and concert diploma. Since 1973 he has been active in music education and has taken up several administrative roles, such as the one of rector of the former Zurich Academy of Music and Theater Zurich, between 2003 and 2007. Daniel Fueter wrote about a hundred stage pieces for theatre in Switzerland’s German speaking area. Furthermore, he composed chansons, Lied, piano and chamber music as well as choir and theatre pieces. Among his most extensive works are an opera and an operetta on Libretti by Thomas Hürlimann, a chamber opera on texts by Lukas Bärfuss and an oratory on a text by Jürg Jegge. Daniel Fueter also acts as Lied accompanist. He currently teaches a Lied class at the Zurich University of Arts and in master classes around Europe. Daniel Fueter is father of two daughters and grandfather of two grandchildren. He is married to pianist Eriko Kagawa.

 

Javier Hagen (JIP). Composer and singer born 1971 in Barcelona, raised between 6 languages in Wallis and the Mediterranean. Composition under the tutelage of Heiner Goebbels and Wolfgang Rihm. As a singer both tenor and countertenor, Javier Hagen is one of the most surprising classical singers of his generation. With an exceptional 4 octave vocal range, he has premiered more than 200 oeuvres at the most prestigious European contemporary music festivals collaborating with some of the most distinguished 20th century composers such as Aribert Reimann, Mauricio Kagel, Pierre Mariétan, Peter Eötvös and leading concrete poetry and constructive art artists such as Eugen Gomringer, Mauricio Rosenmann, Rolf Schroeter, Günther Uecker. Guest at festivals for new and early music in Donaueschingen, New York, Hong Kong, Strasbourg, Karlsruhe, Zurich, Lucerne, Geneva, Prague, Bologna, Milan, Amsterdam, Paris and Berlin. Numerous recordings for German, French, Czech and Swiss Radio and TV stations. Besides "standard" opera roles like Dardanus, Giulio Cesare, Zsupan and Pappacoda Javier Hagen premiered major roles in contemporary operas such as 'air à l'en verre' by Daniel Mouthon 1997, 'eismeer' by Christoph Schiller 2004, 'poem ohne held' by Regina Irman 2005, 'esther de racine' by Boris Yoffe 2006, 'Marienglas' by Beat Gysin 2010, 'Les Musiciens de Brème' by Wen Deqing 2011, 'Keyner Nit' by Mathias Steinauer 2011, 'Nothing and More' by Jack Fortner 2014, 'Ushba et Tetnuld' by Nicolas Vérin 2014. Prize winner of international new music and composition competitions in 2001/4/8 in Basel, Lausanne and Düsseldorf. 2003 publication of his ver-rückten Volkslieder "s´sch mr alles 1 Ding" by "musiques suisses" on CD. Hagen's compositional oeuvre includes the instrumental, scenical and vocal genres as well as electroacoustic and installative works. His vocal works receive particular appreciation and are performed at festivals all around Europe (Europa Cantat Mainz, Klagenfurt and Basel 2004/06/08, Centre Culturel Suisse Paris) as well as in Central America (America Cantat), Canada, China, Corea, Lituania, Israel and the U.S. Together with Ulrike Mayer-Spohn, Hagen forms the duo UMS ´N JIP, which is dedicated to new musical settings for recorder, voice and electronics, being one of the activest contemporary music ensembles worldwide. Jury member of national and international contemporary music and composition contests, among others Young Composers Award at the ISCM World Music Days 2014. Board member of both Swissfestivals Association and European Conference of Promoters of New Music ECPNM. He presides ISCM Switzerland and the Int. Society for Contemporary Music Valais/Switzerland IGNM-VS and is the director of Swiss contemporary music festival Forum Wallis. Lectures and masterclasses at the universities of Shanghai and Hong Kong, China. Calls for expertises for the Hochschule der Künste HdK Berne as well as for Valais Government (MusiquePRO) and UNESCO. In 2007 Hagen was nominated "Valaisan of the Year". 2013 he is awarded the "Prix Culturel du Canton du Valais". www.javierhagen.ch

 

Max E. Keller was one of the first free jazz musicians in Switzerland. From 1966 until 1973 he followed his own concept performing free jazz and improvised music on the piano and electronic instruments in concerts or for radio recordings in Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, Poland and Czechoslovakia. Since 1973 Keller has produced over 90 compositions for various forces including electronic music. He often sets texts to music, examples include his ‘Gesänge II’ (Erich Fried); ‘Gesänge III’ (Jürg Weibel) and ‘Gesänge IV’ (Kurt Marti); ‘Konfigurationen’ (I, II and III – various authors); ‘Deformationen’ (self-written texts); the feature-length cantata ‘Fontamara’ (Ignazio Silone), the mini-opera ‘Egon – aus dem Leben eines Bankbeamten’ (Hans Suter) and the chamber opera ‘Die Axt’ after Max Frisch’s ‘Graf Öderland’ (2004-2006), a commission for the Komischen Oper Berlin. Performances and radio broadcasts in the whole of Europe, Australia, North and South America, Russia, Mongolia, Korea and Azerbaijan are a part of his career history. Keller began improvising again after 1985 and since 1985 is responsible for the programme and organisation of contemporary music and jazz concerts at the ‘Theater am Gleis’ in Winterthur. 1985 - Swiss representative at the biennale in Berlin, 1991 - Swiss representative at the IGNM Weltmusiktagen in Zurich, 1993 - Swiss representative in Mexico, 1997 - Art prize of the Carl-Heinrich-Ernst-Foundation in Winterthur, 1999 - Berlin stipend, 2001 - Project contribution (commission from the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich), 2003 - Contribution to the artistic work of the Aargauer Kuratorium. ‘Sicher sein ...’ (speaker and electronic tape) and ‘Repetitionen I-V’ (harpsichord) were recorded onto LP and ‘Pentalog’ (orchestra) and ‘Sie’ (speaker and electronic tape) onto CD; two CDs (col legno and Jecklin Edition) are dedicated solely to his chamber musical works, a third CD (Grammont-Portrait) containing five chamber musical works and one orchestral work (Tonhalle-Orchester conducted by David Zinman) was released in 2003. http://www.max-e-keller.ch/

Ulrike Mayer-Spohn (UMS). Extraordinary diversity describes the composer and multi-instrumentalist Ulrike Mayer-Spohn who plays the recorder (with focus on contemporary music), as well as historical string instruments (fiddle and baroque violin). She studied composition and audio design with Erik Oña at the Studio of Electronic Music, Academy of Music, Basel, beginning to compose in 2007, and receiving commissions from the festival forum Valais and the international New Music Days, Shanghai. Her work has been performed by the Stuttgart Vocal soloists, Ensemble Phoenix Basel, Vertigo, DissonArt, L'Arsenale, cool a cappella (1st Prize world choir games 2008) and her own ensemble Ums' n Jip in Switzerland, France, Greece, Italy, Russia, Australi , the USA and China, premiered under the baton of Beat Furrer, Mark Foster, Tsung Yeh, Jürg Henneberger and Filippo Perocco and broadcast by the Swiss radio. She was awarded the 2nd Prize in the composition competition Culturescapes 2010, 2nd Prize in the composition competition at the Bern music festival 2011, the Scholarship Award for 2011 at the Music Village Mount Pelion in Greece and the Call for Scores Award L'Arsenale Treviso, Italy 2011. With the ensemble Ums' n Jip she has undertaken research in the field of musical theater (chamber operas One, Two, Three, Four, Five), live electronic music and sound spacialization. She studied recorder with Ulrike Mauerhofer at the Musikhochschule Karlsruhe, with Conrad Steinmann and Corina Marti at the Schola Cantorum Basel before specializing in contemporary music and studying with Dorothea Winter at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague. From 2009-11 she received a specialized master in contemporary performance at the HSM in Basel supervised by Jürg Henneberger, Marcus Weiss and Mike Svoboda and has taken masterclasses with Marion Verbruggen, Peter van Heyghen, Sebastien Marq and Gerd Lünenbürger. She studied baroque violin and viola with Martina Graulich and David Plantier and fiddle with Randal Cook in Basel. Ulrike Mayer-Spohn works with internationally leading composers and annually plays more than 20 world premieres dedicated to her, which she has recorded for the radio as well as VDE Gallo on CD. Together with the Swiss composer and singer Javier Hagen, she established the experimental new music duo Ums `N Jip for voice, recorder and electronics, which, alongside Ensemble Modern, Intercontemporain and Kronos is one of the most active ensembles worldwide and in 2011 won the prestigious MusiquePro scholarship. Since 1999, Ulrike Mayer-Spohn has also performed as a recorder player, violinist, violist and fiddle player in specialized early music ensembles such as the Amsterdam Barok Compagnie, Freitagsakademie, Collegium Musicum Stuttgart, La Chapelle Ancienne, Musica Poetica, Muscadin and La Morra and has performed in Germany, China, the Netherlands, France, Spain, Italy and Switzerland. www.ulrikems.info

 

 

Just like his rich and non conventional path, Denis Schuler explores musical "territory". He draws material from such varied domains as traditional music, improvisation or the so called western classical music, confronting and combining multiple influences, allowing for his personal voice to emerge. Through thorough study of rhythm and sound material, his work investigates and approches the limits of hearing, particularly towards silence. The music proposed by Denis Schuler demands a specific kind of concentration where the ear often has to focus, catching breathes and noises and offering the audience the possibility of actively taking part in the listening process. His compositions were commissioned and created by the Orchestre de Chambre de Genève and ensembles such as the Vortex ensemble, Nederland Kamerkoor, Tetraflûtes, Le Concert Impromptu, Quatuor Bela, Ilôrkestra and Ensemble Vide. He was awarded many prizes and received the support of from the Swiss Musician Association (ASM), the Henneberger-Mercier Foundation, the Nicati-de Luze Foundation, the Patiño Foundation, the Foundation Suisa for Music, the Cultural Founds of the Swiss state, the Loterie Romande and from the Town and State of Geneva. He also created numerous musical compositions for theatre, the Schauspielhaus in Zurich, the Tojo in Bern, the Théâtre de Carouge, the Théâtre du Grütli in Geneva and composes for tv documentaries (Le jeu de la mort, broadcasted in march 2010 on the french public tv France 2). In addition, he performs as drummer and percussionist. He plays with bands from the new french scene such as the Fantazio Gang (Paris) and Frank Williams & the Ghost Dance (Paris). Until 2003 he also played with The Dead Brothers. He performs experimental music with people like Dorothea Schürch and Jean-Jacques Pedretti (from Zurich). Born in Geneva, Denis Schuler went on to study composition with Nicolas Bolens, Eric Gaudibert and Michael Jarrell. In 2005, he was awarded the Patiño Foundation scholarship, which enabled him to study at the Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, under the direction of Emanuel Nunes (CNSMDP). In 2006 he graduated with honours after composing a concerto for percussion trio and orchestra. He was the first Swiss to be awarded the first prize at the International Composition Competition of Sacred Music, Fribourg, in 2008. Denis Schuler has been resident in the Swiss Institute Rome for the 2010-2011 academic year. His project included compositions and concerts organization, in partnership with composers, ensembles and musicians, among which the Ensemble vocal de Poche, the Ensemble vocal Séquence and the Ensemble Vide. He is also musical curator and proposes programs and ensembles for diverse structures as the Fondation suisse – Pavillon Le Corbusier in Paris, the Eternal Tour festival and the Ensemble Vide. This work leads him to think about the contents of concerts, the venues and the way the audience perceive the whole project. He favors programs that include unusual places for contemporary music and proposes original stage dispositions. These "sound-perception objects" allow the musicians to create a new relationship with the auditors, offering them new listening possibilities. http://www.schulerdenis.name/#biographie

Wide Invisible Sky a été composé en 2015. Cette année-là, les conflits en Irak, en Syrie, en Libye et ailleurs, ont poussé des centaines de milliers de personnes sur la route de l'exil. Des familles entières ont tenté, en passant par la Méditerranée ou par les Balkans, de rejoindre l'Europe en se déplaçant majoritairement à pied, ou sur des embarcations de fortune. J’ai proposé à l’autrice roumaine Ioana Balgradan d’écrire une poésie en prose sur le sujet. Le texte, intitulé nomadsland#2015 m’a servi de base pour mon projet. Par un travail sur les respirations, j’ai essayé de rendre perceptible autant le désespoir que la force de vie. La présence et l’absence de son cherchent à traduire l’indicible de la situation. Wide Invisible Sky est une commande de l’ensemble UMS’n JIP pour le projet de recherche Integrations.