stimmhorn, the musical duo from Basle, specialise in a quite unique form of artistic expression based on the delicate balance between the human voice and archaic wind instruments. The contrasting sounds of the song of the alpenhorn, a-semantic singing, rich harmonies, fascinating overtones and silence are brought together onto the stage in a playful atmosphere characterised by its theatrics, humour and sensitivity. Past and present meet on a quest for something new to create previously unheard musical seismograms imbued with originality.
stimmhorn’s mythical musical style tells of the hidden depths of the human body and ancient and undisturbed landscapes. Throughout this artistic exploration of both external and internal spheres of resonance, the unbridled human voice meets the hazy tone sculptures of the horn and the phenomenal heights of overtone singing meet the incredible depths of the alpenhorn. This album allows us to participate in the creation and performance of a whole series of works of art that continuously play on the effects of the different dimensions of space.
On stage, these original stimmhorn acoustic compositions take on a visual aspect and are represented in a simple but accurate style. Using symbolic and actionistic elements, the spectator is drawn into the world of the two performers and through their musical dialogue makes new discoveries of outer and inner worlds, looks in on imaginary spheres of forgotten sensitivities and unimaginable histories from the tangible mysteries of the topos and the corpus.
Inland is the title of the new musical production by artists Christian Zehnder and Balthasar Streiff, in which they extend yet further their own, unconventional universe of sounds, originally created in previous projects. But in this album they also present us with brand new flotsam and jetsam picked up along the shores of the human imagination. IN LAND - The Film
Film producer Pierre-Yves Brogeaud and the SF DRS (Music & Dance) have worked together on this first musical production about the Basle-based duet stimmhorn. It captures, above all, their unique expressive style. The film has neither dialogue nor commentary and both the music and pictures form an integral part of the overall composition. This marriage of image and sound presents the creation and development of stimmhorn’s music to us in a highly tangible manner. The duet composed several pieces specially for this production.
The film medium also had a decisive influence on the theme adopted for the production of the inland album. The film delves into both the macro and microcosms of the visual world to represent the correlations that exist between stimmhorn’s music and a host of both inner and outer landscapes. From the expanses of space to the tiniest molecular structures, from dialogues of sound to acoustic voyages of discovery via archetypal musical instruments, from the human body to the human voice, inland the film creates links between both contrasting and coherent worlds, exposing the most emotional moments in the birth of the duet.
The film’s first showing will take place at the Alpentöne Festival to be held in Altdorf in August 2001. No date has as yet been fixed for a television screening.
EchoOrte, the composition commissioned by Pro Helvetia, also features in inland the film. stimmhorn
stimmhorn made their first public appearance five years ago and very quickly gained international renown with their unique musical offering. Two successful albums, melken and schnee, soon followed and are now regularly taken to the stage. The duet have performed their work on several occasions both within Switzerland and abroad, adding to their repertoire several commissioned compositions. The Salzburger Festspiele, for example, called upon the talents of the duet to create stage music to accompany the Shakespeare play Troilus and Cressida (Director: Stefan Bachmann) and even requested that they assist in the stage management for the piece. Following this, the duet came up with their original creation Verlust der Stille for a production by the Basle Theatre which also involved performances by actors from within the company. Next came tours in Europe, Japan and even South Africa. stimmhorn is currently planning a joint project with ARTE involving a concert performed together with the Mongolian overtone group Huun-Huur-Tu.
Cita:
CHRISTIAN ZEHNDER
Voice, overtone singing, small bandoneon, accordion, bandora & related instruments
Born in Zurich in 1961. Lives and works in Basle.
After breaking off his guitar studies, Christian Zehnder began lessons with baritone signer Raphael Laback and overtone singing lessons with Tokne Nonaka (J). He then went on to further train his voice with Alfred Wolfson and Daniel Prieto. He has been involved in a variety of projects as a theatrical musician as well as in dance and music cabaret shows. He has undertaken solo performances, taken part in sound sculptures and has completed several compositions for the film industry. He worked together with music and sound designer Kold on the recent poppel music project that lies midway between electronic and archaic sounds (CD & Performance). He is currently preparing a solo project entitled Genom at the Gorki Theater Berlin, which is to be staged for the first time in the Autumn of 2001 under musical director Lavinia Frey..
BALTHASAR STREIFF
Various alpenhorns, buchel, tuba, trumpet & related instruments
Born in Baden in 1963. Lives and works in Basle.
Balthasar Streiff trained at the in trumpet and voice, going on to study art at the Basle Higher Education Institute for the Creative Arts. Since then he has concentrated essentially on the alpenhorn and its value as a cult instrument. He has produced a variety of constructions of his own, often closely observing the rules of historical instrument making. He has been involved in diverse projects in the spheres of new music, the creative arts, theatre, film and literature. In May of 2001 he released the production sanshi/Purpurberg which he worked on together with Ueli Fuyûru Derendinger and which is a musical dialogue between Streiff’s horns and classical Japanese chamber music (Shakuhachi).
320 kbps mp3; sorry, no scans because of strange, semitransparent cover
Stimmhorn - Inland (Swiss avantgarde folk)
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