STEVE BERESFORD

Steve Beresford is one of the giants of British improvised music, a restless multi-instrumentalist whose irreverent and anarchic spirit has been disrupting and galvanising improvised music for forty years. A superb pianist, he also plays an assortment of electronic devices and toy instruments. Always balanced precariously on the edge of chaos, he possesses an energy and verve that can animate any musical situation.

JACQUES DEMIERRE / piano

Jacques Demierre's musical and sound work takes various directions: improvised music, contemporary music, sound poetry, sound installation. His compositions and sound realisations are concerned with the activity of listening and with sound space. He collaborates with many improvising musicians, Barre Philips, Urs Leimgruber, Thomas Lehn, Radu Malfatti, Joëlle Léandre, Axel Dörner, Fritz Hauser, Sainkho Namtchylak, Hans Koch, Isabelle Duthoit, Brandon Labelle, Jason Kahn, Butch Morris, Roger Turner, Okkyung Lee, Peter Evans, Carlos Zingaro, Gunter Müller, Jaap Blonk, Barry Guy, Lucas Niggli, Sylvie Courvoisier, Hann Bennink, Rhodri Davis, Paul Lovens, Dorothea Schürch, Phil Minton, Elliott Sharp,.. and works with Vincent Barras in the field of performance and language art.

OKKYUNG LEE / cello

After being in music schools from age of 3 to 25, korean cellist/improviser/composer Okkyung Lee finally found her artistic freedom in new york's lower east side where she moved in 2000. Since then, she has performed and recorded with numerous artists such as Laurie Anderson, Lotte Anker, Derek Bailey, Kjell Biorgeengen, John Butcher, Chris Corsano, Sylvie Courvoisier, Min Xiao-Fen, Thursten Moore, Ikue Mori, Lawrence D. „Butch Morris“, Jim O’Rourke, Evan Parker, Keith Rowe, Wadada Leo Smith, John Zorn to name a few. She has released her debut album as a leader, Nihm on Tzadik. A duo recording with Christian Marclay, a solo cello album on Etatic Peace, a trio album with Evan Parker and Peter Evans and a duo with Paul Lytton.

THOMAS LEHN / analogue synthesizer

Thomas Lehn develops as an interpreting and improvising pianist individual forms of expression in the field of live-elektronic music. Since 1989 he has concentrated on the use of analogous systems, which allows him through direct access to the single elements of the electronic sound synthesis to react immediately in the structure and form process of live music. As a synthesizer player he performs at festivals and during tours in Europa, Canada, Japan, Australia and New Zealand in duos with Gerry Hemingway, Paul Lovens, Marcus Schmickler, Frédéric Blondy, Urs Leimgruber, John Butcher, Tiziana Bertoncini, in Trios with KONK PACK (Roger Turner & Tim Hodgkinson), FUTCH (Jon Rose & Johannes Bauer), TOOT (Phil Minton & Axel Doerner), THERMAL (John Butcher & Andy 'Ex' Moor), and larger ensembles like SHIFT, speak easy, MIMEO and the interpreter/improviser ensemble]h[iatus.

URS LEIMGRUBER / saxophone

Urs Leimgruber is a key member of the European scene of contemporary improvised music. He specializes in solo concerts and performs regularly with the Trio Leimgruber-Demierre-Phillips and with Quartet Noir (with Marilyn Crispell, Joëlle Léandre, Fritz Hauser) in Europe, Canada, USA, Japan, and Cuba. His countless collaborations have resulted in concerts and recordings with Fred Frith, Steve Lacy, Lauren Newton, Evan Parker, Keith Rowe, Günter Christmann, Sunny Murray, Thomas Lehn, Günter Müller, John Butcher, Axel Dörner, Günter Christmann and many others. He also has been engaged for New Music projects with the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet and the ARTE Saxophone Quartet. During the 1970s, he was the co-founder of the Electricjazz-Freemusic group, OM.

BARRE PHILLIPS / double-bass

Barre Phillips is a jazz and free improvisation bassist. A professional musician since 1960, he migrated to New York City in 1962, then to Europe in 1967. Since 1972 he has been based in southern France. He studied briefly in 1959 with S. Charles Siani, Assistant Principal Bassist with the San Francisco Symphony During the 1960s he recorded with (among others) Eric Dolphy, Jimmy Giuffre, Archie Shepp, Attila Zoller, Lee Konitz andMarion Brown. As a free improviser he has worked with (among many others) bassists Peter Kowald and Joëlle Léandre, guitaristDerek Bailey, clarinetists Theo Jörgensmann and Aurélien Besnard, saxophonists Peter Brötzmann, Evan Parker andJoe Maneri, and pianist Paul Bley.

DOROTHEA SCHÜRCH / voice, singing saw

Dorothea Schürch is practising improvisation and performance. She is performing all over europe at the Free Music Workshop in Berlin, Ulrichsberger Kaleidophon, Jazz Festival Willisau, Canaille in Frankfurt, Concepts of Doing Stuttgart, London Jazz Festival, Total Music Meeting Berlin.. Several scholarships at the Migros Kulturprozent Switzerland, at the Academie Schloss Solitude Stuttgart and the City of Zürich. She works as an improviser togehter with Phil Minton, Phil Wachsman, John Butcher, Roger Turner, Tim Hodgkinson, John Russel, Hans Schneider, Paul Lytton, Paul Lovens, Stephan Wittwer.

ROGER TURNER / percussion

Roger Turner been working as an improvising percussionist since the early 1970’s : solo work, collaborations with experimental rock musics & open - form song, extensive work with dance, film and visual artists, workshop formations and the hands-on politics of independent record labels and work situations, plus involvements in numerous jazz-based ensembles have all contributed to this process. Has collaborated with many of the finest european & international musicians from Annette Peacock to Phil Minton, Cecil Taylor to Keith Rowe ; tours & concerts have been throughout Europe, Australia, Canada, USA, Mexico, China and Japan.

PHILIPP WACHSMANN / violin & electronics

John Corbett notes that Philipp Wachsmann came to free improvisation from a predominantly classical background, particularly via the contemporary experiments of "indeterminacy, graphic and prose-based scores, conceptualism and electroacoustics, listening to Webern, Partch, Ives, Berio and Varèse, reading 'Die Reihe' and interrogating the rhythmic, harmonic and melodic preoccupations of Western art music. Starting in 1969, Wachsmann was a member of Yggdrasil, an ensemble performing works by Cage, Cardew, Feldman, Ashley and others and in this group he used contact mikes on the violin and made his own electronic instruments, ring modulators and routing devices.

JACQUES DEMIERRE & URS LEIMGRUBER 6IX

Jacques Demierre (CH) / piano
Okkyung Lee (USA) / cello
Thomas Lehn (D) / analogue synthesizer
Urs Leimgruber (CH) / saxophone
Dorothea Schürch (CH) / voice and singing saw
Roger Turner (GB) / percussion

6ix is an ensemble founded in spring 2007 and directed artistically by saxophonist Urs Leimgruber and pianist Jacques Demierre. Since then it has played in Europe, USA and Canada (concerts and international festivals)

6ix consists of six musicians who are among the leading protagonists of the free-improvising scene in Europe: Urs Leimgruber has enriched and expanded for decades the saxophone sound with new playing techniques; on the piano, Jacques Demierre has developed a unique operating style, never ceasing to redraw new sound topographies, making us forget the physical weight of the instrument; the Korean-born cellist Okkyung Lee has played a substantial role in different projets in the new-york downtown avant-garde scene, her playing has revealed a powerful and versatile musical presence; on percussion, Roger Turner is a musician who defies any categorisation, a great british drummer who is an exciting combination of volcanic power and finely-honed precision; on the voice and the singing saw, Dorothea Schürch incorporates a wide range of sound effects and noise, while her body becomes the receptacle of an amazing theatrical performance; and finally Thomas Lehn, who works deliberately with analog electronic sounds that allow a very direct and always inspiring response to the formal structure and process specific to the live improvised music.

With 6ix, these six musicians form an ensemble whose sound improvisations get in touch in a very appropriate manner with the acoustic conditions of a specific site. They perform sound improvisation paying attention in a very detailed manner to the room where sounds are produced.

The music improvised by 6ix in a given space carries the mark of this space; it is based in some sense on its soundprint, on its form, whether it uses or reveals its acoustic potentialities.

There is no score as in traditional music, but a site specific score for the musicians to interpret provided by the architectural and environmental context. A score that can't be separated from the music, a score which coincides with the performance itself.


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