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Expansion of the sound zone

Frank von Niederhäusern09-27-20243 min. read

So-called large ensembles are emerging more and more frequently in the jazz academy environment. Even seasoned musicians swear by this format, which ultimately stands for the liveliness of contemporary music.

The experienced consumer of culture is very familiar with ensembles. Drama ensembles work in theatres, chamber and string ensembles play in concert halls, and the idea of intensive collaboration is so important to some institutions that it is used to name them, such as the Ensemble für Neue Musik Zürich, the Ensemble Proton in Bern or the young Ensemble Helix in Lucerne.Art ensembles can be of different sizes and orientations. So it is inevitable that anyone who encounters a large ensemble will be taken aback. Do you have to imagine the ensemble work of these bands, which are appearing more and more frequently in the jazz environment, to be particularly intensive? Or do experts only speak of large ensembles once a certain number of musicians has been reached? Chris Wiesendanger smiles. The Zurich pianist, composer and bandleader will soon be giving his first concerts with his new large ensemble. ‘For me, this name was a working title that then took on a life of its own,’ he reveals. After a phase of numerous solo concerts, the 58-year-old jazz musician says he felt the urge to be increasingly inspired by his colleagues again and to look for new musical collaborations.It sounds similar with Sarah Chaksad. The 41-year-old saxophonist from Basel had made a name for herself with a large orchestra before she presented her 13-piece Large Ensemble last year. ‘This size allows me to think orchestrally, but also to give the musicians room to manoeuvre. This creates a multitude of possibilities to combine sound colours.’ Other large ensembles achieve this musical colourfulness by incorporating ‘foreign’ sound languages such as classical music or folklore. Zurich violist Gina Été, for example, recently surprised audiences with a large ensemble that combines string music with electropop. Geneva guitarist Louis Matute plays pulsating jazz with his six-piece large ensemble, which also sounds like his father's Central American homeland. The most recent example is Louise Knobil: The mature double bass player from Lausanne will soon be expanding the bouncy chanson jazz of her trio into a large ensemble.
Chris Wiesendanger describes the music of his nonet as follows: ‘We mix danceable numbers that take up the early swing of the 20s and 30s with elements of new music, but also Brazilian folklore.’ Accordingly, he has filled his ensemble with musicians of different origins and specialities. He can imagine that some band leaders speak of large ensembles in order to keep such a stylistic breadth open. Wiesendanger's choice of words leads to the conclusion that this trendy format leaves a lot open. In fact, there is no definition of size or instrumentation, emphasises the jazz musician, who also teaches at the Zurich University of the Arts ZHdK. On the contrary: ‘Anyone who hears the term “big band” has a clear idea of what their music should sound like. This doesn't apply to the large ensemble format.’While big bands have sounded more or less the same for 100 years, jazz orchestras have opened up new musical perspectives since the 1970s. The large ensemble format is almost the same age, emphasises jazz lecturer Wiesendanger, pointing to Kenny Wheeler and Steve Reich, who wrote original compositions for the small large format. Sarah Chaksad also emphasises originality and flexibility when she says that she wants to ‘generate new sounds’ with her large ensemble.Chris Wiesendanger attributes the boom in large ensembles to another aspect that he has observed among his students: ‘Today, there is a completely different awareness of fixed labelling and stylistic pigeonholes. My students prefer to make <music> rather than <jazz>.’ This search for new ways of expression must be supported, he emphasises. ‘This keeps the music flexible.’Frank von Niederhäusern, kulturtippThe article appeared in the current issue of Kulturtipp. More information and subscriptions on kulturtipp

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