Date / Place I

15 January 2018 Gare du Nord, Basel

Date / Place II

15 January 2018 Gare du Nord, Basel

Series

Phoenix

Title

USA – different!

Program

Elliott Sharp (*1951) “Points and Fields” (2009) Eric Chasalow (*1955) “On That Swirl of Ending Dust” (2011) John Zorn (*1953) “Cobra” (1984)

Musicians

Christoph Bösch
flute, alto flute, piccolo
Toshiko Sakakibara
clarinet, bass clarinet
Raphael Camenisch
saxophone
Nenad Marković
trumpet
Michael Büttler
trombone
Maurizio Grandinetti
electric guitar
Samuel Wettstein
synthesizer
Daniel Stalder
percussion
Friedemann Treiber
violin
Martin Jaggi
cello
Aleksander Gabryś
double bass
Thomas Peter
electronics
Christof Stürchler
sound design
Jürg Henneberger
conductor

Program description

Who associates the USA of our time with exuberant creativity, real artistic freedom, unlimited space for experimentation?

We dedicate this program with the three greats Elliott Sharp, Eric Chasalow and John Zorn to exactly this America!

All three composers belong to the middle generation of New York’s experimental avant-garde scene. Improviser and bandleader John Zorn wrote several “game pieces” in the eighties, a kind of musical card games that are a kind of “guided” improvisations. The most famous of these is probably Cobra, which is not fixed in terms of both instrumentation and duration.

Guitarist and composer Elliott Sharp is difficult to classify stylistically, as his music moves between the genres of rock, jazz and new music, making it stand for itself and be distinctive.

Eric Chasalow – also a joyful border crosser between the genres – studied composition with Mario Davidovsky and teaches at Brandeis University in Boston. He is artistic director of the festival for electroacoustic music BEAMS.