Ensemble Phœnix Basel

Christoph Bösch *1969, is founding member, flutist and manager of the EPhB. He studied in the class of Felix Manz in Basel with further impulses from the flutists Aurèle Nicolet, Robert Winn and William Bennett. In addition to his main engagement from the beginning at the EPhB and his specialization in new forms of music, he is on the road as a chamber musician and soloist, teaches at “Regionale Musik Schule” in Liestal, and since 2016, together with his friends from the Ensemble “Cordaeola”, he runs his own chamber music series across musical genres, will be the artistic director “Festspiele Südtirol” from 2023, gives masterclasses and is a sought-after juror. Christoph Bösch ventures beyond preconceived boundaries of musical genres and is a member of the Sarah Chaksad Large Ensemble.

Antje Thierbach *1970 in East Berlin, studied oboe in Leipzig, Würzburg and Berlin, among others with Burckhardt Glaetzner, historical performance practice and historical oboes with Katharina Arfken at the Schola Cantorum Basilensis. As the daughter of an orchestral musician, she works freelance out of experience, passion and conviction and since 2017 with the EPhB. An important part of her artistic work is scenic/theatrical work in various constellations with dancers and actors such as Sasha Waltz and Guest, with Christoph Marthaler and in her own projects. Since 2011 she teaches historical performance practice and baroque oboe as well as new playing techniques on the oboe at the Hochschule für Musik “Hanns Eisler” Berlin.

Toshiko Sakakibara *1963 born in Tsuchiura. First studies in Japan at the Tokyo College of Music with Prof. Isamu Omori and at the Toho Gakuen Conservatory with Prof. Risei Kitazume. Subsequent studies with Karl Leister in Tokyo and Berlin and with Elmar Schmid in Zurich. 1996-2002 clarinettist in the Zurich Chamber Orchestra. Toshiko Sakakibara lives as a freelance musician in Basel from where she is active as an internationally sought-after chamber musician; she is a member of Sir András Schiff’s Cappella Andrea Barca. In addition to her work in several ensembles, her interest in contemporary music occupies a central place in the EPhB.

Lucas A. Rößner *1971 in Naumburg an der Saale. Extensive bassoon studies in Leipzig with Werner Seltmann and in Basel with Sergio Azzolini. Since 1999 active as a freelance musician in Switzerland and Germany. He is currently a member of the Basel Sinfonietta and plays in many other ensembles in Switzerland, in addition to his engagement with the EPhB. He teaches bassoon at the music schools in Dornach and Liestal. Since 2008 he has been a teacher for the Feldenkrais Method. He has been organizing the Sunday matinees in Merian Gärten in Basel on behalf of the Christoph Merian Foundation since 2010. As a speaker and actor he seeks the connection between theater, music and dance. Since 2018 intensive engagement with the dance style GAGA.

Raphael Camenisch *1975 is one of the most innovative and versatile saxophonists of his generation. He expresses his passion as a musician in the most diverse formations; in several chamber music ensembles, in crossover projects, as a soloist or in duo with electronics. His stylistic range and versatility play a central role. He is equally committed to the “traditional, classical” saxophone literature, contemporary music as well as electro-acoustic music and free improvisation. He has participated in the premiere of numerous works. He pursues a versatile engagement as a soloist and chamber musician and has made a name for himself especially as an interpreter of contemporary music.

Nenad Marković *1983 in Novi Sad, is a trumpet player and pedagogue and active in the fields of classical, contemporary and improvised music. As a member of numerous ensembles and orchestras, he collaborates with many composers of our time and has premiered almost 200 compositions over the years. In addition to being a member of the EPhB for almost 20 years, he is also a regular guest musician with Ensemble Modern Frankfurt and Klangforum Wien. He is a professor of trumpet at the Novi Sad Academy of Music and gives master classes at music conservatories worldwide. He is also a regular jury member at international competitions.

Aurélien Tschopp *1992 in Neuchâtel. He received his first lessons with Claudio Pontiggia at the Conservatoire La Chaux-de-Fonds and with Heiner Krause at Musikschule Basel. He then continued his education with Christian Lampert, Jan Golebiowski and Thomas Müllerin at Musikhochschule Basel. He completed a master degree in pedagogy. During his studies he played with youth orchestras in Switzerland, France and Romania. Within the framework of various master classes and competitions, he received inspirations from Johannes Hinterholzer, Thomas Hauschild and Carsten Duffin. He is co-founder of the Avensemble Quintett with which he promotes the further development of the repertoire for wind quintet. He completed an internship in the Bern Symphony Orchestra. At the same time he took lessons with Christian Holenstein.

Michael Büttler *1969 was born in Landshut/Lower Bavaria. He completed his music studies at the Universities of Music in Munich and Frankfurt. As a freelance musician, he worked with many orchestras and ensembles, developing his artistic focus in the field of contemporary music. In addition to EPhB, he is a member of HORNROH – Modern Alphorn Quartet and has also been a regular guest musician with Ensemble Modern Frankfurt and many other contemporary music ensembles since 1989. In addition to his work as a freelance musician, he devotes part of his time to teaching at the Musik-Akademie Basel.

Janne Matias Jakobsson is considered a passionate interpreter of contemporary music. He has been a member of the EPhB since 2017. He has performed with Ensemble Modern and Insomnio Ensemble. As a soloist, he can be found at many contemporary music festivals. Other performances with orchestras such as Sinfonia Lahti and Basel Sinfonietta are among his activities. He was a guest musician with the rock band Bon Jovi. CDs with his participation have been released by NEOS, col legno and Genuin. A working grant from the Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland (2016) enabled him to explore his instrument and skills in greater depth. Janne is a co-founder of the brass quintet Ensemble Schwerpunkt. This ensemble won national and international competitions and recorded a debut CD.

Maurizio Grandinetti’s main interest lies in expanding the musical horizons of his instrument, the classical guitar and the electric guitar, in diverse combinations with electronic instruments. He is currently active as a soloist, chamber musician, improviser and member of new music ensembles. Elliott Sharp, Alex Buess, Volker Heyn, Giorgio Netti and Junghae Lee (among others) have written for him. He is a lecturer at the Conservatory of Music in Como (Italy). Webseite

Consuelo Giulianelli *1965 born in Rapallo. She completed her harp studies in Verona with Mirella Vita and in Basel with Ursula Holliger with honors. She was solo harpist in the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra and Musikkollegium Winterthur. Currently she is the principal harpist of the Basel Chamber Orchestra. As a freelance chamber musician she plays in the Duo Guitarp with Maurizio Grandinetti, in the Ensemble Cordaeola with Christoph Bösch and Toshiko Sakakibara and in the Camerata Variabile Basel with Helena Winkelman. Her solo CD Saeya saeya presents her as a harpist and singer. During the pandemic she has published a new harp school “Harpsodie” together with harpist Marion Navarro. She satisfies her curiosity for contemporary music with the EPhB.

Manuel Bärtsch grew up in St.Gallen/CH. He completed his studies at the Musikhochschule Basel in the piano class of Jürg Wyttenbach and in chamber music with Walter Levin and Hatto Beyerle with the soloist diploma with distinction. This was followed by prizes as a chamber musician at international competitions in Stuttgart, Berlin and Graz. As a soloist, he has performed with the Basel Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestre National de Lyon, among others. His wide-ranging solo and chamber music repertoire, his collaboration with contemporary composers and his fundamental research on romantic piano playing result in an artistic profile beyond the usual categorizations. Manuel Bärtsch is professor and research lecturer at the Bern University of the Arts.

Ludovic Van Hellemont *1985 born in Belgium, studied at the Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel with Jan Michiels, at the Hochschule für Musik Basel with Claudio Martinez Mehner, and at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis with Edoardo Torbianelli. Since 2017, he has been an important protagonist of the contemporary Swiss music scene as solo pianist of the Basel Sinfonietta and the EPhB, among others. Adorned with a variety of keyboard instruments from the clavichord to the ondes martenot, he takes both a tradition-conscious and an experimental stance. His artistic activity is evidenced by recordings, video productions and extensive concert activity in Europe, Asia and Australia.

Samuel Wettstein *1971 born and raised in St. Gallen. He studied piano with Jürg Wyttenbach and Jean-Jacques Dünki at the Hochschule für Musik in Basel. As a pianist and keyboardist he plays in various formations of different styles – New Music, New Improvised Music and Jazz / Rock / Pop – and was involved in numerous world premieres as well as radio and CD productions. He is a founding member of the Albanian jazz band Kapsamun, the ensemble Katarakt and the trio Mo’Wings. He also plays, composes and produces music for theater, film and dance and is intensively involved in electronic music, audio design and percussion. He teaches a piano class at the Musik-Akademie Basel.

Friedemann Amadeus Treiber *1971 in Offenburg. He received his first violin lessons at the age of 5 from his brother Felix. After studying with Prof. Wolfgang Marschner and Prof. Hansheinz Schneeberger, he received his teaching and soloist diploma for violin with distinction at the Basel Academy of Music in 1991/92. He has won prizes at national and international competitions and, in addition to radio and CD recordings, performs internationally as a chamber musician and soloist. His repertoire includes works for solo violin, violin concertos and chamber music of all epochs. He is concertmaster of the EPhB, member of the Basel Sinfonietta and primarius of the Ensemble Aventure. He plays piano and viola and develops an extensive activity as a composer. Since 2016 he is lecturer for violin at the Kalaidos University of Music Switzerland.

David Sontòn Caflisch *1974 born in Basel, grew up in Andeer. The most formative personalities during his apprenticeship as a violinist were Michael Gebauer, Ingolf Turban and Hansheinz Schneeberger. In Chur he founded the chamber ensemble musicuria in 1991, which became the ensemble ö! in 2002, of which he has been artistic director ever since. Despite reservations about an academic education as a composer, David then decided to do so and found in Isabel Mundry a person who awakened in him the joy of complex thinking. Among many others, Gerald Bennett and Magnus Lindberg deepened his understanding of composition. David lives with Eva and Balduin and Rodolfo von Salis in Bärschwil.

Petra Ackermann *1974 in Klagenfurt/AT. Studied at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, the Royal Academy of Music in London and with Garth Knox in Paris. Dedicatee of numerous works. As a soloist and chamber musician she regularly performs at festivals such as Wien Modern, Musikprotokoll Graz, Klangspuren Schwaz. She is a member of the Mondrian Ensemble, PHACE contemporary music, Noise Me Tender and since 2013 the EPhB. Intensive collaboration with artists from the fields of jazz, electronic music and dance, including David Liebmann, Peter Herbert, Wayne Horvitz, Elliott Sharp, James Blood Ulmer, Dans.Kias and Liquid Loft. 2018 work grant of the canton of Aargau and as a member of the Mondrian Ensemble winner of the Swiss Music Prize.

Alessandro D’Amico *1986 born in Caracas, attended the Music School Montalban in Caracas. From 2002 he studied with Prof. Gerard Caussè and Prof. Rainer Schmidt at Escuela Superior de Musica Reina Sofia and from 2004-2006 with Prof. Peter Langgartner at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. From 2002-2009 he was violist in the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra with conductors such as Giuseppe Sinopoli, Claudio Abbado, and Gustavo Dudamel. He attended master classes with Nobuko Imai, Veronika Hagen, and Atar Arad, among others. From 2009 he studied at the Hochschule für Musik in Basel in the graduate course for string quartets with Prof. Walter Levin and viola with Silvia Simionescu. He is a member of the Merel Quartet, Camerata Variabile, EPhB and Capella Andrea Barca.

Martin Jaggi was born *1978 in Basel. He studied violoncello and composition in Basel, Zurich and Hamburg. From 2000 to 2013 he was a member of the Mondrian Ensemble Basel, which he co-founded. He is also the solo cellist of the basel sinfonietta. As a composer, Martin Jaggi receives commissions from renowned ensembles and festivals and his works experience many performances in numerous countries in Europe, Asia and America. He lives and works in Singapore and Basel. Martin Jaggi has been a member of the EPhB since 2010.

Stéphanie Meyer *1977 born in Montréal, She receives her musical education at the conservatory of her hometown from Dorothy Bégin, at McGill University with Antonio Lysy and at the Music Academy Basel with Thomas Demenga. She later turned to playing the baroque cello under the tutelage of Christophe Coin at the Schola Cantorum Basel. She is a guest at music festivals in Germany, Switzerland and England. She is grateful for formative encounters with musicians such as Steven Isserlis, Janos Starker, Mstislav Rostropovitch, Anner Bylsma, Erich Höbarth and Sergio Azzolini. She was, among others, principal cellist of the Camerata Bern and participated in projects of the Cappella Andrea Barca under András Schiff. She has been teaching at the Basel Music School since 2010.

Aleksander Gabryś *1974, has been playing with the EPhB since 2001. He is a double bassist, performer, composer and winner of several composition and interpretation competitions and performs as a soloist with various orchestras. Concerts have taken him to New York, Stanford, Buenos Aires, Saõ Paulo, Venice, Paris and Vienna, among others. Numerous composers have written double bass works especially for him. His artistic work includes chamber music and solo double bass pieces, as well as computer music of the Neo-Expressionist avant-garde. In 2022 he presented his music theater “The Beelzebub Sonata” and composed a sextet for Sound Plasma Festival Berlin. He is president of the “freagroup studio” for polymedial, para-theatrical acts.

Daniel Stalder studied percussion in Basel with Siegfried Schmid and graduated with teaching, orchestral and concert diplomas. Since the founding of the ensemble in 1998, he has played regularly in the EPhB. He plays other concerts and projects with Basel Sinfonietta, the percussion duo HOW2, Ensemble für Neue Musik Zürich, Basler Schlagzeugensemble, Ensemble Paul Klee Bern and Sextuor de percussions des 3 frontières.

João Carlos Pacheco *1988 is a Portuguese musician who uses drums and percussion as a means for developing new creations in the field of contemporary music. His concert activity as a percussionist is extended by his work in electroacoustic music, composition and collaboration in multidisciplinary projects. He is a member of Ensemble Inverspace, EPhB, Ensemble of Nomads, TAL Trio and Tin Drum Duo. His performances at festivals and concert series include Wien Modern, ECLAT (Stuttgart), Lucerne Festival, ULTIMA Festival (Oslo), Gogol Festival (Kiev), ManiFeste IRCAM (Paris), reMusik (St. Petersburg). Since 2013 he lives in Basel.

Thomas Peter *1971 is a musician, composer and lecturer and studied audio design and improvisation at the Musikakademie Basel. He has been active in the fields of composing electroacoustic music, improvised music and sound installations for over 20 years and lectures at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK). He lives and works in Zurich. His concert activities include performances as a solo artist and as an interpreter of contemporary music in Europe, Asia, North and South America. His solo concerts and compositions are situated between improvised electronic music and multi-channel, acoustic space-filling laptop performances.

The conductor and pianist Jürg Henneberger, born in Lucerne *1957, studied in Basel with Jürg Wyttenbach and in Hamburg with Klauspeter Seibel and Christoph von Dohnànyi. He taught at the Hochschule für Musik Basel from 1989 to 2022. He is the artistic director of EPhB which he founded in 1998 and specializes in contemporary music. From 1998-2014 he was president of the International Society for New Music (IGNM) Basel. He is also a widely sought-after musical director of major ballet and opera productions. Since 2009 he was professor and, together with Mike Svoboda and Marcus Weiss, artistic director of the newly founded Master’s program in Musical Performance Contemporary Music.