Gunnar Geisse
Gunnar Geisse ( born July 11, 1962 in Giessen, Germany ) is a musician: improviser, composer and performer. He moves between the poles of experimental / improvised music and new music. For this he developed a complex instrument from electric guitar and electronic sound processing, which he calls laptop guitar. He also plays a variety of other stringed instruments, in addition to banjo and mandolin principally those from Central Asia, such as Uzbek, or Persian Dotar.
Life
Geisse started his musical career in early adolescence as a rock guitarist. With the end of school, he moved to the field of jazz and then completed an apprenticeship as electric guitarist. In a concert hall the Moers Festival, he watched as Ornette Coleman was being carried in a coffin on stage and in disco glitter suit played the coined by him free jazz. After this key event are goats bought for his band members Toy Saxophone made of plastic and rejected the original plan to play classic jazz standards. Improvisation and experimental approach were anchored at this time in his musical understanding. The first professional engagement he graduated but then with the " New York Broadway Ensemble", with whom he toured for about two years through Europe. To be part of an orchestral ensemble, was for him highlighted the vital experience.
The avant-garde combo " Brother virus" with Werner Klausnitzer, Patrick Scales and Maurice de Martin Geisse coined in the late 1980s decisive. She made guest appearances in New York ( Knitting Factory ), playing as the first volume in the German TV live improvised music for a TV show - " Veranda" by Dagobert Lindlau. With " Brother virus" trod Gunnar are goats for the first time those musically own pathways involved in its development in the years before already loomed. In Enja 1991 appeared the album " Happy Hour".
1992 lost are goats in a serious climbing accident the two middle fingers of his right hand. While the multiple stays in the hospital was not immediately clear whether he would be able to continue his musical career. In dealing with the compositional techniques of the 20th century, he found his interest in structure. He recorded still in the hospital 's first compositions, which are attributable to more new music. In order to understand the auditory, he later played each track - up to 200 on the other - in a recording studio one. From its structure interest, he worked with the Institute for Experimental Physics of the University of Magdeburg in the fields of complexity theory, nonlinear phenomena and simulation together and let incorporate structural models of nature in his music. The photographs were published under the title "breath".
As part of a composition competition Hans Zender became aware as a juror on this extraordinary music. Gunnar are goats received a one-year fellowship at the Akademie Schloss Solitude. There the work was written, " The discrete now ". He delved into the phenomenon of musical time. During the renewed search for possible structural specifications of the nature he received important suggestions and impulses at the Institute of Medical Psychology, Ludwig- Maximilians- University Munich (LMU ) on " time and its perception." The classic design parameters tempo, meter, and rhythm moved by this perspective extension in favor of a psychological perception of time in the background.
After the work on the structure and time stood for Gunnar Geisse the question of access to elementary harmony. Since 2003, he went to the nonlinear phenomenon of the combination of sounds created in the cochlea of the inner ear, without being physically present in the airspace. As a missing element to the elements and partial tone series Teiltonmatrix already used the combination tones completed its harmonious composition instruments to an independent compositional technique. The works are available on CD under the title "meta" in Creative Sources Recordings. In 2006, he was by a theoretical script insight into its specific harmonics.
Paradoxically for him with these compositionally tonal clarifications also the noise- based improvisation and their physical, expressive moment more and more important; his improvisational models altered under these conditions. As of 2005, electronics and laptop labor and means of expression were increased. He developed in this context, its own hardware / software circuit ( laptop guitar) that allows him to continue his playing style analog to the digital domain.
Gunnar Geisse received several awards and fellowships, including the Music Award of the City of Munich and the Composition Fellowship from the Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart. He lived in Munich since 1985.
Cooperation
Gunnar Geisse played with many musicians from the three major areas of his musical creativity - experimental / improvised music, contemporary music and contemporary jazz.
He played with Richard Barrett, Phil Durrant, eRikm, Pierre Favre, Vinko Globokar, Barry Guy, Franz Hautzinger, Jason Kahn, Joëlle Léandre, Thomas Lehn, Michael Lentz, George Lewis, David Moss, Günter Müller, Olga Neuwirth, Phill Niblock, Evan Parker, Elliott Sharp, Giancarlo Schiaffini, Ed Schuller, Mike Svoboda, Gary Thomas, Wu Wei, Maurice de Martin and Xu Fengxia.
Gunnar Geisse worked for / performed works by Hans- Jürgen von Bose, John Cage, Peter Maxwell Davies, Fred Frith, Gérard Grisey, Hans Werner Henze, Tom Johnson, Helmut Lachenmann, Anestis Logothetis, Chico Mello, Josef Anton Riedl, Iris ter Schiphorst Dieter Schnebel, James Tenney, Kurt Weill, Jörg Widmann, Christian Wolff and Udo Zimmermann.
He played - as a soloist - under Stefan Asbury, Paul Daniel, Peter Eötvös, Franck Ollu, Lothar Zagrosek with the Bayerischer Rundfunk ( BR), the Orchestra of the Bavarian State Opera, the Radio -Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart des SWR, the State Orchestra Stuttgart, the Orchestra of the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz Munich and the Munich Symphony Orchestra.
Geisse was / is also a member of the band Brother virus, le petit chien, ICI Ensemble, Go Guitars, Berlin Jazz Composers Ensemble, Fractal Gumbo, NEVER quartet.