Michael Mantler

Michael Mantler ( born August 10, 1943 in Vienna) is a composer and trumpeter in the field of jazz and contemporary new music.

Biography

Mantler grew up in St. Pölten and studied trumpet at the Vienna Academy of Music and Musicology at the University of Vienna. In 1962 he went to the U.S. to attend Berklee College of Music to continue his studies there. He was connected with the New York avant-garde, including with Cecil Taylor and the Jazz Composers Guild; He was co-founder of the Jazz Composer's Orchestra, founded in 1968, the Jazz Composer's Orchestra Association ( JCOA ), an association with the aim to commission new compositions for jazz orchestra, present and publish on plates.

The search for new forms of artistic expression linked Mantler with efforts to create better working conditions for musicians: marketing problems of JCOA plates led him in 1972 to establish the New Music Distribution Service, a distribution company which supported many independent record labels during the next 20 years. In 1974 he founded with his then-wife Carla Bley WATT, which included a record label, recording studio and music publishing.

Mantler was a member of the Liberation Music Orchestra. The Carla Bley band and also with their own groups followed worldwide tours and numerous recordings. Since 1973, he took his own albums with various ensembles, whereby he often combined jazz with elements of contemporary chamber music, including an album with the strings of the London Symphony Orchestra plus soloists ( Something There). Mantler was an early involved in the synthesis of speech and music, as shown by several recordings of songs with texts by poets such as Samuel Beckett (No Answer), Harold Pinter ( Silence ) and Edward Gorey (The Hapless Child ).

Commissions and performances by and with European orchestras followed: Concerts at the North and West German Radio, at the Opera in Lille, as well as the Swedish and Danish Radio. In 1987, Many Have No Speech, an album of songs in English, German and French, based on the texts of Samuel Beckett, Ernst Meister, and Philippe Soupault, written for orchestra, trumpet, guitar and vocal participation of Jack Bruce, Marianne Faithfull and Robert Wyatt. In 1991 he returned to Europe to live and work in Denmark and France. Increasingly, he developed an independent, outside of the usual jazz performance practice standing sound aesthetics.

The Danube Festival commissioned a composition for orchestra, which premiered in June 1991, with the low Tonkünstlerorchester, conducted by Michael Gibbs, with Andy Sheppard as a soloist. The new plant also a retrospective of his recent work has been presented. Other commissioned works requested by the Danish Radio Big Band and the Big Band of Norddeutscher Rundfunk in Hamburg. In 1992, Mantler a new album ( Folly Seeing All This ) by Alexander Balanescu Quartet and its Bălănescu and other soloists for ECM Records on the new instrumental compositions and sung by Jack Bruce 's setting of Samuel Beckett's last poem, What Is The Word contains. In 1993 he founded the Ensemble Chamber Music and Songs, whose instrumentation was composed of solo voice, piano / synthesizer, guitar, a string quartet and Mantler 's trumpet. The premiere took place in September in Copenhagen, with subsequent studio recordings with the Danish Radio.

Cerco Un Paese Innocente ( " Seeking an innocent country " ), a 70-minute " Suite Songs for Voice, Non-standard big band and chamber ensemble ," on texts of the Italian poet Giuseppe Ungaretti, was the Danish Broadcasting in January 1994 with the singer premiered Mona Larsen as a soloist, plus Mantler's ensemble and the Danish Radio Big Band.

1995/96 to work on his multi-media music theater work The School of Languages ​​( "The School of Languages" ) was dedicated. The premiere, directed by Rolf Heim, took place in August 1996 at the Arken Museum of Modern Art held in the framework of the program of the European Cultural City of Copenhagen 1996. The studio recording of the work was published as a double compact disc in October 1997 by ECM under the new title The School of Understanding ( "The School of Understanding "). A further three performances were in November 1997 at the Hebbel Theater in Berlin.

One Symphony, commissioned by the Hessischer Rundfunk, was premiered in November 1998 at the Forum New music by the Radio Symphony Orchestra Frankfurt, conducted by Peter Rundel. The work was of ECM in February 2000, along with the previously unreleased songs ( with the Chamber Music and Songs Ensemble and Mona Larsen, songs with texts by Ernst Meister interpretive ) published.

Hide and Seek, an album of songs based on texts by Paul Auster, for chamber orchestra and two singers (Robert Wyatt and Susi Hyldgaard ), was published in March 2001. Multi-media music theater productions, directed by Rolf Heim, ( Kanonhallen, February 2002) and Berlin ( Hebbel Theater, March 2002) took place in Copenhagen. in March 2005, his Marimba / Vibraphone Concerto (originally commissioned by Portuguese percussionist Pedro Carneiro ) in the Hessian Radio by the Radio Symphony Orchestra Frankfurt premiered under the direction of Pascal Rophé.

A series of portrait concerts presented Mantler and his Chamber Music and Songs Ensemble in Vienna in September 2006. Mantler In November 2007, presented his Concerto project as part of the Berlin Jazz Festival with the Chamber ensemble Neue Musik Berlin under the direction of Roland Kluttig. Studio recordings of the Concertos with soloists Bjarne Roupé (guitar), Bob Rockwell (tenor saxophone), Roswell Rudd (trombone), Pedro Carneiro ( marimba and vibraphone), Majella Stockhausen ( piano ), Nick Mason (drums) and Mantler himself (trumpet ) published in November 2008.

A new CD For Two with Duets for Guitar ( Bjarne Roupé ) and Piano ( Per Salo ) was released by ECM in June 2011.

He is the father of singer and organist Karen Mantler.

Prizes and awards

Mantler has received composition fellowships from the Creative Artists Program Service, the National Endowment for the Arts, and a grant from the Ford Foundation for the recording of a work for double orchestra ( Thirteen ). He has received composition grants continue from the Danish Ministry of Culture, as well as by the Austrian Federal Ministry for art and teaching. In December 2004, the Mantler donated by the Republic of Austria State Prize for improvised music was awarded in May 2005, the Jakob Prandtauer Prize for Science and Art of the city of St. Pölten, and in November 2007, the City of Vienna Prize for music.

Discography

As a composer or leader

With Carla Bley

With other

Lexigraphic entries

  • C. Bohländer: Reclams jazz leader. Stuttgart 1989.
  • I. Carr et al: Jazz Rough Guide. Stuttgart 1999.
  • W. Kampmann: Reclam Jazz Encyclopedia. Stuttgart 2003.
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