Festival Forum Wallis: Erb/Mayas/Läng Trio

PROGRAM

Improvisation concert featuring Christoph Erb (cl), Magda Mayas (keys), and Antoine Läng (voc)—three exceptional figures in Swiss and international free jazz: with virtuosity, delicacy, and a wealth of surprises, they will have the audience spellbound for an hour.

PERFORMERS

Christoph Erb (bass cl/sax)

Magda Mayas (keys/clavinet)

Antoine Läng (voice, jaw harp, objects)

Christoph Erb is a Swissjazz musician (tenor saxophone, bass clarinet) who lives in Lucerne. In the 2000s, Erb played in the band of trumpeter Manuel Mengis, Gruppe 6, and contributed to Mengis’s album Into The Barn (HatHut Records, 2005). In 2006, he formed the band project Lila with keyboardist Hans-Peter Pfammatter, which also featured Flo Stoffner (guitar) and Julian Sartorius (drums), and with which he toured Germany and the Netherlands. In 2007, he performed with his group erb_gut at the Schaffhausen Jazz Festival alongside Peter Schärli and founded the label Veto Records. In 2010, Erb worked in Chicago with, among others, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Jason Roebke, and Frank Rosaly, with whom he recorded the album Sack (Veto). He performs in the trio Bererberg with Lonberg-Holm and Josh Berman; Erb also forms an electroacoustic ensemble with the Chicago musicians Jim Baker (piano) and Michael Zerang (percussion). In 2005, Erb won the ZKB Jazz Prize with his band erb_gut. In 2006, he received the City of Lucerne’s Creative Achievement Award, and in 2009, a grant from the City and Canton of Lucerne for a residency in Chicago. In 2012, he received the Recognition Award from the City of Lucerne Arts and Culture Prize. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christoph_Erb

Magdalena “Magda” Mayas is a German improvisational musician (piano) and composer. Mayas first studied jazz piano at the Berlin University of the Arts from 1999 to 2001, followed by an exchange year through the Erasmus Program at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam with Misha Mengelberg. She then continued her studies from 2002 to 2004 at the Hanns Eisler School of Music Berlin with Georg Gräwe. From 2015 to 2020, she earned her doctorate at the University of Gothenburg in music performance and interpretation, focusing on instrumental techniques, timbre, and spatiality in improvised musical performance. Maya has performed in Europe, the USA, Australia, Mexico, and Lebanon, both as a soloist and in collaboration with a wide range of musicians and composers such as John Butcher, Andy Moor, Zeena Parkins, Joëlle Léandre, Paul Lovens, Ikue Mori, Phill Niblock, Peter Evans, Andrea Neumann, Burkhard Stangl, Christine Abdelnour, and Axel Dörner. In 2019, she formed the improvisational trio Jane in Ether together with violinist Biliana Voutchkova and recorder player Miako Klein; to mark the trio’s fifth anniversary, they received a one-week residency at Echoraum Wien and temporarily expanded to a quintet for the occasion with Christine Abdelnour and Emilie Škrijelj. Other projects include SPILL and the Splitter Orchester Berlin. She developed a sonic language in which she utilized both the inner and outer parts of the piano, altering their sound with the help of preparations and objects. In addition to the piano, Mayas plays a Clavinet and metal glockenspiels. She has performed at festivals and exhibitions such as Maerz Musik (2012, 2015, 2021), documenta (2012), and the Berlin Biennale (2014). In 2013, Mayas produced the documentary Inside Piano for Australia’s ABC, in which she explored the history of piano performance using extended techniques and their current practice, including research into historical keyboard instruments; for this, she also conducted interviews with John Tilbury, Anthony Pateras, Reinhold Friedl, and Andrea Neumann. In another documentary for ABC Australia, Real Time Music Berlin (2014), she explored the approaches and styles of improvised music; the focus was on Berlin’s real-time music scene. She also produced radio essays such as Dream Machine Beirut and Home Is Where the Heart Is, some of which were broadcast on Deutschlandradio Kultur. Since 2005, Mayas has continued to curate experimental music events and festivals in Berlin, including Tasten: Berliner Klaviertage until 2009 and the Compass festival in 2013 with Tony Buck. Since 2019, Mayas has been teaching as a lecturer and head of the improvisation program at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magda_Mayas

Antoine Läng is a Geneva-based musician active as a singer and sound artist. His work spans various fields, from repetitive minimalist music to environmental and noise-based sound practices, as well as song, in both performance and composition. The voice/mouth often plays an important role in this work, both as an instrument and as a field of inquiry conducive to exploration through listening, experimentation, improvisation, and idiomatic and non-idiomatic approaches. He prioritizes collective dynamics in ensembles or through collaborations (currently with Anouck Genthon, Olga Kokcharova, Jacques Demierre, Jason Kahn, Christian Wolfarth, Le Recueil des Miracles, Ensemble Freux, Ondanaconda, Insub Collective, and Insub Meta Orchestra). His personal work currently revolves around two solo projects, the first dedicated to the voice, the second to the jaw harp. Antoine Läng simultaneously explores singing and vocal research in relation to movement through workshops or choir direction in the fields of performance and dance (with Gregory Stauffer, the LACS collective), or from an acoustic ecology perspective (Insub.polytopies, Léman Architecture Connexions, Regarder les glaciers s’en aller). He also produces radio plays (Héros-Limite, Radio Bascule). Antoine Läng is also a co-programmer for the Akouphène Festival in Geneva and a member of the Radiozine team for the Archipel Festival.https://soundcloud.com/antoinelang, https://antoinelang.ch

From June 4 to 7, the Forum Wallis Festival of New Music will bring six concerts to Münster in the Goms region. For 20 years, the Forum Wallis Festival has been dedicated to promoting contemporary music in the Valais, having facilitated hundreds of world premieres and presented works by over 500 composers from around the world throughout its history. It is organized by the Valais chapter of the International Society for Contemporary Music (IGNM-VS), whose board includes, alongside Manuel Mengis and Hans-Peter Pfammatter, the two musicians and composers Javier Hagen (festival director) and Ulrike Mayer-Spohn, who have been based at the MEbU in Münster since 2022.

Location

Münster, Parish Church of the Assumption of Mary

Further information: http://forumwallis.ch

Free admission (collection)

Reservations recommended: office@forumvalais.ch / mebu@umsnjip.ch