Aufgang is the reunion of 2 acoustic grand pianos and electronics. Performers are: Rami Khalifé and Francesco Tristano (pianists) and Aymeric Westrich (programming, sampling, drums). The epic tale of Aufgang starts with the new century in the star city of the New World. Rami Khalifé and Francesco Tristano met in the year 2000 in New York where they were both studying the piano at the very prestigious Juilliard School.
Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber (born 22 March 1948) is a highly successful British composer of musical theatre. He has arguably been the most popular theatre composer of the late 20th century, with multiple showpieces which have run for more than a decade both on Broadway and in the West End. Throughout his career he has produced 16 musicals, 2 film scores, and a Latin requiem mass. He has also accumulated a number of honors, including seven Tony Awards, three Grammy Awards, an Oscar, an International Emmy, six Olivier Awards, and a Golden Globe Award.
Hailed as “Friendly, unpretentious, idealistic and highly skilled” by the New Yorker, eighth blackbird is widely lauded for its unusual performing style – often playing from memory with virtuosic and theatrical flair – and its efforts to make new music accessible to wide audiences. The ensemble’s 2005-06 10th anniversary season includes tours of California– taking in Los Angeles’s Disney Hall and stops in La Jolla, Stanford and Davis; a performance at New York’s 92nd Street Y; and the ensemble’s debut performance at Boston’s renowned Celebrity Series.
Simon Fisher Turner's musical carreer started off with early 1970s singles produced by Jonathan King. He was briefly in The The, which he quickly left to form a duo along with Colin Lloyd Tucker calling themselves Deux Filles, and later Jeremy's Secret. After this Fisher Turner went solo and released numerous albums using multiple aliases, some of these are The King of Luxembourg, SFT, Simon Turner, Live Blue Roma and Loveletter.
Judd Greenstein was born and raised in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City, where he began his compositional life by writing hip hop beats as a teenager. His concert works reflect those origins, as well as his traditional piano background, combining an urban, beat-oriented sensibility with a late Romantic classical harmonic language. A passionate advocate for the indie classical community in New York, much of Judd's work is written for the virtuosic ensembles and solo performers who make up that community, and is tailored to their specific talents and abilities.
William (Havergal) Brian (January 29, 1876 – November 28, 1972), was a British composer. Brian acquired a legendary status at the time of his rediscovery in the 1950s and 1960s for the number of symphonies he had managed to write (thirty-two, an unusually large number for any composer since Beethoven), and for his creative persistence in the face of almost total neglect during the greater part of his long life.
Antoine Chessex is a Swiss saxophone player, improviser, composer and experimental musician born in 1980 in Vevey, Switzerland. His works are based on the exploration of the physicality of sounds and spaces. Nowadays Chessex plays mostly as a solo performer appearing either in fully acoustic settings where his circular breathing textures react with the sonic architecture of the space he is performing in or amplifying his horn with amps or PA systems and electronic devices often resulting in intense live actions.
Richard Gavin Bryars (born 1943) is an English composer and double bassist. He has been active in (or has produced works in) many varied styles of music, including jazz, free improvisation, minimalism experimental music, avant-garde, neoclassicism, and ambient. Born in Goole, East Riding of Yorkshire, England, Bryars initially studied philosophy at Sheffield University before studying music for three years.
When posed the question: „What could a musikFabrik be?“, a clever primary school child answered: „That is where they create music that hasn’t been made yet“. That basically sums up everything in a nutshell. MusikFabrik has been commissioning new works and performing unknown ones since 1991. It is never just a question of interpretation, but of taking new paths of development. The Cologne-based soloist ensemble has built up a close collaboration with prominent conductors and composers.
Nigel Kennedy (born December 28, 1956 in Brighton, England) is a violinist and violist. He was a pupil at the Yehudi Menuhin School, under Yehudi Menuhin himself, and later at the Juilliard School under Dorothy DeLay. Kennedy has done much a to popularise classical music, particularly among young people. He has also performed and recorded most of the major violin concerti. Kennedy expresses concern for the immediate appeal of live performance, and often records entire works or movements in single 'takes' to preserve this sense in his recordings.