Markus Bless & Karlheinz Essl

B.less.L

Sound explorations for electric guitar and electronics

Markus Bless: electric guitar & FX
Karlheinz Essl: modular synthesizer

Markus Bless & Karlheinz Essl

Fotos: Markus Lackinger / Michael Seeber

Review

With Fahrplan der Stille (premiered on July 9th, 2026), Markus Bless (electric guitar, FX) and Karlheinz Essl (modular synthesizer) presented an immersive exploration of sound, balancing meticulous restraint with moments of raw sonic intensity. Rather than following a conventional musical narrative, the performance unfolded as an ongoing investigation of timbre, resonance, and texture. Bless's guitar frequently dissolved into Essl's electronic soundscapes, creating a seamless hybrid of acoustic gesture and synthetic transformation.

The setting of Galerie Maerz proved to be an ideal environment for this concentrated listening experience. Tanja Hehmann's paintings, displayed behind the performers, did more than provide a visual backdrop—they entered into a subtle dialogue with the music, extending the sense of space and inviting the audience to experience sound and image as a unified perceptual landscape.

Demanding focused attention yet richly rewarding it, Fahrplan der Stille was less a traditional concert than a carefully crafted sonic environment. It invited listeners to slow down, embrace silence as an active element, and experience time, space, and sound in a profoundly contemplative way. (Review: Jazz Explorer)

Video by Jazz Explorer

Cast

Markus Bless (b. 1963 in Seewalchen) studied Visual Media Design, Music and Media Technology with Adelhard Roidinger, Gerald Wolf and Andreas Weixler at the University of Art and Industrial Design in Linz, and Algorithmical Composition with Karlheinz Essl at the Bruckner Conservatory in Linz. His work spans various fields of audiovisual composition, including photography, video, graphic design, music and spatial installations. 1999 he became member of the MAERZ artists' association. He lives and works in Schörfling am Attersee.
In 1998, he was the first Austrian photographic artist to participate in the international Photosynkyria festival for contemporary photography in Thessaloniki. In 2000, he presented an audiovisual spatial sound installation at the Essl Museum as part of the Wien Modern festival. In 2006, he received the State Award for Electronic Music.

Karlheinz Essl (b. 1960 in Vienna) is a composer, improviser and performer. He studied composition with Friedrich Cerha and musicology in Vienna. As well as writing instrumental music, he works in electronic music, interactive real-time compositions, and sound installations. He develops software environments for algorithmic composition and live electronics. As a performer and improviser, he plays his own computer-based composition environments, as well as instruments such as the toy piano, electric guitar, and modular synthesizers.
He was composer-in-residence at the Darmstadt summer courses, IRCAM (Paris) and the Salzburg Festival. Between 1995 and 2006, he taught "Algorithmic Composition" at Bruckner University in Linz. From 2007 to 2025, he was a professor of composition for electro-acoustic and experimental music at the University of Music in Vienna.

Updated: 15 Jul 2026