OUT OF THE BLUE: Sommerwellen

This live recording is based on spontaneous improvisations performed by OUT OF THE BLUE at the Danube Festival on Aug 6th, 2017. The live-electronics are based on pre-recorded sound samples which are processed in realtime by computer algorithms, developed by composer Karlheinz Essl. Agnes Heginger’s magnificent voice freely meanders through a maze of texts by German and Austrian poets like Ingeborg Bachmann, Joachim Ringelnatz and Christine Nöstlinger. The result is an hermetic, megalithic, cathartic, and evocative sound experience that Nachtstück Records is honored to introduce. As usual, the earnings of our records are donated to charitable causes.

Die charismatische Sängerin Agnes Heginger und der kongeniale Komponist und Elektroniker Karlheinz Essl nehmen Gedichte als Ausgangspunkt für ihre Performances, die von beiden aus dem Moment heraus vertont werden. Das Offene und Unerwartete steht im Zentrum dieses Prozesses. Dabei reagieren sie auf den entstehenden Raum/Klang, die Zuhörerschaft, die gesprochenen und gesungenen Worte, die Soundscapes und Geräusche, die hörbaren oder nur gedachten Gedanken. Hinter diesem sich fortwährend transformierenden Gespinnst wird etwas Neues sichtbar. Erleben Sie ein fesselndes Experiment, in dem liebevoll ausgewählte Text- und Klangfragmente zu Spielbällen werden, mit denen Agnes Heginger und Karlheinz Essl virtuos jonglieren.

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Biographies

© Dorothea Wimmer

Agnes Heginger (* 1973 in Klagenfurt) is an Austrian singer (soprano) and composer who has emerged in the field of jazz and improvisational music as well as contemporary and ancient music.

Heginger, who sang from childhood on and performed as a youth in several bands, received a classical vocal training at the Conservatory of the City of Vienna. She received a jazz diploma from Arts Graz.

She founded her own bands with Songs and Other Noises and the Agnes Heginger Band. With the Sextet Pago Libre, the ensemble of Paul Gulda and the trio with Christoph Cech and Peter Herbert, Heginger explored the experimental jazz, and the Plasmic Quartet the New Improvisational Music. With Karlheinz Essl, she worked in the avant-garde electronics, with Klaus Wienerroither she used the Viennese song and the pop in the duo Boa Boa. In the trio extra virgine, she combined jazz, folklore and vocal art together with Nika Zach and Ingrid Oberkanins. She also worked with Georg Breinschmid, Roland Neuwirth, Franz Hautzinger, Harry Pepl and Krzysztof Dobrek. In the last few years, she has focused on texts by Austrian and German authors.

Heginger is an assistant lecturer at the Anton Bruckner Private University of Linz, but was also a lecturer at the Swiss Jazz School and at the Jazz Institute in Berlin.

© Museum Gugging

Karlheinz Essl, born 1960 in Vienna. Austrian composer, improviser and performer. He studied composition with Friedrich Cerha and musicology in Vienna (doctorate 1989 with a thesis on Anton Webern). As a double bassist, he played in chamber and jazz ensembles. Besides writing experimental music and composing electronic music, he performs on his own electronic instrument m@ze°2, develops software environments for computer-aided composition and creates generative sound and video environments – often in collaboration with artists from other fields. Essl erved as composer-in-residence at the Darmstadt Summer Courses (1990-94) and completed a commission for IRCAM. In 1997, he was presented at the Salzburg Festival with portrait concerts and sound installations. Between 1995-2006 he was teaching „Algorithmic Composition” at the Anton Bruckner University in Linz. Since 2007 he is professor of composition for electro-acoustic and experimental music at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna.

Beyond his work as a composer of experimental music, Karlheinz Essl has developed his own electronic instrument called m@ze°2, which is based on a computer program written in Max/MSP. Since 1998 he has been using his realtime composition environment predominantly for free improvised music. He has performed with the crème de la crème of avantgarde music. With his instrument Essl can interact spontaneously to any kind of sound environment or music utilizing a variety of external controllers and a video camera in order to shape the musical output.

Updated: 22 Oct 2023