II.1: Jürg Frey – Unhörbare Zeit

Sat., Jan. 26, 2013
Doors at 8:30pm | Show at 9pm
Willow Place Auditorium
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$10
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Unhörbare Zeit is a much needed American showcase of the music of the Swiss composer Jürg Frey, a longtime member of the Wandelweiser collective. Frey’s music is often at the threshold of silence, requiring virtuosity of a different kind: extreme sensitivity to sound and timbre. The concert features at its center the American premiere of the monumental work Unhörbare Zeit (Streichquarttet & Schlagzeug), commissioned by the Bozzini Quartet the subject of a 2007 documentary by Urs Graf.

The concert also features a reprise of Ohne Titel (2 Violinen) performed by String Noise (Conrad Harris & Pauline Kim Harris), and the world premieres of parts of Frey’s recent Les tréfonds inexplorés des signes series, written for composer-performer ensemble The Dream Team during the trio’s 2012 US tour. The program was curated by Jack Callahan.

Set I (7 pm) Wer macht das Stück? (1998), for solo piano Andrew C. Smith, piano
Ohne Titel (2 Violinen) (1995/96), for violin duo Conrad Harris & Pauline Kim Harris, violins
Les tréfonds inexplorés des signes 36-39 (2012), for harmonium, guitar and percussion KCM Walker, harmonium; Jason Brogan, guitar; Jack Callahan, percussion
Set II (8 pm) Unhörbare Zeit (Streichquarttet &Schlagzeug) (2005/06), for string quartet and two percussionists Conrad Harris & Tom Chiu, violins; Pauline Kim Harris, viola; Brian Snow, cello; Chris Nappi & Matthew Gold, percussion
Set III (9 pm) Les tréfonds inexplorés des signes 40-43 (2012), for harmonium, tenor saxophone and percussion KCM Walker, harmonium; David Kant, tenor saxophone; Jack Callahan, percussion
Ohne Titel (Komplexität der Empfindungen) (1995/98), for flute and piano Martha Cargo, flute; Andrew C. Smith, piano
Jemanden bei einer Tätigkeit zu hören (1997), for percussion Jack Callahan, percussion

Jürg Frey was born in Aarau in 1953. After studying at the Conservatoire de Musique de Genève in Thomas Friedli’s solo class, he began a career as a clarinettist. Later his composing activity became increasingly important. He was subsequently invited by various institutions to give workshops, lectures and retrospective events about his work. He has been a guest at the Berlin University of Arts, at Dortmund University, at University of California San Diego, and several times at Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill. and at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, CA.

He developed his own language as a composer and  sound artist with the creation of wide, quiet sound spaces.  His work is marked by an elementary non-extravagence of sound, a sensibilty for the qualities of the material, and precision of compositional approach.
His music is published by Edition Wandelweiser. Jürg Frey is a member of the Wandelweiser Komponisten Ensemble that gives concerts in Europe, North America and Japan.

Important stages in his public activity and his compositional development were his concerts and collaborations with the pianist John McAlpine from Cologne, with Radu’s w.i.r. (Vienna), the Bozzini Quartet (Montréal), the QO-2 Ensemble (Brussels), the performance group Die Maulwerker, the incidental music ensemble, the Chicago based a.pe.ri.od.ic and the American pianist R. Andrew Lee, and the UK pianist Philip Thomas.

Jürg Frey has received invitations from renowned institutions such as MaerzMusik (Berlin), the Rheinisches Musikfest (Cologne), Interpretations (New York), the Centre Culturel Suisse (Paris) and Constellations (Chicago).
He has particularly often been the guest of small, creative concert organizers such as Klangraum Düsseldorf, music we’ d like to hear (London), Ny Musik Boras (Sweden), The Dog Star Orchestra (Los Angeles), heim.art Neufelden (Austria) The Miniaturist Ensemble (New York), Klang im Turm (Munich), a.pe.ri.od.ic (Chicago), Louth Contemporary Music Society (Ireland), the wulf (Los Angeles), and Ordinary Affects (Boston).

His recordings are publiehd by Edition Wandelweiser Records (Germany), b-boim records, (Austria),  L’innomable records (Slovenia), Irritable Hedgehog (US), Cathnor (UK), Grammont (Switzerland)  Erstwhile Records (US) New Focus Redcordings (US) ftarri (JAP), Another Timbre (UK) and elsewhere (US).

In 2010 he was the guest composer at the Other Minds Festival of New Music in San Francisco.  In 2015 he was the Composer in Residence at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (UK).

Jürg Frey was born in Aarau in 1953. After studying at the Conservatoire de Musique de Genève in Thomas Friedli’s solo class, he began a career as a clarinettist. Later his composing activity became increasingly important. He was subsequently invited by various institutions to give workshops, lectures and retrospective events about his work. He has been a guest at the Berlin University of Arts, at Dortmund University, at University of California San Diego, and several times at Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill. and at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, CA.

He developed his own language as a composer and  sound artist with the creation of wide, quiet sound spaces.  His work is marked by an elementary non-extravagence of sound, a sensibilty for the qualities of the material, and precision of compositional approach.
His music is published by Edition Wandelweiser. Jürg Frey is a member of the Wandelweiser Komponisten Ensemble that gives concerts in Europe, North America and Japan.

Important stages in his public activity and his compositional development were his concerts and collaborations with the pianist John McAlpine from Cologne, with Radu’s w.i.r. (Vienna), the Bozzini Quartet (Montréal), the QO-2 Ensemble (Brussels), the performance group Die Maulwerker, the incidental music ensemble, the Chicago based a.pe.ri.od.ic and the American pianist R. Andrew Lee, and the UK pianist Philip Thomas.

Jürg Frey has received invitations from renowned institutions such as MaerzMusik (Berlin), the Rheinisches Musikfest (Cologne), Interpretations (New York), the Centre Culturel Suisse (Paris) and Constellations (Chicago).
He has particularly often been the guest of small, creative concert organizers such as Klangraum Düsseldorf, music we’ d like to hear (London), Ny Musik Boras (Sweden), The Dog Star Orchestra (Los Angeles), heim.art Neufelden (Austria) The Miniaturist Ensemble (New York), Klang im Turm (Munich), a.pe.ri.od.ic (Chicago), Louth Contemporary Music Society (Ireland), the wulf (Los Angeles), and Ordinary Affects (Boston).

His recordings are publiehd by Edition Wandelweiser Records (Germany), b-boim records, (Austria),  L’innomable records (Slovenia), Irritable Hedgehog (US), Cathnor (UK), Grammont (Switzerland)  Erstwhile Records (US) New Focus Redcordings (US) ftarri (JAP), Another Timbre (UK) and elsewhere (US).

In 2010 he was the guest composer at the Other Minds Festival of New Music in San Francisco.  In 2015 he was the Composer in Residence at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (UK).

Jürg Frey was born in Aarau in 1953. After studying at the Conservatoire de Musique de Genève in Thomas Friedli’s solo class, he began a career as a clarinettist. Later his composing activity became increasingly important. He was subsequently invited by various institutions to give workshops, lectures and retrospective events about his work. He has been a guest at the Berlin University of Arts, at Dortmund University, at University of California San Diego, and several times at Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill. and at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, CA.

He developed his own language as a composer and  sound artist with the creation of wide, quiet sound spaces.  His work is marked by an elementary non-extravagence of sound, a sensibilty for the qualities of the material, and precision of compositional approach.
His music is published by Edition Wandelweiser. Jürg Frey is a member of the Wandelweiser Komponisten Ensemble that gives concerts in Europe, North America and Japan.

Important stages in his public activity and his compositional development were his concerts and collaborations with the pianist John McAlpine from Cologne, with Radu’s w.i.r. (Vienna), the Bozzini Quartet (Montréal), the QO-2 Ensemble (Brussels), the performance group Die Maulwerker, the incidental music ensemble, the Chicago based a.pe.ri.od.ic and the American pianist R. Andrew Lee, and the UK pianist Philip Thomas.

Jürg Frey has received invitations from renowned institutions such as MaerzMusik (Berlin), the Rheinisches Musikfest (Cologne), Interpretations (New York), the Centre Culturel Suisse (Paris) and Constellations (Chicago).
He has particularly often been the guest of small, creative concert organizers such as Klangraum Düsseldorf, music we’ d like to hear (London), Ny Musik Boras (Sweden), The Dog Star Orchestra (Los Angeles), heim.art Neufelden (Austria) The Miniaturist Ensemble (New York), Klang im Turm (Munich), a.pe.ri.od.ic (Chicago), Louth Contemporary Music Society (Ireland), the wulf (Los Angeles), and Ordinary Affects (Boston).

His recordings are publiehd by Edition Wandelweiser Records (Germany), b-boim records, (Austria),  L’innomable records (Slovenia), Irritable Hedgehog (US), Cathnor (UK), Grammont (Switzerland)  Erstwhile Records (US) New Focus Redcordings (US) ftarri (JAP), Another Timbre (UK) and elsewhere (US).

In 2010 he was the guest composer at the Other Minds Festival of New Music in San Francisco.  In 2015 he was the Composer in Residence at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (UK).

Jürg Frey was born in Aarau in 1953. After studying at the Conservatoire de Musique de Genève in Thomas Friedli’s solo class, he began a career as a clarinettist. Later his composing activity became increasingly important. He was subsequently invited by various institutions to give workshops, lectures and retrospective events about his work. He has been a guest at the Berlin University of Arts, at Dortmund University, at University of California San Diego, and several times at Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill. and at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, CA.

He developed his own language as a composer and  sound artist with the creation of wide, quiet sound spaces.  His work is marked by an elementary non-extravagence of sound, a sensibilty for the qualities of the material, and precision of compositional approach.
His music is published by Edition Wandelweiser. Jürg Frey is a member of the Wandelweiser Komponisten Ensemble that gives concerts in Europe, North America and Japan.

Important stages in his public activity and his compositional development were his concerts and collaborations with the pianist John McAlpine from Cologne, with Radu’s w.i.r. (Vienna), the Bozzini Quartet (Montréal), the QO-2 Ensemble (Brussels), the performance group Die Maulwerker, the incidental music ensemble, the Chicago based a.pe.ri.od.ic and the American pianist R. Andrew Lee, and the UK pianist Philip Thomas.

Jürg Frey has received invitations from renowned institutions such as MaerzMusik (Berlin), the Rheinisches Musikfest (Cologne), Interpretations (New York), the Centre Culturel Suisse (Paris) and Constellations (Chicago).
He has particularly often been the guest of small, creative concert organizers such as Klangraum Düsseldorf, music we’ d like to hear (London), Ny Musik Boras (Sweden), The Dog Star Orchestra (Los Angeles), heim.art Neufelden (Austria) The Miniaturist Ensemble (New York), Klang im Turm (Munich), a.pe.ri.od.ic (Chicago), Louth Contemporary Music Society (Ireland), the wulf (Los Angeles), and Ordinary Affects (Boston).

His recordings are publiehd by Edition Wandelweiser Records (Germany), b-boim records, (Austria),  L’innomable records (Slovenia), Irritable Hedgehog (US), Cathnor (UK), Grammont (Switzerland)  Erstwhile Records (US) New Focus Redcordings (US) ftarri (JAP), Another Timbre (UK) and elsewhere (US).

In 2010 he was the guest composer at the Other Minds Festival of New Music in San Francisco.  In 2015 he was the Composer in Residence at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (UK).

Jürg Frey was born in Aarau in 1953. After studying at the Conservatoire de Musique de Genève in Thomas Friedli’s solo class, he began a career as a clarinettist. Later his composing activity became increasingly important. He was subsequently invited by various institutions to give workshops, lectures and retrospective events about his work. He has been a guest at the Berlin University of Arts, at Dortmund University, at University of California San Diego, and several times at Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill. and at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, CA.

He developed his own language as a composer and  sound artist with the creation of wide, quiet sound spaces.  His work is marked by an elementary non-extravagence of sound, a sensibilty for the qualities of the material, and precision of compositional approach.
His music is published by Edition Wandelweiser. Jürg Frey is a member of the Wandelweiser Komponisten Ensemble that gives concerts in Europe, North America and Japan.

Important stages in his public activity and his compositional development were his concerts and collaborations with the pianist John McAlpine from Cologne, with Radu’s w.i.r. (Vienna), the Bozzini Quartet (Montréal), the QO-2 Ensemble (Brussels), the performance group Die Maulwerker, the incidental music ensemble, the Chicago based a.pe.ri.od.ic and the American pianist R. Andrew Lee, and the UK pianist Philip Thomas.

Jürg Frey has received invitations from renowned institutions such as MaerzMusik (Berlin), the Rheinisches Musikfest (Cologne), Interpretations (New York), the Centre Culturel Suisse (Paris) and Constellations (Chicago).
He has particularly often been the guest of small, creative concert organizers such as Klangraum Düsseldorf, music we’ d like to hear (London), Ny Musik Boras (Sweden), The Dog Star Orchestra (Los Angeles), heim.art Neufelden (Austria) The Miniaturist Ensemble (New York), Klang im Turm (Munich), a.pe.ri.od.ic (Chicago), Louth Contemporary Music Society (Ireland), the wulf (Los Angeles), and Ordinary Affects (Boston).

His recordings are publiehd by Edition Wandelweiser Records (Germany), b-boim records, (Austria),  L’innomable records (Slovenia), Irritable Hedgehog (US), Cathnor (UK), Grammont (Switzerland)  Erstwhile Records (US) New Focus Redcordings (US) ftarri (JAP), Another Timbre (UK) and elsewhere (US).

In 2010 he was the guest composer at the Other Minds Festival of New Music in San Francisco.  In 2015 he was the Composer in Residence at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (UK).

Jürg Frey was born in Aarau in 1953. After studying at the Conservatoire de Musique de Genève in Thomas Friedli’s solo class, he began a career as a clarinettist. Later his composing activity became increasingly important. He was subsequently invited by various institutions to give workshops, lectures and retrospective events about his work. He has been a guest at the Berlin University of Arts, at Dortmund University, at University of California San Diego, and several times at Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill. and at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, CA.

He developed his own language as a composer and  sound artist with the creation of wide, quiet sound spaces.  His work is marked by an elementary non-extravagence of sound, a sensibilty for the qualities of the material, and precision of compositional approach.
His music is published by Edition Wandelweiser. Jürg Frey is a member of the Wandelweiser Komponisten Ensemble that gives concerts in Europe, North America and Japan.

Important stages in his public activity and his compositional development were his concerts and collaborations with the pianist John McAlpine from Cologne, with Radu’s w.i.r. (Vienna), the Bozzini Quartet (Montréal), the QO-2 Ensemble (Brussels), the performance group Die Maulwerker, the incidental music ensemble, the Chicago based a.pe.ri.od.ic and the American pianist R. Andrew Lee, and the UK pianist Philip Thomas.

Jürg Frey has received invitations from renowned institutions such as MaerzMusik (Berlin), the Rheinisches Musikfest (Cologne), Interpretations (New York), the Centre Culturel Suisse (Paris) and Constellations (Chicago).
He has particularly often been the guest of small, creative concert organizers such as Klangraum Düsseldorf, music we’ d like to hear (London), Ny Musik Boras (Sweden), The Dog Star Orchestra (Los Angeles), heim.art Neufelden (Austria) The Miniaturist Ensemble (New York), Klang im Turm (Munich), a.pe.ri.od.ic (Chicago), Louth Contemporary Music Society (Ireland), the wulf (Los Angeles), and Ordinary Affects (Boston).

His recordings are publiehd by Edition Wandelweiser Records (Germany), b-boim records, (Austria),  L’innomable records (Slovenia), Irritable Hedgehog (US), Cathnor (UK), Grammont (Switzerland)  Erstwhile Records (US) New Focus Redcordings (US) ftarri (JAP), Another Timbre (UK) and elsewhere (US).

In 2010 he was the guest composer at the Other Minds Festival of New Music in San Francisco.  In 2015 he was the Composer in Residence at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (UK).

Jürg Frey was born in Aarau in 1953. After studying at the Conservatoire de Musique de Genève in Thomas Friedli’s solo class, he began a career as a clarinettist. Later his composing activity became increasingly important. He was subsequently invited by various institutions to give workshops, lectures and retrospective events about his work. He has been a guest at the Berlin University of Arts, at Dortmund University, at University of California San Diego, and several times at Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill. and at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, CA.

He developed his own language as a composer and  sound artist with the creation of wide, quiet sound spaces.  His work is marked by an elementary non-extravagence of sound, a sensibilty for the qualities of the material, and precision of compositional approach.
His music is published by Edition Wandelweiser. Jürg Frey is a member of the Wandelweiser Komponisten Ensemble that gives concerts in Europe, North America and Japan.

Important stages in his public activity and his compositional development were his concerts and collaborations with the pianist John McAlpine from Cologne, with Radu’s w.i.r. (Vienna), the Bozzini Quartet (Montréal), the QO-2 Ensemble (Brussels), the performance group Die Maulwerker, the incidental music ensemble, the Chicago based a.pe.ri.od.ic and the American pianist R. Andrew Lee, and the UK pianist Philip Thomas.

Jürg Frey has received invitations from renowned institutions such as MaerzMusik (Berlin), the Rheinisches Musikfest (Cologne), Interpretations (New York), the Centre Culturel Suisse (Paris) and Constellations (Chicago).
He has particularly often been the guest of small, creative concert organizers such as Klangraum Düsseldorf, music we’ d like to hear (London), Ny Musik Boras (Sweden), The Dog Star Orchestra (Los Angeles), heim.art Neufelden (Austria) The Miniaturist Ensemble (New York), Klang im Turm (Munich), a.pe.ri.od.ic (Chicago), Louth Contemporary Music Society (Ireland), the wulf (Los Angeles), and Ordinary Affects (Boston).

His recordings are publiehd by Edition Wandelweiser Records (Germany), b-boim records, (Austria),  L’innomable records (Slovenia), Irritable Hedgehog (US), Cathnor (UK), Grammont (Switzerland)  Erstwhile Records (US) New Focus Redcordings (US) ftarri (JAP), Another Timbre (UK) and elsewhere (US).

In 2010 he was the guest composer at the Other Minds Festival of New Music in San Francisco.  In 2015 he was the Composer in Residence at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (UK).

Andrew C. Smith

Andrew C. Smith is a composer and keyboardist living in Santa Cruz, California. His music often involves just intonation tunings, repetition, and language at the threshold of making sense. In addition to his work with language, he uses computers in his everyday artistic practice, often using electronic means to manipulate sound and text, using the results of these manipulations in his work.

He has been producing concerts and recordings since 2011, and is currently the Executive Director of Indexical, a nonprofit organization based in Santa Cruz, California. He has previously produced events at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center (Alice Tully Hall), Bohemian National Hall, and other venues as Managing Director of the S.E.M. Ensemble (Brooklyn, NY), and has worked for the Seattle Symphony (Seattle, WA) and Issue Project Room (Brooklyn, NY).

His music has been performed by sfSound, String Noise, Guidonian Hand Trombone Quartet, Séverine Ballon, Ostravaská banda, and S.E.M. Ensemble. He studied English and music composition at Willamette University and Trinity College Dublin.

Jack Callahan (die Reihe)

Jack Callahan (b. 1990) is a composer and sound engineer based in New York. He received a BA in Music Composition & Theory from Hampshire College in 2012. In 2011 he studied privately with [Jürg Frey](https://www.wandelweiser.de/juerg-frey.html) in Aarau, CH.

Since 2013 Callahan has been primarily working under the moniker [die Reihe](http://banhmiverlag.com/diereihe), taken from [the journal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Reihe) edited by Herbert Eimert and Karlheinz Stockhausen. With this project he has toured the both the U.S. and Europe multiple times, been invited to numerous festivals and has released music with labels such as [Anomia](http://www.anomia.info/vocoder/), [Ascetic House](http://www.ascetism.com/), [NNA Tapes](https://nnatapes.bandcamp.com/album/housed), [Salon](http://saloncdr.blogspot.com/2015/04/die-reihe-from-minna-new-cd-r-release.html). In 2013 he founded [Bánh Mì Verlag](http://www.banhmiverlag.com/), an imprint dedicated to contemporary experimental music and culture.

As a composer his music has been performed and recorded by ensembles such as the [S.E.M. Ensemble](http://semensemble.org/), the [Wet Ink Ensemble](http://www.wetink.org/), [So Percussion](https://sopercussion.com/), the [Janacek Philharmonic Orchestra](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan%C3%A1%C4%8Dek_Philharmonic_Orchestra), the [Dog Star Orchestra](http://dogstarorchestra.com/) in such cities as New York, Los Angeles, Amsterdam and Zürich.

As a sound engineer he is active in the event world. He toured consistently as a FOH engineer with Thurston Moore and his projects from 2012 to 2016 and has done numerous tours with him on no fewer than four continents.

He recently curated the concert series [Pennies from Heaven](http://www.banhmiverlag.com/pennies) in collaboration with [Control Synthesizers and Electronic Devices](https://www.ctrl-mod.com/) in Brooklyn.

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