The Big Wig Andreas Schaerer

• 1 Seven Oaks (Live) 05:30
• 2 Preludium (Live) 08:51
• 3 Zeusler (Live) 09:58
• 4 Wig Alert (Live) 07:57
• 5 If Two Colossuses (Live) 12:57
• 6 Don Clemenza (Live) 06:52
• Total Runtime 52:05

Info for The Big Wig

“The Big Wig” is a masterpiece by the multi-talented vocal marvel Andreas Schaerer. This is a work which situates him quite clearly and definitively among the most important composers and interpreters of contemporary music of his generation.

Andreas Schaerer, from Berne in Switzerland, is currently one of the most talked-about vocal artists on the international music scene, and with good reason. He was awarded the title of International Vocalist of the Year at the 2015 ECHO Jazz Awards (in the year immediately following Gregory Porter), but he is considerably more than just a singer - and to classify him under jazz doesn’t really do him justice either. Schaerer uses his voice in the manner of a juggler, a magician. He can not only make it sound forth in contrasting stylistic idioms and vocal registers, (switching at will from songster to crooner to scatter), he can also produce all kinds of sounds and imitate a whole range of instruments. He can do beatbox percussion, or he can stack up polyphonic vocal parts on top of each other in a way which seems unfeasible. In addition to all that, he is also a hugely impressive composer and improviser, skills which he can bring to bear on all kinds of musical projects, where his virtuosity can be the key ingredient, either providing melodic form or rhythmic impetus. And his skills don’t stop there. He has considerable on-stage charisma, and also brings a rare gift into the world of ‘serious’ music: humour, which is the stock-in-trade of his main band Hildegard Lernt Fliegen (meaning Hildegard learns to fly).

It was therefore a logical step, when the Lucerne Festival, with its unparalleled renown in the world of classical music chose “humour” as its theme for 2015, that it should approach Schaerer and Hildegard Lernt Fliegen. The festival’s head of Contemporary Projects Mark Sattler asked Schaerer if he might combine a new composition for the Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra with a 20-minute appearance by Hildegard Lernt Fliegen. Schaerer didn’t just grab this opportunity, he really ran with it. What he composed was a six-movement orchestral work, with parts for 66 players. He put himself through the hard graft of composing and arranging, then through the intricacies of orchestrating and part-writing, followed by an intensive rehearsal process… as a result of which “The Big Wig” had its public premiere on 5th September 2015 in the magnificent Jean Nouvel-designed Culture and Convention Center in Lucerne. This work had the audience leaping from its seats. Even the Swiss press, normally known for its sangfroid, turned ecstatic. The cultural magazine KultUrteil concluded that only one adjective would suffice to describe the work: “gigantic.” While the Neue Luzerner Zeitung remarked: “what was crazy about this piece was how the complexity in the orchestral writing combined with grooves, something more or less unknown in contemporary music.” Fortunately, Swiss Radio (SRF) had arranged to made a recording of the premiere, and there was also a camera team on hand to film it.

So this extraordinary concert has been documented both as a CD and a DVD: Andreas Schaerer “The Big Wig” - Hildegard Lernt Fliegen meets the Orchestra of the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ACADEMY.

There is a paradox here, however. The Festival’s theme of ‘humour’ has in fact produced in “The Big Wig” the most ‘serious’ appearance by Schaerer there has ever been. Such was Schaerer’s keenness to exploit all the possibilities of working with a symphony orchestra, it was almost inevitable as a consequence that he and his fellow band members would become another limb, bring an additional dimension to the whole orchestral sound and experience. That is certainly what happens with the three adapted and extended Hildegard compositions “Zeusler”, “Seven Oaks” and “Don Clemenza”. In this context they acquire a new flow and momentum, and a power akin to the cinematic. Maurice Ravel and Leonard Bernstein come to mind, as do Duke Ellington or Stan Kenton. The rhythmically displaced staccato figures in “Don Clemenza” even have an echo of Stravinsky. Taking the newly composed original pieces such as “If Two Colossus”, “Wig Alert” und “Preludium”, what they convey is inspired symphonic writing combined with both wit and a wish to experiment which remains accessible to the listener. These are aspects that are mostly absent from typical new contemporary classical works. The young and prodigiously talented young musicians of the orchestra, drawn from all over the world inevitably spend time outside the classical music ‘bubble’. On this recording it is clearly to be heard how much fun they are having, as they form into a relaxed, yet precisely co-ordinated ensemble under the direction of conductor Mariano Chiacchiarini. And when Schaerer himself takes the conductor’s rostrum, as happens briefly in “If Two Colossus”, they all embark whole-heartedly in the direction of jazz. Has a symphony orchestra ever been heard in a collective improvisation that is quite this lively and this thrilling?

There have been plenty of occasions in the past when combinations of a symphony orchestra and a jazz combo turned out to be a car crashes. In this case the partnership turns out to be both stimulating and compelling. There is no activity which is in the background or subsidiary, every instrumental voice is at the heart of the action, including the pairs of harps and marimbas. This is symphonic music of a new kind. It doesn’t so much pass through genre boundaries; it no longer perceives them or acknowledges their existence. “The Big Wig” is a masterpiece by the multi-talented vocal marvel Andreas Schaerer. This is a work which situates him quite clearly and definitively among the most important composers and interpreters of contemporary music of his generation.

Andreas Schaerer, voice, beatboxing, human trumpet
Andreas Tschopp, trombone
Matthias Wenger, alto & soprano saxophone, flute
Benedikt Reising, baritone saxophone & bass clarinet
Marco Müller, bass
Christoph Steiner, drums & marimba
Orchestra of the Lucerne Festival Academy
Mariano Chiacchiarini, conductor

Recorded by Moritz Wetter for Radio SRF 2 Kultur
Radio producer for SRF 2 Kultur: Peter Bürli
Edited by Christoph Utzinger & Andreas Schaerer
Mixed & mastered by Martin Ruch at Control Room Berlin

Andreas Schaerer
Composer and performer, Andreas Schaerer, was born in Switzerland in 1976. He spent his childhood in the Valais region of the Alps mingling with the sheep, later moving to Bern and the picturesque region of the Emmental. He left to complete the acclaimed teacher-training course at Hofwil.

Schaerer’s musical career began when he was young, using early tape decks to produce compositions such as, ’Duo for Sewing Machine and Harmonica’, before gaining his first stage experience as a teenage guitarist for the renowned punk band of the time, Hector Lives.

In 2000, after two extended trips to South and Central America, Schaerer attended the University of Arts in Bern. For six years he studied singing with Sandy Patton and Denise Bregnard, improvisation with Andy Scherrer and composition with Klaus König, Christian Henking and Frank Sikora.

After graduating he began performing professionally and founded the Bern Jazz Workshop (Jazzwerkstatt Bern) in 2007 with Marc Stucki and Benedikt Reising. This ongoing collective acts as a communication point and promotes artistic exchange.

As a vocalist Schaerer explores a wide range of techniques including raw sprechgesang (an expressionist style between singing and speaking), sound imitation, beat-boxing and scatting right through to operatic coloratura. Today he performs with his own projects: the sextet, Hildegard Learns to Fly (Hildegard Lernt Fliegen) and duos with bassist Bänz Oester, and drummer, Lucas Niggli. He’s part of the quartett „Out Of Land“ with Emile Parisien, Vincent Peirani and Michael Wollny and works with the band „A Novel Of Anomaly“ together with Kalle Kalima, Luciano Biondini and Lucas Niggli. Schaerer also collaborates with the classical saxophone quartet ARTE and is in a trio with the Viennese musicians Martin Eberle and Peter Rom, as well as playing with The Beet. In 2015 his first symphonic piece „the Big Wig“ was premiered at the LUCERNE FESTIVAL.

Schaerer is a sought-after studio musician and composer, working in diverse genres from jazz and freestyle music through to hip-hop and soundtracks. His concerts and tours take him across Europe, Russia, China, Japan, Egypt, Southcorea, Canada, Argentine and South Africa.

In 2008, Hildegard Learns to Fly won the prestigious Jazz ZKB prize and became one of the priority jazz acts for the Swiss Arts Council, Pro Helvetia. In 2014 they won the BMW World-Jazz Award aswell as the BMW-audience prize. In 2015 Andreas Schaerer was awarded the title of International Vocalist of the Year at the 2015 ECHO Jazz Awards (in the year immediately following Gregory Porter).

In 2009/10 Schaerer was invited by Bobby McFerrin to contribute to the improvised, wordless opera, ‘Bobble’. As well as performing with Bobby McFerrin, Schaerer has performed with Soweto Kinch, Bänz Oester, Luciano Biondini, Lucas Niggli, Kalle Kalima, Emile Parisien, Vincent Peirani, Michael Wollny, Anton Goudsmit, Barry Guy, Mars Williams, Peter Rom, Martin Eberle, Lucerne Festival Academy, Christy Doran’s New Bag, The Ploctones, Kaspar Ewald’s Exorbitantes Kabinett, Colin Vallon, Elina Duni amongst others.

Since 2010 Schaerer has taught vocal jazz, improvisation and ensemble-playing as part of a lectureship at the University of Arts in Bern.

Booklet for The Big Wig