Christian Muthspiel 4 feat. Steve Swallow
Biography Christian Muthspiel 4 feat. Steve Swallow
Christian Muthspiel
Born in Judenburg, Austria, in 1962; at the age of 6 piano lessons, of 11 additional trombone lessons. Studies at the Musikhochschule Graz (Trombone classical and jazz), all studies broken off in time; 1987/88 scholarship at the School of Fine Arts in Banff/Canada.
As trombonist, pianist, composer, and conductor, Christian Muthspiel is internationally active in the areas both of jazz/improvised music and of new classical music. Numerous invitations to perform, produce, and conduct in many important musical centers of the world and compositions commissioned by renowned orchestras, ensembles and soloists prove the innovative cross-over quality of his work. Christian Muthspiel's main concern is the combination of improvised and composed music, i.e. the junction of the energies of single moments with the formal possibilities of predetermined material. Muthspiel's field of activity and possible cooperations with interpreters of his musical inventions reaches therefore from small jazzbands to symphony orchestras and electronic multi-media operas.
Christian Muthspiel's main activity in the past few years has been as a composer and as a conductor for his own cycles of very special programmed concerts, for instance with the "Camerata Salzburg" and the "Münchener Kammerorchester". These include the four "Mozart Loops" for orchestra at the Philharmonie Essen and in Salzburg 2006/07. Here classical orchestra work meets different styles of jazz and pop (performed together with Wolfgang Muthspiel).
In 2008 the premiere of the commissioned composition for the Wiener Musikverein (a work for large choir to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Wiener Singverein) was followed by the premier of a song cycle for Angelika Kirchschlager in Weimar, commissioned by the Siemens Arts Program. A double concert for violin, drums and large orchestra as well as a new ensemble piece will be premiered in 2009.
ENNAHH... (for Albert Mangelsdorff) a concert for trombone and large orchestra, commissioned by the ORF (Austrian Broadcasting Corporation) and the Philharmony Essen, was performed in 2006 by the Radio Symphony Orchestra and Christian Muthspiel as the soloist at the Musikverein in Vienna and at the Brucknerhaus in Linz. It will be played in April 2008 in Essen and Kaiserslautern with the German Radio Philharmony.
In 2007 Christian Muthspiel was awarded the Hans Koller Preis „Musician of the Year",
in 2006 the Austrian Award for Outstanding Achievements in Music, and the Award for Outstanding Achievements in Music in Lower Austria and together with Wolfgang Muthspiel the Jazzpott 2006.
Having started in 2006, a series of exhibitions presenting Muthspiel's work as a painter, which he kept concealed for a long time, is currently taking place at different galleries and museums.
