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 KONFRONTATIONEN 2011 _____ 21./22./23./24. JULY
deutsche Version

We proudly announce that for the second time in its history Konfrontationen,
the renowned international festival for improvised, contemporary and new
music, will be held as a 4-day music event. This decision is also a result
of the amazing feedback we got last year, and especially to accommodate the
wish of our guests who travel hundreds or thousands of miles from all over
Europe, Japan or the United States to listen to the music we present.  

 

It's well known that the KONFRONTATIONEN festival is a festival of
highlights. So let us start with the first one: Looking back to the very
beginnings of the festival's history in the late 1970s, it has been a main
objective of the programme to work out the aspects of and differences
between the Afro-American and European traditions of free jazz in order to
present a wide and open vista for the interested audience. Both the Evan
Parker Quintet and the project Freenology work out this idea, play with it
and tell great transatlantic contemporary stories. This has nothing to do
with melancholy but emphasises the characteristic of the KONFRONTATIONEN and
the opportunity of "long term studies" of music developments together with
musicians who are pioneers, who create the present and prepare the future.
The future for a music that happens in the moment. 

 

It is a great honour as well to present four brilliant pianists: Sophie
Agnel/France, Magda Mayas/Germany, Manon-Liu Winter/Austria and Marilyn
Crispell/USA share virtuoso technical skills and creativity. Freedom and
diversity in using their instrument yields a great variety of complex and
extensive sounds. Extensive sounds produced either in solo performances or
in extraordinary ensembles, like Manon-Liu Winter with Franz Hautzinger's
Poet Congress or Magda Mayas with the trio Great Waitress.  Marilyn Crispell
is not a big traveller, therefore Joëlle Léandre, one of the great
protagonists of European improvised music, will use this rare appearance of
the pianist in Europe for a coming together of two unique instrumentalists
right at the KONFRONTATIONEN 2011. 

 

"Hearing Marilyn Crispell play solo piano
is like monitoring an active volcano.
She is one of a very few pianists who rise 
to the challenge of free jazz."
                               -The New York Times

 

KONFRONTATIONEN 2011 is a big gathering of both, internationally well-known
artists as well as young musicians and brand new bands. 

Broken Heart Collector (Maja Osojnik, Susanna Gartmayer & Bulbul) is a
formation of musicians who are anchored in the Vienna improvised music scene
and the challenge of the year ".... at the intersection of hardcore,
avant-rock and experimental vocals and sounds. In a way on a meta-level and
in a very good sense seriously looking for free spaces for innermusical
reflection."  (http://brokenheartcollector.klingt.org/band.html)

 

This year, a band from Lebanon will also join the festival. Founded after
the civil war in 1998 Scrambeld Eggs are protagonists of the Beirut music
scene. Influenced by post-punk, grunge and no wave, they got more and more
in touch with the European improvised music activities and developed an
autonomous identity of their music style, a fine mix of extreme sounds,
always searching for harmony in the chaos. 

 

Free spaces, avant-garde, free jazz, reflections and improvisation....music!

All these are thoughts and attitudes towards life, which where quite helpful
in the late 1970s, when the people of Nickelsdorf were staring at the barbed
wire which clearly identified the border between Austria and Hungary;
helpful to install such a unique festival like the Konfrontationen. Nobody
knows, if Hans Falb and the other co-founders thought at that time that this
festival will survive the millennium, but it still exists, with all its
noise and all the silence of music in progress. 

 

Reflections and modifications in and about public space play an important
role for soundart@nickelsdorf. Art in public spaces in general and in
hindsight to the special area. Soundart@nickelsdorf is an expansion of the
festival itself and guides the audience through spectacular walk-in sound
installations, shows animated films, and produces sculpture art between
images, sounds, tunes, and ambient noises. 

(Text: Renate Kreil)