Meet the Artist!

The idols of my childhood were neither great violinists nor great composer but astronauts like Neil Armstrong or heroes from novels like Momo or Winnetou. My mother told me, that I was an extremely stubborn kid with an endless fantasy. I rather would build miniature spaceships with my little brother or listen for hours to recordings of Albanian and Hungarian folk music instead of practicing my little tunes. Nevertheless my mind was constantly full of music and I always sung or whistled a tune – sometimes even during class which drove my schoolteacher crazy.

So it is probably no surprise, I decided to play the fiddle when at the age of four I heard for the first time a recording of the great French violinist Zino Francescatti. I never doubted, that one day I would play as well but I had no idea how long that way would be. (thank god) I also had the opportunity to play trios with my parents from a very early age on. (My father is a flutist, my mother plays the harpsichord) and I would get extremely angry whenever I couldn’t follow them . This hot temper I probably inherited from my partly Italian heritage. Actually another – Dutch - part involved should cool it down, which unfortunately is not the case.

Most of the performances I heard during my childhood put me asleep within ten minutes. There was one exception: a group that played medieval and renaissance music - I found them fascinating and maybe this is one reason why still nowadays I like groups like corvus corax or am using schalmei in my own pieces (See “God and Devil”).

When I was thirteen years old, my father sent me to one of the Tibetan centres of Switzerland. This small Buddhist monastery in exile had a wonderful old monk who told great stories and knew good answers for the most difficult questions. My affinity with musical instruments from this culture might originate here. In the meantime I have assembled a nice little library myself with books of many great philosophers and writers. Spinoza is my favourite (regardless of the fact that all my artist friends shake their heads in disapproval) but I also like Canetti, Hölderlin, Musil, Rilke, Celan and some science fiction literature.

My creative life started on every other field but music. First I got into drawing, (see also musiversum-link) then I started writing poems - and all this for the sole purpose to escape getting involved with music theory, which I had problems to understand and therefore quite hated. Even in high school I still wanted to study philosophy or psychology. Only my first tour with the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra showed me, that there is a great and exciting world out there for a musician – so I decided to become one. But still I didn’t like leaving school. Only the sardonic comment of my music teacher there, answering my question, if I should leave school, with: “Well, if it doesn’t work you still can marry”, made it a little easier for me to leave.

The years of learning and travelling thereafter were of great importance for me. Lucerne and especially the conservatory there is one of the most beautiful places one can imagine and just perfect for an idealistic dreamer who needs to develop his artistic visions. But somehow I felt that, in order to do what I wanted on this wild planet, I still had to learn something else. So, after finishing my teachers diploma there, I decided to go to Mannheim to study with a Russian teacher. During my studies there I became obsessed with perfection, quite paranoid and unhappy – but I also became a much better instrumentalist and learned what it means to be a professional: To play your best regardless if you are ill or out of shape or simply not feeling like it - and this attitude was resulting from a deep inner obligation.

My stay afterwards in New York was a liberation in every possible sense. I sight-read for hours with colleagues at “The Juilliard School”, redefining the word “perfection” again and simply enjoying music. In regard to my composing it helped me a great deal to talk to other young composers there and see how enthusiastic and fearless these young composers wrote on their works.
Very few of them were in such awe of the great old European music tradition that it would have paralysed them. Very often, the simple fact that a piece was new and innovative made everyone quite happy – and there were not too many painful attempts to be faithful to a certain stile or school. To consider the question, if their works are great enough to survive the centuries; they left it up to the folks after them – to answer it - and since it is impossible to force greatness in art, it is just right that way.

When I returned to Basel I was lucky to be able to revive an old friendship of mine: The one with great Swiss violinist Hansheinz Schneeberger, whom I met for the first time in Prussia Cove, England. (Ironically Swiss musicians always meet abroad) It was difficult for me to return from New York to Basel. Everything seemed narrow and closed-up but I trusted him and he was able to help me rediscover my roots here. I learned a lot from him and sometimes we play chamber music together.

Meanwhile I am very happy in Basel. My self-imposed exile in order to become a composer has ended and I know many great musicians with whom I like to play together and to whom communication with the audience is as important as it is to myself.
I also like playing in unusual locations. Sometimes one finds me practicing in the train – where they store the luggage – or I am playing some Bach on a market place in the evening, observing people around me. I am quite fond of spontaneous acquaintances because astounding things can develop from them - like in composition, where from a little motive a big piece can develop.

A commission for a new composition is a great thing if everything around it feels right. I need time pressure and a clear goal to work well and I like writing all night through. It is a special kind of satisfaction to see the first rays of the morning sun creeping onto my old Viennese piano. But since most of my compositions are imagined conversations, I can’t accept a commission without having a person to dedicate it to.

With these two passions, violin playing and composing I do not have too much time for hobbies. I like reading my books, drawing caricatures (see also musiversum-link), doing some horse-riding, organizing parties and watching films by Tarkovski, Hitchcock and Kubrick. I also write a diary and I sometimes go walking in the Kannenfeldpark.

In September 2008 I will go to London for one year - just to compose. Thanks to the Swiss foundation Landis & Gyr.