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| Editor’s Note |
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Just a few years into his career, Christoph Zimper found himself the solo clarinetist with the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, and in great demand as an orchestra- and chamber musician. In 2018, he decided to leave the orchestral jobs behind and find out how to express existential matters – like an “intensely perceived moment”, for example, “that may look perfectly unremarkable from the outside” – in a musical language of his own. Or how one might use musical means to get Millennials – to which he belongs himself – to ponder the eternal questions of life. Here now is Zimper’s fascinating debut album as a composer, for which he has asked a selection of hand-picked soloists, the Eggner-Trio, and the group Plattform K+K Vienna to join him in the studio. |
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| Lineup |
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Plattform K+K Vienna & Christoph Zimper (track 1)
Eggner Trio & Christoph Zimper (tracks 2-4)
The Millennials Mass (tracks 5-14):
Christoph Zimper, clarinet, vocals, e-piano
Natalija Isakovic & Oliver Pastor, violins
Nora Romanoff-Schwarzberg, viola
Marie Spaemann, violoncello & vocals
Lukas Ströcker, double bass
Sabina Hasanova, piano & e-piano
Thomas Toppler, drums & vibraphone
Bryan Benner, vocals & guitar
Romana Amerling, soprano
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| Artist’s Note |
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by Christoph Zimper
The Pilgrimage[...]The quintet embarks on a musical pilgrimage, passing through all its different stages on the search for such a special moment that appears so insignificant to an outsider yet holds great potential meaning for the person experiencing it ... recognizing that all things are connected. It’s a journey to one’s self – full of solitude, recurring thoughts, seeming bliss, and special encounters. Das Quartett zur Wende der Zeit (“The Quartet At The Turn Of Time”)The title and the unusual scoring remind one of Olivier Messiaen’s masterpiece Quatuor pour la fin du temps – the Quartet For The End Of Time – which I performed with the wonderful Eggner Trio while working on my own composition and which has had a profound effect on me since. But the title Wende der Zeit also refers to my birth as an artist – the moment in which I decided to quit my job as an orchestra musician. A decision that initially threw me off track. [...]
The Millennials Mass[...] The Millennials Mass is a musical piece structured like a liturgical mass, without assuming a specific faith or presuming to give answers. On the contrary, its purpose is to create more room for one’s personal search for the remembered faith. It’s a mass for all those who search for faith within themselves.
I am aware that it isn’t hip to write a mass these days. However, the desire to tackle the tricky topic of faith and perhaps to contribute to reducing the seemingly insurmountable chasm between religious institutions and people – although I do not know how to – is truly heartfelt. In the end, it’s just words and images that separate us, nothing more. |
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| About |
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| © Tim Cavadini |
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Christoph Zimper is a solo artist, chamber musician, former solo clarinetist at the Mozarteum Orchester Salzburg, professor for clarinet at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (MDW), composer of genre-transcending pieces, as well as artistic director of the Weißensee Klassik Festival.
He studied clarinet as a concert discipline with Professor Johann Hindler at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna and completed his studies with honors and the academic degree Magister artium in 2013.
He is the first-prize winner of numerous competitions in Austria and abroad, scholar of the Angelika Prokopp Private Foundation of the Wiener Philharmoniker and member of the Academy of the Münchner Philharmoniker under Lorin Maazel.
From 2012-2018 Christoph Zimper was the solo clarinetist of the Mozarteum Orchester Salzburg. Additionally, he performed with orchestras such as the Wiener and Münchner Philharmoniker, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the orchestra of the Wiener Staats- and Volksoper, and the orchestra of the Bayerische Staatsoper, worked with conductors such as Lorin Maazel, Valery Gergiev, Zubin Mehta, Sir Simon Rattle, Pierre Boulez, Daniel Barenboim, Franz Welser-Möst, Daniele Gatti, Sir Neville Marriner, Fabio Luisi, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Kent Nagano etc. and went on worldwide concert tours.
As a chamber musician he is a founding member of the Wiener Klangkommune, as well as a member of the Plattform K&K Vienna, the Vienna Wind Quintet and other ensembles.
In 2017, Christoph Zimper received the great honor of being appointed professor for clarinet at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, thus becoming the first professor for clarinet in the over 200 year history of the university who did not come from the rows of the Vienna Philharmonic.
Furthermore, in recent years he has become known as a composer of genre-transcending pieces.
In order to realize his idea of an innovative concert format he founded the Weißensee Klassik Festival in 2015 and has since been its artistic director. |
1CD | BRIGHT colors Edition | Jazz | Contemporary |
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The composer Matthias Jakisic creates in "Fragmente" an original vision of what classical string quartets in the 21st century might sound like.
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