Biography:
The ICI Ensemble, founded in 1999, has worked with numerous well-known international improvisation artists such as Vinko Globokar, Giancarlo Schiaffini, Pierre Favre, Johannes Bauer, Mary Oliver, George E. Lewis, Evan Parker, Han Bennink, Lucas Niggli, Freddy Studer, Thomas Lehn, Phil Durrant, Franz Hautzinger and Joelle Leandre.
»By founding the ICI Ensemble, the musicians created a platform for themselves and other unblinkered musicians from Munich, where you can deal with the concepts of free improvisation and compositional specifications in a way that is both serious and playful. The aesthetic orientation is already in the name: ICI stands for International Composers and Improvisers.« (Harry Lachner, 2008)
The fact that the ICI Ensemble is writing music history in Munich is proven by Harry Lachner's statement in his one-hour SWR program about the ICI Ensemble on May 15, 2008: »Under the title ›International Encounters‹, concert series with small ensembles are organized, with ›Composers in Dialogue‹ the full cast plays, and in ›Improvised Music Munich‹ there are always new constellations of Bavarian and Munich improvisational musicians. Nobody expects Munich to shine ... one is already satisfied with a sign of life.
And the ICI Ensemble delivers this in a remarkable way: as the assertiveness of the resistant, as a new opening of a playing field for the non-conformist, creative imagination. The times are long gone when large ensembles could work financially secure over a long period of time. Today they only function as an ›open concept‹, as formations that emerge from time to time with constantly changing members.
Some, like Barry Guy's London Jazz Composers Orchestra or Alexander von Schlippenbach's Globe Unity, nevertheless manage to work continuously over the years. The Munich ICI Ensemble surpasses these two large ensembles in terms of flexibility and musical variety. This is of course due to the concept: because the spectrum of guests who are invited to the 'International Encounters' or as initiators for the large ensemble ranges from Vinko Globokar and Phil Durrant to the composer Olga Neuwirth.«
Albums:
