Graewe Bio & Discograghy

GEORG GRAEWE
Born 1956, Bochum, Germany; piano, composer

GEORG GRAEWE pianist, composer born 1956 in Bochum/Germany ... began composing and performing professionally at the age of 15. He has since been leading a variety of ensembles - ranging from trio to chamber orchestra formats - which have involved some of the leading instrumentalists in contemporary musics. His compositions, which include chamber music and works for symphony orchestra as well as scores for theater productions, radio drama and video, have been performed and broadcast around the world.

Graewe has been performing and recording with Anthony Braxton, Evan Parker, Dave Douglas, Phil Minton, Roscoe Mitchell, Barry Guy, Mats Gustafsson, Robert Dick, Barre Phillips, John Butcher, Paul Lovens, Michael Moore, Hamid Drake, Ken Vandermark, Mark Dresser a.m.o.
His chamber opera "Kopenhagen" (based on the play by Michael Frayn) was produced by OPER KÖLN (Cologne Opera House) in 2003. His videocantata on Albert Einstein's travel diaries ("alle kennen meine visage") was premiered at the Jewish Museum Berlin in September 2005. And his second opera "Quicksilver" ( a commisison by Semperoper Dresden) came out in November 2006. He is currently working on his third opera "Barbara's World", which will be staged as a coproduction of Theater Luzern/Switzerland and Theater Bonn/Germany in 2010.

Since 1999 Graewe has been associated with CNMAT (Center for New Music and Audio Technology) at UC Berkeley. He is currently teaching at "Hochschule für Musik HANNS EISLER" in Berlin, and continues to perform as a soloist as well as the leader of several international ensembles. His music is documented on more than 40 records.

Chicago critic John Corbett writes:

German pianist Graewe is one of the most significant voices to emerge on his instrument in the last 20 years. He comes as much out of twentieth-century classical music as jazz, though his outrageous technique and at times explosive touch recall Lennie Tristano or Bud Powell. In his extremely terse trio with Dutch cellist Ernst Reijseger and American percussionist Gerry Hemingway (the pianist's best-documented ensemble), Graewe creates harmonic complexities the likes of which have never been heard in improvised music. Among Graewe's numerous records are intricate large group compositions, stunning solo recitals, and a brand new meeting with reed player Anthony Braxton. In April of 1997, drawn by the intoxicating Chicago free-music scene, Graewe moved to the States and is currently leading several ensembles in the Windy City, including his quartet with Gratkowski, Drake and Kessler.

"Tristano boomed through Georg Graewe's solo set, although in this pianist's case you may suspect the correspondence - an obsession with line - is coincidental. Graewe too is a master of technical details: complex disjunctions of keyboard pull-offs and sustain pedal, superb two-handed articulation of single note lines (side of the left over the fingers of the right).Heritage-wise, Mozart was in there too, and Andrew Hill's radical moment-to-moment shifts in texture, density, register. Still it flows, rhythmically; that's his continuity. What sticks most is his intellectual concentration: with each piece, he creates a world in seconds, explores it a couple of times, then snuffs it."Kevin Whitehead, CODA Magazine issue 264, November/December 1995

"Gifted with a very precise touch and a responsive ear, Graewe plays a highly charged form of free improvisation, combining high-modernist, Darmstadt rigour with the acoustic drama of Chicago Free Jazz."Ben Watson, Hi-Fi News, November 1995

"Koln pianist Georg Graewe's solo improvisations represent a departure from two musical traditions at once: free jazz piano and composed classical piano. In fact, if you didn't know he was improvising, you might think that Graewe was playing European classical music, in which one delicate unit of an idea is played in spurts or pulses, followed by the next.This is the method of his "character pieces" taken from his impressions and memories of European piano music. Rooted in the tonalities of Schoenberg (and perhaps the moods of Satie's "Gymnopaedies"), he formulates his improvised ideas in ephemeral bursts. Rather than using strict tempo boundaries, he spreads them over various durations, which Graewe calls "oscillating rhythmic fields." The very quick process he goes through in tracing these fields and superimposing one on another is nearly invisible, in contrast to improvisers who use much more obvious embellishments and standard logic. For listeners, the greatest charge in Graewe's playing is in hearing the timbre and decay of his phrases, which he compares to prose. At the same time, he treats his instrument like an actor who's playing many characters at once. Within this musical metamorphosis, Graewe has the great facility to use his hands independently, not so much creating the sound of two pianos as building one unified stream of development. The extent to which you can hear the underlying notes in the left hand sliding away while the right moves into a new variation depends on whether you're listening to the two hands independently. It's entirely possible to take another approach by remembering the starting point of the piece, then following where it goes. Whichever way you choose to listen, the pace, delicacy and careful derivation are all strong tenets in this original improviser's philosophy. Mark Lewis, Sidewalk San Diego, February 1998

"Graewe's manner is so quicksilverfast and bright - his phrases sound like fragments flying off some ice sculpture he's chiselling away at ... "Richard Cook, THE WIRE London, 1998

"Precious few pianists, ..., can slip fluid, well-rounded phrases into turbulent staccato rhythms like Graewe. In doing so, Graewe exudes that lionized American essence, rugged individualism." Bill Shoemaker, Damascus , 1998

selected discography

SIX STUDIES (1987) Georg Graewe solo - WestWind 0012

SONGS & VARIATIONS (1988) GrubenKlangOrchester - Hat Art CD 6028

SONIC FICTION (1989) Graewe/Reijseger/Hemingway - Hat Art CD 6043

PIANO DUETS (1991) Marilyn Crispell/Georg Graewe - Leo CD 206/7

ZWEI NAECHTE IN BERLIN (1990) Graewe/Reijseger/Hemingway - Sound Aspects 049

FLAVOURS,FRAGMENTS (1992) GrubenKlangOrchester - ITM Classics 950014

SPELLINGS (1992) Frisque Concordance - RA 001

VICISSETUDES (1992) Gratkowski/Graewe - RA 002

CHAMBER WORKS (1991/92) Graewe&Ensembles - RA 003

POINTS WEST (1991) Graewe/Reijseger/Hemingway - Music & Arts 820

FLEX 27 (1993) Graewe/Reijseger/Hemingway - RA 007

ASSUMPTIONS, zone B (1995) Georg Graewe solo - Okka Disc 12009

DUO, AMSTERDAM (1991) Anthony Braxton/Georg Graewe - Okka Disc 12018

CONCERT SAN FRANCISCO (1995) Georg Graewe solo - Music & Arts 968

SATURN CYCLE (1994) Graewe/Reijseger/Hemingway - Music & Arts 958

MELODIE UND RHYTHMUS (1997) Georg Graewe Quartet - Okka Disc 12024

SUBSYMBOLISM (1995) Graewe w/ Mattos & Vatcher - Nuscope 1002

LIGHT's VIEW (1998) John Butcher/Georg Graewe - Nuscope 1004

IN CONCERT, BERLIN '96 (1996) Georg Graewe Quintet - Wobbly Rail 007

Recordings (updated list)

1997, Melodie und rhythmus, Okka disk 12024. Georg Gräwe Quartet.
1998, Schz!, Splasc(h) CDH 670.2. Duo with Sebi Tramontana.
1998, Light's view, nuscope recordings 1004. Butcher/Graewe duo.
1998, Unity variations, Okka disk 12028. Duo with Evan Parker.
1999, Other songs, nuscope recordings 1008. Phillips/Graewe/van Bergen.
1999, Quicksand, Meniscus MNSCS 007. Frank Gratkowski/Georg Gräwe/Paul Lovens.
1999, Counterfactuals, nuscope recordings 1010. Graewe/Reijseger/Hemingway.
1999, For trio (16 Fantasiestücke), FMR CD153-i0704.
2000, Fantasiestücke I-XIII, nuscope recordings 1014. Solo.
2001, Arrears, Red Toucan RT 9320. Gratkowski/Graewe/Lindberg.
2005, Continuum, Winter & Winter 910 118-2. Graewe/Reijseger/Hemingway.
2006, Clepton, New World Records 80670-2. Earl Howard.

Georg Graewe
email: GeorgGraewe@gmx.net
URL : www.shef.ac.uk/misc/rec/ps/efi