Die Jury

Alfred Zimmerlin

Composer (Chairman)

was born in Zurich, on April 12th, 1955, and grew up in Schönenwerd (canton Solothurn). He studied musicology and ethnomusicology at Zurich University under the tutelage of Kurt von Fischer und Wolfgang Laade, music theory under the tutelage of Peter Benary, and composition under the tutelage of Hans Wüthrich and Hans Ulrich Lehmann. He attended the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik in Darmstadt. He has taken an active part in the Werkstatt für improvisierte Musik (WIM, Workshop for Improvised Music) Zurich since 1980. In 1982 and 1984, Alfred Zimmerlin was awarded grants by the canton of Aargau, including a residency in Paris, in 1986 he received the music prize of the C. F. Meyer foundation, and in 1988 he was awarded a grant for composition by the city of Zurich. In 1999 he was again awarded a grant by the canton of Aargau and in 2001 he was invited by Pro Helvetia (Swiss Culture Foundation) on the Cairo Residency Programme. In 2005, he received the prize of the UBS Culture Foundation, and in 2014 the Cultural Award of the canton of Zurich and the Art Award of Zollikon. Residency 2014 at Haus am See in Kraemerstein/Switzerland. Professor for free improvisation at the FHNW University of Music in Basle.

Alfred Zimmerlin’s ample oeuvre comprises pieces for piano, chamber music (with and without live-electronics), vocal music, orchestral music, music for theatre, and works for radio and film. The most important are: «On the Move – In a Roundabout Way» for electric bass and 14 strings, “Ohne Titel (Pragma I)” (orchestra), “Gezeiten der Zeit” (for string orchestra), “Cueillis par la mémoire des voûtes” (saxophone quartet and string orchestra), the chamber operas “Euridice singt“, “Ana Andromeda” and “Mehr als elf”, four string quartets, the chamber-music-cycle “Nachtstundenstücke”, “Neidhardlieder”, the Emily-Dickinson-Songcycle “Seasons, Moon, and Memory”, “In Bewegung (Nature Morte au Rideau)” (for piano, string orchestra and soundtrack), “Weisse Bewegung“ (for violoncello , piano, and percussion), Quintet for clarinet and string quartet, or “Zerstreut in Arbeit mit Wörtern“ (for soprano, piano, and soundtrack).

As an improvising musician and cellist, Alfred Zimmerlin has taken part in various formations in Europe and the US. Since 1983 he has been active member of KARL ein KARL, improvising and composing in cooperation with Peter K Frey and Michel Seigner, the distinctive feature of this trio being the fact that all compositional decisions are being made and accounted for collectively. Alfred Zimmerlin’s work as improvising musician as well as the works of KARL ein KARL and his compositions are available on numerous recordings.

(Source: www.alfredzimmerlin.ch))

Bettina Skrzypczak

Composer

Bettina Skrypczak is a composer of solo, vocal-instrumental, and large orchestral works which have been performed by leading musicians across Europe, among others by the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, the SWR-Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden and Freiburg, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, the Ensembles Contrechamps Geneva and Collegium Novum Zurich as well as soloists like Felix Renggli, Matthias Arter, Massimiliano Damerini and Eduard Brunner. Her music is known for its great emotional power and direct impact on the listener. She gives great attention to structural details and has a fine sensibility for the architectural form in her work, while always considering audible perceptions. The result is sound sculptures of extraordinary intensity.

Ms. Skrzypczak is a professor for composition and music theory/music history at the music academy in Lucerne, a board member at the Künstlerhaus Boswil, a Swiss artist residency, and founder and artistic director of the Ensemble Boswil, a new generation ensemble for contemporary music. In Boswil, she is also one of the directors of the “Young Composers Project”, offering composition classes to young adults. Also a prolific writer, Ms. Skrzypczak publishes essays in international music magazines about compositional and aesthetic questions.

Ms. Skrzypczak studied piano, composition and music theatre in Posen (Poland). During that time, she attended composition classes by Luigi Nono, Iannis Xenakis and Henri Pousseur at the International Summer Academy of the ISCM Section in Kazimierz. She continued her studies at the Music Academy in Basel (composition with Rudolf Kelterborn and experimentation in the electronic studio) and at the University Fribourg (musicology). She received her doctoral degree in composition in Krakau in 1999.

((Source: http://www.bettina-skrzypczak.com))

Roman Brotbeck

Musicologist

Born in Biel in 1954, Brotbeck studied musicology and literary criticism at the University of Zurich, where he wrote his doctorate on Max Reger. From 1982 to 1988 he was a music editor and producer at Swiss Radio SRF2; from 1988 to 1994 he was engaged in a research project of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) into early microtonality in the music of the 20th century. His work took him to Mexico, Canada, France, the USA and the former USSR.

From 1996 to 2002 Brotbeck was the President of the Swiss Musicians’ Association; from 1997 to 2009 he assumed numerous duties in the management of the Bern University of the Arts (HKB). From 2010 to 2014 he was responsible for the concept design and development of the Graduate School of the Arts in Bern, the first doctoral programme for the creative arts in Switzerland, of which he was also the first Head. From 1983 to 2014 he also lectured in aesthetics, analysis and music history at various Swiss universities of music.

Brotbeck has authored many publications, given many lectures and produced numerous radio programmes. He has also been the initiator and organiser of various large-scale musical and interdisciplinary projects. Since the summer of 2014 he has been active in a freelance capacity as an advisor and cultural scholar, primarily in the field of music and cultural politics and also as a researcher at the HKB. He currently heads the SNSF-funded project “‘In hommage from the multitude’ – positions of non-equidistant microtonal music of the 20th and 21st centuries” (2018–2021) on the work of Ben Johnston, Harry Partch, Jean-Claude Risset, Mordecai Sandberg and Walter Smetak.

((Source: https://pakt-bern.ch/portraits/roman-brotbeck))

Pierre-Alain Monot

Conductor/Trumpet Player (Orchestra Representative Musikkollegium Winterthur)

After studying at the Conservatory and University of Neuchâtel, Pierre-Alain Monot was appointed solo trumpeter of the Musikkollegium Winterthur in 1984. He also pursued a career as a soloist and in chamber music, and studied composition and conducting.

As a conductor, Pierre-Alain Monot has always focussed on the music of the 20^th and 21^st centuries, and has constantly endeavoured to place this many-facetted repertoire in the best possible light. With the support of David Zinman, Janos Fürst and Jost Meier, he consolidated his knowledge and experience through working with the Nouvel Ensemble Contemporain, which he directed from 1995 to 2016.

Pierre-Alain Monot integrates the modern repertoire within the logical continuity of music history, finding inspiration in bringing together old music (Machaut, Dufay, Tallis or Palestrina) and early Modernism (Zemlinsky, Schoenberg). His programmes also clearly reflect his passion for French music and for the post-Romantics. Many composers admire his complete commitment in performance, especially at the world premières of their works, such as Georges Aperghis, Salvatore Sciarrino, Cosimo Lanza, Rudolf Kelterborn, Xavier Roth, David Philip Hefti, Alfons Zwicker, Henri Pousseur, Pierre Bartholomée, Rebecca Saunders and Bettina Skrzypczak.

Over the course of his career, Pierre-Alain Monot has conducted orchestras such as the Zurich Tonhalle Orchester, the Biel Symphony Orchestra, the Sinfonietta de Lausanne, the Musikkollegium Winterthur and the Orchestre suisse des Jeunesses musicales. He has also worked with ensembles such as the Arc-en-ciel, TaG, Sonemus (Sarajevo), the Ensemble Boswil, Helix, Ö!, opera nova Zurich and the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne (Montreal).

Monot’s repertoire also encompasses Classical and Romantic works, and his CDs have appeared on the Claves, Dabringhaus & Grimm, Neos and Grammont labels.

Pierre-Alain Monot has worked with international soloists such as Maria Riccarda Wesseling, Donatienne Michel-Dansac, Philippe Huttenlocher, Otto Katzameier, Lars Vogt, Reinhold Friedrich, Heinrich Schiff, Daniel Gloger, Rahel Cunz, Patrick Demenga, Hanna Weinmeister, Robert Koller, Christopher Gillett, Tomoko Taguchi, Joëlle Charlier, Mareike Schellenberger, Béatrice Tauran, Sarah Wegener and others.

Martin Wettstein

Composer

Martin Wettstein (born 1970) is a freelance composer and lives with his family near the Lake of Zurich. He attended the Zurich High School specialising in the Classical languages and thereafter studied theory and composition with Hans Ulrich Lehmann, Matthias Steinauer and Edison Denisov, and piano with Daniel Fueter, Christoph Lieske and Homero Francesch. He completed his training in St Petersburg and at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow.

Wettstein composes primarily to commission, and his oeuvre includes works for the Casal Quartet, the Amar Quartet, the Raschèr Saxophone Quartet, the Swiss Piano Trio, the ensemble TaG, the Harry White Trio, the Singkreis of the Engadiner Kantorei, the Vokalensemble Cantapella, the Kirchen- und Oratorienchor Wädenswil, the Circus Musicus Stuttgart, the Festival Strings Lucerne, the Weinberger Chamber Orchestra, the kammerphilharmonie graubünden, Chaarts, the Camerata Bern, the Trio des Alpes, the gershwin piano quartet and many other ensembles.

Wettstein has been commissioned to write works by institutions both at home and abroad, such as the International Hugo Wolf Academy, the Musikkollegium Winterthur, the Deutsches Literaturarchiv in Marbach, the Wuxi Municipal Government in China, the Boswil Summer, the Rapperswil Castle Concerts, the Zurich University of the Arts ZHdK and the Menuhin Festival in Gstaad.

Wettstein’s oeuvre is large and diverse. He writes for solo instruments such as the piano or guitar, chamber music for string quartet, flute sextet, percussion, piano trio, clarinet trio and string duo, vocal music for a-cappella choir, songs, and cantatas for soloists, choir and orchestra. He has also written concertos for accordion, flute, panpipes and for soprano, variously with large or small orchestral accompaniment. He also has an interest in unusual combinations. For example, a work of his for chorus, piano, basset horn trio and Farblichtflügel (“colour piano”) has been performed in the Grosse Liederhalle in Stuttgart. For a tour in China, he also wrote a work for piano, clarinet trio, e-guitar and ondes Martenot.

((Source: www.martinwettstein.net))

Die Jury

Alfred Zimmerlin

Alfred Zimmerlin

Composer (Chairman)

Bettina Skrzypczak

Bettina Skrzypczak

Composer

Roman Brotbeck

Roman Brotbeck

Musicologist

Pierre-Alain Monot

Pierre-Alain Monot

Conductor/Trumpet Player (Orchestra Representative Musikkollegium Winterthur)

Martin Wettstein

Martin Wettstein

Composer

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