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Jürg Frey

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jürg Frey (born 15 May 1953) is a Swiss composer and clarinettist. He is a member of the Wandelweiser Group.

Biography

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Jürg Frey was born in 1953 in Aarau, Switzerland. He studied clarinet in Concervatoire de Musique de Genève, composition under Urs Peter Schneider in Bern and trained in Basel as a teacher of the Alexander Technique. Frey co-founded the Lenzburg Music Forum, and has been artistic director of the Aarau concert series 'Moments Musicaux' for more than ten years.[1]

Frey has been invited to workshops as a visiting composer at the Universität der Künste Berlin, the Universität Dortmund, Northwestern University and CalArts.[2] In 1991 he was prize winner at the Boswil International Composition Seminar.

Frey has acted as a mentor at recent composer meet composer workshops including fellow Wandelweiser composers/artists Antoine Beuger, Emmanuelle Waeckerle, Marianne Schuppe, and Joachim Eckl.[3]

Music

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Jürg Frey’s music is characterized by sparse, quiet, soundscapes. In a review in The Guardian, Frey has been described as a “master of calm instrumental textures… who explores silence as much as sound and writes egoless music that feels as though it’s always existed”.[4] Writing in The New Yorker, Alex Ross compared Frey’s music to a “Mahler Adagio suspended in zero gravity”.[5]

References

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  1. ^ Lustenberger, SME/EMS/Theo. "SME: Composers". www.musinfo.ch. Retrieved 2018-08-10.
  2. ^ Reserved, www.wandelweiser.de 2004, Haan All Rights. "wandelweiser - Jürg Frey". www.wandelweiser.de. Retrieved 2018-08-10.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  3. ^ "COMPOSERS MEET COMPOSERS". www.wandelweiser.de. Retrieved 2019-07-05.
  4. ^ Molleson, Kate (2015-12-17). "Jürg Frey: Third String Quartet CD review – an audaciously fragile performance". The Guardian. Retrieved 2018-08-10.
  5. ^ "The Composers of Quiet". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2018-08-10.
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