REDEN HEARN
WINTER 2023
The piece "REDEN HEARN" was published as part of the "24 Doors" project of the South Tyrolean Artists' Association. On an upcycled sound carrier, an old smartphone with headphones, voice messages from a whole series of wonderful people were upcycled and transformed into a new piece, or in a sense into a sound sculpture, which deals with the (im)possibility of interpersonal communication and my experience of it.
Air - moved by voice messages, Korg Volca Beats, Moog Grandmother, Korg Minilogue XD and piano
for 70 zithers, drums and synthesizer
AUTUMN 2023
I had the great honour and pleasure of being commissioned by the province of Upper Austria to compose a work for zither orchestra.
Influenced by the book "Earth for all" for the Club of Rome, I created a work that explores the zither in countless facets and playing techniques in order to be able to write a piece that is as colourful and versatile as possible.
In the second movement of the work, I also had the honour of setting Carmen Ramoser's fabulous text "How can I describe the feeling" to music.
Working on "THE GIANT LEAP" at the Anton Bruckner Private University with these exceptional musicians and being able to conduct this orchestra was an extraordinary experience for me.
Without the wonderful collaboration with Martin Mallaun and Reinhilde Gamper, this work would never have been realised.
The work was discussed in the podcast Unisounds of the Anton Bruckner Private University and can be listened to there.
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THE GIANT LEAP
DER MENSCH IST GUT,
NUR DIE LEUTE SIND SCHLECHT
EXCURSION FOR PERCUSSION QUARTETAND SEQUENCER
AUTUMN 2023
My percussion quartet “MAN IS GOOD, ONLY THE PEOPLE ARE BAD” was created in early summer 2023 on behalf of the South Tyrolean Artists’ Association. I was greatly inspired by wonderful internet videos and memes from my dear friend Claus Stecher. Much of it can be found as a sample in the work.
The ensemble interweaves with a 16-note sequence from the Moog Grandmother, whose pitch, tempo and rhythm do not change throughout the entire duration of the piece. What changes is how the ensemble interprets these 16 tones.
The work was premiered on October 15, 2023 by the ConTakt Percussion Group as part of the “FESTIVAL OF CONTEMPORARY MUSIC Bozen”. The masterful recording of images and sound comes from Simon Lanz/incanto recordings.
South Tyrolean Artists' Association
Festival of Contemporary Music Bolzano
MUSIC FOR THEATER
SUMMER 2023
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Writing the music for Goethe's epic "Reineke Fuchs" gave me great pleasure. Especially the mixture of electronic and acoustic sounds was a very interesting challenge. Alexander Messner on the (electric) clarinet, Dominik Told on electric and double bass and Daniel Pupp on drums and synthesizer brought my music to life with skill and love.
Director: Torsten Schilling, choreography: Sabrina Fraternali
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REINEKE FUCHS
ZWISCHENFÄLLE
MUSIC FOR THEATER
SPRING 2023
"The music created by Simon Gamper, made of weird harmonies and shrill conciseness, triggers vague irritations"
DOLOMITEN, 04/28/23
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“…accompanies the claustrophobic horror with a surround sound of apartment noises, footsteps, snoring, coughing, slamming doors. Voices, ticking clocks and radio noises"
NEUE SÜDTIROLER TAGESZETUNG 04/27/23
"Musically (...) Simon created his own incident" - FF-MAGAZIN 04.05.23
My brother Dietmar and I have been admiring Daniil Charms for 20 years. In the spring of 2023 we were finally ready to bring his texts to the stage.
With the extraordinary actors Margot Mayrhofer, Markus Oberrauch and Freddy Redavid, "ZWISCHENFÄLLE" was a production that I will remember for a long time.
POP / Dialect
SPRING 2023
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Max von Milland's new album "Eisack" was released on February 3rd, 2023. I had the great pleasure of producing the album with Max and Kiko Masbaum and also playing bass, 12string, flugelhorn, trumpet, bass trumpet, tenor ukulele, ocarina and dulcimer on it. I am particularly pleased that with "Matatz" one of my compositions made it onto the album. An ode to Passeier, so to speak, for which I used a lot of field recordings from the area around the Matatzspitze.
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EISACK
FIVE (=3+2)
FOR WOODWIND QUINTET
AUTUMN 2022
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Five musicians play five instruments for exactly five minutes. The form is strictly measured, the ratio 3:2 is the top priority, the numbers 3 and 2 are central motifs. This form is filled with my thoughts about my finiteness. Or rather my fear of it. "Twilight whispers between life and death", as the author Magdalena Ferdigg calls it.
Ultimately, FUENF remains a conglomerate of longer and shorter, alternating tones of different pitches, produced by different instruments. And it sounds surprisingly positive.
This piece was created in the summer of 2022 on behalf of the Südtiroler Künstlerbund. It is dedicated to the wonderful musicians of the Windkraft ensemble.
FUENF was premiered on October 14, 2022 by Andrea Mairhofer, Stefanie Treichl, Ingrid Gantioler, Egon Lardschneider and Roberto Gander in Innsbruck.
WINDKRAFT- Ensemble for New Music.
Südtiroler Künstlerbund
FILMSCORE
AUTUMN 2020
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The music I wrote for the theater production of "R)Evolution" by Carambolage was a very refreshing excursion into the world of analogue synthesizers and sequencers, which had a lasting influence on me. Almost entirely without VSTs, I mainly worked with Moog Grandmother and Korg MicroKorg, but also used my trumpet, bass trumpet and good old flugelhorn. Four pieces of this very oppressive and melancholic music have also been released as EPs. As always, it was an extraordinary pleasure to work with director Eva Kuen - but I was also very impressed by the great team on stage.
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(R)EVOLUTION
ATEM
SUMMER 2021
FOR EIGHT BASSCLARINETS
The organic, natural and breathing sound of the bassclarinet has always fascinated me. In "BREATH" I expanded this sound to include additional breaths and all sorts of breathing noises from the musicians.
An extremely close and intimate microphony turns the piece into a breathing, wooden, mechanical being. As always, Alexander Messner played masterly on all eight parts. BREATH was recorded and mixed by Martin Niedermair at Tonstube.
The piece was also featured in the film "KREBS - reden wir darüber" by Stefan Ghedina and Verena Duregger.
FILMSCORE
AUTUMN 2020
I had the extraordinary pleasure of being part of the first Latvian western. In 2020 I composed the soundtrack for "Kur vedÄ«s ceļš" engl. "Wild East" by the excellent director and producer MatÄ«ss Kaža.
The orchestral recordings with Sinfonietta Riga under Normunds ŠnÄ“ took place at ALFA Studios and in the venerable halls of the former melodiya Studio Riga. The film is expected to be released in cinemas by the end of 2021.
WILD EAST
FOR MEZZOSOPRANE, MARIMBA, VIBRAPHONE and HARP
SUMMER 2020
MIT UNTERTÄNIGKEIT
On behalf of the South Tyrolean Artists' Association, the piece"WITH SUBSERVIENCE" was created at the beginning of summer 2020 for the 46th FESTIVAL OF CONTEMPORARY MUSIC Bolzano on the occasion of the Hölderlin Year 2020.
Writing this piece was a particularly nice challenge, because on the one hand it was important to me to find a strong point of reference to Friedrich Hölderlin, and on the other hand to depict the Weltschmerz I felt myself during my examination of Hölderlin's life and work. This process finally resulted in an 8-minute piece, divided into 72 years, which slowly maneuvers itself through subtle nuances.
World premiere on October 28th, 2020 in the Museion Bozen:
Mezzo-soprano: Elisabeth de Roo, harp: Gertrud Chiochetti, marimbaphone: Christian Miglioranza, vibraphone: Manfred Gampenrieder, recording: Simon Lanz - incanto recordings
FOR HARPSICHORD
SPRING 2020
DERAILMENT
The piece DERAILMENT was created in early 2020 in close collaboration with the excellent harpsichordist Alexander Gergelyfi. The aim was to present scenes of drastic violence very directly in short, expressive movements, also with the help of new playing techniques.
The piece was heavily inspired by Andreas Jungwirth's book "Wir haben keinen Kontakt mehr". In June 2020, DERAILMENT will be premiered by Gergelyfi in Steyr (A).
AUTUMN 2019
FOR PLASTIC ENSEMBLE
The piece was created in summer 2019 on behalf of the city of Merano . The challenge for me was the setting of the poem "brunch in white" by my brother, the author and director Dietmar Gamper. The piece entirely consists of sounds generated by plastic objects. Garbage basically. The piece was premiered on October 4th, 2019 on the Thermenplatz in Merano as a live performance work of art.
BRUNCH IN WHITE
SPRING / SUMMER 2019
MORD AM UNMÖGLICHEN
FILMMUSIC
In the documentary trilogy "Mord am Unmöglichen", mountaineering legend Reinhold Messner paints a differentiated picture of his view of mountaineering.
The film music for this is mainly atmospheric and uses analog sounds that are digitally processed and alienated. Heartbeat and breath play a central role.
This score was created in close collaboration with the producer Simon Messner.
FILM MUSIC
In 2017 and 2018 the score for the feature film "Behind the Spiagl" was created. A fantastic film, in the truest sense of the word - a wonderful dream of a child. Full of angels and music.
The film screened at numerous festivals around the world and won several awards.
SUMMER 2018
BEHIND THE MIRROR
THEATER MUSIC
WINTER 2018/2019
Setting the play "100 Years of South Tyrol" by Dietmar Gamper to music on behalf of the Dekadenz group was a special job for me, as I shared a common cause with my good friend, the musician and composer Philipp Schwarz.
When working on the music, we concentrated on raw, unmediated sounds and strived for a desolate, broken sound.
"100 Years of South Tyrol" became the most successful in-house production in the history of the Dekadenz Group.
THEATER MUSIC
100 JAHRE SÜDTIROL
A WINTER-OPERA BY THE GAMPER BROTHERS
DIE WEISSE ZONE
Working on the opera "Die weisse Zone" presented me with many great challenges:
The highly demanding, philosophical libretto, written in South Tyrolean dialect, the extremely inhospitable conditions of the performances as part of the Vigiljoch winter open air theater
1800 m above sea level at around 0 degrees Celsius.
The soprano Veronika Pircher and the tenor Heribert Haider made "Die weisse Zone" a very dear memory. The result was a desperate, chromatic music, based on early film music.
The work was released on CD in 2016 by Three Saints Records.
WINTER 2016
Commissioned by the wind.music.project wind orchestra. the six-movement suite "The Days of Water" was created in the summer of 2016.
In this work, it was particularly important to me to take a fresh look at program music. In this way, in collaboration with the author Thomas Torggler, a very abstract dramaturgy was created, with the aim of leaving the content to the instrumental music. "The Days of Water" premiered on November 6th, 2016 under the direction of Lukas Erb, with Dietmar Gamper speaking. The recording of the work was published by tonverlag in 2016.
THE DAYS OF WATER
SUITE FOR WIND ORCHESTRA
SUMMER 2016
GOLDBERGVARIATIONEN
I wrote the music for the psychological thriller "Goldbergvariationen" in spring 2016 for the Volksbühne Laas. In order to do justice to the nerve-wracking, tough and extremely exciting piece, I used to a large extent noises from everyday life, a telephone dial tone, mixer, a model train and much more and let them relate to short, chromatic and mostly unanimous motifs in order to create the atmosphere of a nightmare.
SPRING 2016
THEATER MUSIC
CORINNE AMRAND
For Corinne Amrand's new album I was active as a co-composer and arranger and contributed bass guitar, keyboard instruments, ukulele, flugelhorn and backing vocals. I will also accompany Corinne Amrand on tour on stage.
SPRING 2020
TAPE