A lot could be said about this iconic, one of a kind collaboration. Or maybe you just listen.
A lot could be said about this iconic, one of a kind collaboration. Or maybe you just listen.
Techno Marching Band supergroup MEUTE and Henrik did collaborate a few times already with great success. Watch and listen here:
MEUTE x Henrik Schwarz – The Coup
Meute x Henrik Schwarz – Come Together
Meute x Henrik Schwarz – Think Twice
On 23.32019 we did a sold out show at Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg Germany. „Plunderphonia“ by Berlin music producer Henrik Schwarz is a tribute to composer John Oswald, who became known in 1987 for his „Plunderphonics,“ or „plundered sounds.“ Schwarz selected around 70 motifs from over 700 string quartets composed in the last 250 years, had them performed by the Dutch Alma Quartet, and then deconstructed and reconstructed these samples electronically. At the concert in the Grand Hall of the Elbphilharmonie, the Alma Quartet performs live while Schwarz processes the sounds simultaneously on the computer.
Henrik Schwarz is internationally known for his eclectic approach: both as a producer and as a live musician, he has developed a style balancing jazz, classical, and electronic music. He performs at techno events as well as in prestigious concert halls. Schwarz also produced a highly acclaimed edition for the renowned „DJ-Kicks“ music series.
The Dutch Alma Quartet is made up of musicians from the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and has previously collaborated with Henrik Schwarz. The quartet also has close working relationships with artists such as Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Lisa Batiashvili, Denis Kozhukhin, Philip Glass, and Hauschka, with whom they have also performed at the Elbphilharmonie.
This production is part of the Pop-Kultur festival, made possible with funding from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (BKM).
Alma Quartet
Marc Daniel van Biemen Violine
Benjamin Peled Violine
Jeroen Woudstra Viola
Nitzan Laster Violoncello
Henrik Schwarz Leitung und live-electronics
Learn from one of the most celebrated performers of Deep House as Henrik Schwarz shows you his approach to live performance: get inspired and improve your own live sets as he reveals the tricks and techniques behind his legendary shows.
Aulart Masterclass With Henrik Schwarz
We had the distinct pleasure to visit Henrik Schwarz in his studio. Here is a complete walkthrough of pretty much all of his instruments as well as processing gear.
In this episode of Between the lines, Henrik Schwarz is breaking down his Remix for DJeff & Josh Milans – Difficult, giving us an in depth look at the techniques, hardware and plugins that he’s using to get his unique sound.
Henrik Schwarz playing an exclusive live set at Cathédrale de Chartres for Cercle
After the great success of the Amsterdam Dance Event 2016 opening concert at Melkweg in Amsterdam, Metropole Orkest and Henrik Schwarz decided to record an album with the music Henrik has written for the orchestra. The Album was recorded with conductor and arranger Jules Buckley in Hilversum in summer 2017 and was nominated for best Classical Album at Libera Awards 2019.
This collaboration was extended in 2017 and 2018 with several concerts.
Henrik Schwarz composes with love for, and knowledge of orchestral music. Together with chief conductor Jules Buckley he wrote an hour of new music for ‘Scripted Orkestra’. The result is an album full of pieces where the border between dance and orchestral music completely disappears.
Counter Culture is the second track of the album and carries a special message. Henrik Schwarz: “Many bad, weird, absurd, unforeseen things are happening in the world around us. However I didn’t want to complain because I believe negative talking and thinking is the wrong way. So I decided to write an ambitious ‘positive protest song’.”
Counter Culture feat. Ben Westbeech & Metropole Orkest
Algorhythm
Unknown Touch is a piece Henrik has written for the Berghain/State Ballet Co-Production „Masse“ in 2014. He also made an arrangement and recording for Orchestra that Nike uses for its 2019 Womens’s Soccer World Championship Campaign featuring Christine Sinclair.
On the 24thMay 2019, Henrik Schwarz & Alma Quartet have released CCMYK, a new album on his own label Between Buttons. Produced in collaboration with the Alma String Quartet, it’s a free conversation between classical and electronic musics, carefully transformed into a set of astonishing tracks, ready for club or concert hall.
Schwarz has been exploring this fertile terrain between classical, electronic and dance music for almost a decade. Having produced some of the most elegant dance records of the 2000s, he has spent much of his 2010s collaborating with jazz musicians, orchestras, writing ballets, and recon guring canonical classical works.
The story of CCMYK is the story of chance, communication and control. In 2013, after performing with the Dutch Chamber Orchestra in Amsterdam, Henrik was approached by Marc Daniel of the Alma String Quartet. In 2015, Henrik invited the four players to his studio in Berlin, where they began a series of improvisations. Henrik would suggest a musical phrase, and one of the Alma Quartet would play in response, with another then taking up the idea: highly trained classical musicians recording like a jazz band. Schwarz would record, replay and respond to their classical phrases with his own electronic production. These half hour jams would then be taken home by Henrik. There, he would edit them down, sculpting their form into coherent tracks. During this process he added electronic melodies and beats, even inviting the players back to respond again, thus building and re ning these variations on a theme until the songs were fully formed.
“I love nding the essence of something,” says Schwarz. “I see it like working on a sculpture that someone else began, and to make it visible, you have to cut away until you can see what’s really there. So you nd this balance between free and controlled. We would begin with this totally open vibe, and condense the freeform music into this nished work.”
Though based on free improvisations, CCMYK is not a record of bumbling jams. Rather, it’s a record of startling density, control and emotional complexity. It opens with the ourish of strings: a looped violin, a plucked double bass, interwoven with subtle electronic effects. Throughout the album, piercing melancholy and graceful tension merges with ashes of radiant joy. Dynamic, driving soundscapes like CCMYK3 sound almost ready for the club, while Happy Hipster’s Spring-like verve turns into full, dazzling and almost sorrowful Summer, a tonal shift of which any composer would be proud.
This is the sound of open conversation between piercing intellects, taking their individual instruments and musical backgrounds to create a universe of sound. Perhaps this is the meaning of the album title: three primary colours and a key that combine to bring any image imaginable to life. For the live show, Schwarz has even reimagined the building blocks of both a club and an orchestra. Instead of a conventional loudspeaker, he has remade a cello to amplify his electronic effects. In place of a metronome, the group will look to an automated needle on a display, directed by Schwarz, keeping time with the sensitivity and feeling of a conductor.
“This synthesis of classical and electronic is not only about music. It’s a bigger thing: nding a way to communicate,” says Schwarz. “I’m very interested in combining things that are as far away from each other as possible, and how they can work together. How can you nd the connections that makes sense? The connections that are beautiful and artistic, and lead to a higher combination, not just a linear conversation? I believe this is a major step towards bringing two worlds together.”
The Vinyl version of the album will be available in a limited 4 colour special edition:
Henrik Schwarz & Bugge Wesseltoft on improvisation at Ableton Loop
In an highly insightful and entertaining presentation at the 2015 Loop summit, Germany’s Henrik Schwarz and Norway’s Bugge Wesseltoft go deep into the artistic and technical aspects of their long-standing collaboration. Moderated by CDR’s Tony Nwachukwu, the lively discussion is punctuated by several of Schwarz and Wesseltoft’s free-flowing, genre-defying improvisations.
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