Alfred Harth

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Alfred 23 Harth (2012)

Alfred 23 Harth (born September 28, 1949 in Kronberg im Taunus as Alfred Harth) is a cross-genre musician (bass clarinet, tenor saxophone, electronics), composer and multimedia artist.

Live and act

Harth grew up as the son of the Frankfurt merchant Friedrich Harth and his wife Käte (born von Zeletzki); his older brother is the literary and cultural scientist Dietrich Harth . After taking improvisation lessons with Carlo Bohländer and Emil Mangelsdorff , Harth founded a jazz band while still at school. With his essay On Synesthesia in 1967 he began to open his creative horizons to a wide variety of artistic fields. In the free improvising group Just Music (with Thomas Cremer , Johannes Krämer , Thomas Stöwsand and others) he included classical strings and began to compose. In the same year he opened a center of free art in Frankfurt am Main for improvised live music , art exhibitions and experimental poetry . Inspired by Dada , he integrated everyday objects at a concert in the Action Center in Munich in 1968; In the Stadttheater Bremerhaven he involved his audience, organized happenings and other actions in public space. With the ensemble Justmusic he had a first television appearance in a TV feature about Franz Mon .

Just Music (1970); from left to right: Alfred Harth, Nicole Van den Plas, Thomas Cremer, Franz Volhard, Peter Stock

Free improvisation

In 1968 Harth played with Sven-Åke Johansson , Rüdiger Carl and others in the Zodiak Free Arts Lab in Berlin . In 1969, Harth began studying design at the HfG Offenbach , published a first record with the Just Music group on ECM and began a partnership and collaboration with the Belgian artist and pianist Nicole Van den Plas .

In 1970 Just Music gave a month-long guest appearance at the Paris Theater Lucernaire, met members of the Chicago AACM and played at festivals in Avignon , Bilzen , Belgium , Jazz nad Odra Breslau , Radio Prague , Přerov , the German Jazz Festival in Frankfurt am Main and the Liederhalle Stuttgart (Radio recording). Harth studied philosophy , sociology and art education at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University . In 1971 he moved to Belgium with Nicole Van den Plas , where a fertile free jazz scene had developed in Bruges and Antwerp , where he gave concerts with her, Paul Lovens and Peter Kowald . In 1972 he founded the group EMT (Energy / Movement / Totale, 1972-74) with Van den Plas and the Swedish percussionist Sven-Åke Johansson. During this time, Harth was part of Gunter Hampel's Galaxie Dreamband and made his first connections to the New York scene, namely to Perry Robinson , John Fischer , Jay Clayton and the Brubeck sons, with whom he played in the New York loft scene in the mid-1970s .

Goebbels / Harth and other collaborations

Back in Frankfurt, Harth and Heiner Goebbels founded the Goebbels / Harth duo (1975–1988), which became known, among other things, for their Eisler and Bach arrangements . A second duo with the drummer Uwe Schmitt was expanded to a trio in 1977 by the bassist Buschi Niebergall . From 1976 to 1981, Harth and Goebbels belonged to the core of the so -called left-radical wind orchestra , a large formation that musically accompanied actions of the Frankfurt spontaneous scene . Joachim-Ernst Berendt described the second Goebbels / Harth LP Vom Sprengen des Gartens (1979) as the most important German jazz sound carrier of the 1970s and, with Goebbels / Harth, produced the Jazz & Lyrik- LP Time is running out with texts by Bertolt Brecht . At the same time, Harth began to integrate extended media such as tape loops , field recordings and objets trouvés into his music, composed his first theater music for Der Brotladen by Bertolt Brecht and exhibited his artistic work in Frankfurt from 1963 to 1978 .

With the aim of bringing punk , jazz and classical music together, Alfred Harth initiated the LP Es ist Uhu im Land through his contact with ECM / JAPO in 1980 and engaged H. Goebbels, Christoph Anders, Paul Lovens , Rolf Riehm and Annemarie Roelofs for this . This goal was pursued in the group Cassiber , co-founded by Harth (concert tours in Europe and Brazil , international festivals), which Harth left in 1986. After composing the Abrazzo opera together with H. Goebbels and R. Riehm, among others, Harth founded the nonet Reklame der Reality in 1982 with Uwe Schmitt and Elvira Plenar, among others . The project group Duck & Cover initiated by Harth (with Tom Cora , Chris Cutler , Fred Frith , Goebbels, Dagmar Krause and George Lewis ) played at the Moers Festival and the Jazzfest Berlin in 1983 and in East Berlin in 1986. With the cast of his ECM record This Earth! ( Paul Bley , Barre Phillips , Maggie Nicols and Trilok Gurtu ; 1983) he realized a Doris Lessing adaptation in 1987, Remarks on the Planet Shikasta, with Phil Minton singing .

Recourse to sampling and remix

Harth began to incorporate samplers , performances and videos into his music, founded the group Gestalt et Jive ( Steve Beresford , Ferdinand Richard, Anton Fier, Peter Hollinger , Uwe Schmitt; 1984–87) and took part in the SWF's World Music Meeting (1984) . For the city of Frankfurt am Main, Harth composed the Frankfurt City Opera with 250 participants in 1984 , which was performed at two large open-air events on Frankfurt's Römerberg. With Heiner Goebbels he played live the music for Nach Aschenfeld by FK Waechter , which premiered at the Residenztheater . Harth also composed drama music for the Nationaltheater Mannheim (for “Spring Awakening”, including Bob Degen , 1984) and for the Schillertheater Berlin for “The Architect and the Emperor of Assyria” (1988, live realization with Elvira Plenar ).

The record Anything Goes (1986) was Harth's first remix work. In 1986 he played with John Zorn at the Moers Festival . In 1987 he toured with Peter Brötzmann and Sonny Sharrock . 1987–1993 Harth was a member of Lindsay Cooper's group Oh Moscow with appearances at festivals in Zurich, the German Jazz Festival (1988), the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville , Canada, the jazz festivals in Moscow and London (1993). In 1988 he founded the group Vladimir Estragon (with FM Einheit , Ulrike Haage , Phil Minton ), which played at the Jazzfest Berlin and the Jazzfestival Münster , among others . He composed film music and radio plays, including noise art , partly with Peter Fey and the writer Jürgen Ploog and was involved in the film music for The subjective factor and The beginning of all horror is love by Helke Sander . Together with his then wife Karin Jedermann-Harth, he ran the avant-garde gallery waschSalon in Frankfurt am Main from 1984 to 1991 .

Paris ... Frankfurt

From 1989 to 1996 Harth lived partly in Paris and produced the CD Sweet Paris (texts by Wolf Pehlke ) as a declaration of love for this city. In 1990 he made the exhibition of William S. Burroughs ' Paintings on Papers possible in Frankfurt am Main. In the same year Harth composed for the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus zu Antigone and in 1992 for the Deutsches Theater Berlin zu Elysian Park (by Marlene Streeruwitz , who banned performances of this theatrical version). In 1990 Harth showed his retrospective 2324 FU in the Dominican Monastery in Frankfurt, for which he played Parcours Bleu a Deux as a duo with Heinz Sauer . This duo also performed in 1992 in San Francisco and at the Vancouver Jazz Festival using pedal-controlled electronics.

In 1991, together with Lindsay Cooper and Phil Minton , Harth founded the Trio Trabant a Roma , which performed at festivals in Budapest and Strasbourg . In 1992, Harth was invited by Moscow-TV to film a portrait of him in Moscow and Saint Petersburg . The resulting film Balance Action was shown in 1993 at the Oberhausen International Short Film Festival . Harth founded the QuasarQuartet in 1992 and performed at the Saalfelden International Jazz Festival in 1993 with Simon Nabatov , Mark Dresser and Vladimir Tarasov .

Harth played an active role in organizing the Forum for Improvising Musicians (FIM) in Frankfurt am Main, which organized monthly sessions, concerts, an annual festival, etc. and was active until around 1998. 1993-1995 organized Harth the art concept thoughts hotel , was in 1994 a member of the artist group Delikatesy avant-garde exhibitions in Gdansk , pointing at the Frankfurt Film Museum 's retrospective surfactant . In 1994 Harth played the saxophone in the theater adaptation Winterreise , including 14 days at La Ma MaTheatre in New York. In 1995 he founded the group Golden Circle with David Murray , Fred Hopkins and Dougie Bowne and worked with her on old Korean court music for the German Jazz Festival. In 1997/8 Harth re-arranged and directed the musical West Side Story for the Schauspiel Frankfurt with live participation by a quintet . In 1997, Harth played with Uwe Oberg in avant-garde silent films and in 1999 with Peter Kowald and Xu Fengxia at the Pushkin Festival in Moscow .

Focus on the Far East

In 2000, Harth founded the Trio Viriditas with Wilber Morris and Kevin Norton in New York and was a 2001-2002 scholarship holder at Ssamzie-Space in Seoul . He shifted his work focus to East Asia, played concerts with Kang Tae Hwan, Choi Sun Bae, Park Chang Soo and many others. In 2002, Harth and Kim Hyung Tae conceived the mixed media program Terror Milk for performances in Seoul, played at the Beyond Innocence festival in Osaka with Kazuhisa Uchihashi and set up the LaubhuetteStudio Seoul . There he composed ballet music and other productions. From 2003 to 2006 he realized the five-part CD series Mother-of-Pearl , including Korean themes and musicians such as Hong Chulki and Kae Soojung.

From 2004 to 2008 Harth was a permanent member of Otomo Yoshihide's ensembles (tours and festivals in Japan and Europe , five CDs). In 2007 Harth concentrated on CD releases and founded the quartet 7k Oaks in Rome together with Luca Venitucci , Massimo Pupilo , Fabrizio Spera , with whom he toured Europe in 2008 and performed at the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville in Canada in 2011 . Harth played with Otomo Yoshihide's Invisible Songs in 2008 in Tokyo and at the Musique Action Festival in Nancy . With Günter Müller and Hans Joachim Irmler ( Faust ) he conceived the trio key Tribes first virtual CD, then during a tour in Switzerland and with the American composer Carl Stone , the duo poison Figure 2009. 2010-2018 Harth produced twelve CDs for the Texan label Kendra Steiner Editions (KSE) and toured in the People's Republic of China , Canada and California . Harth was involved in the exhibitions The Name Is Burroughs - Expanded Media 2012 at the Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, Real DMZ 2013 at the Artsonje Center Seoul and Universal Studios 2014 at the Seoul Museum of Art. 2016 Soundart cooperation with the Korean artist Sora Kim at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA), Korea.

In 2014, Harth toured with Chris Cutler in Japan and with Carl Stone and Uchihashi Kazuhisa in South Africa. He was also involved in a Lindsay Cooper memorial on the occasion of the London Jazz Festival and the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival and in Forlì , Italy . With Kazuhisa Uchihashi, Mitsuru Nasuno and Chris Cutler, he performed as Hope at the Frankfurt Jazz Festival in 2015 . In 2018 he toured Europe in the Quartet Revolver 23 with Nicola Hein , Marcel Daemgen and Jörg Fischer . In 2019, Harth took part in an exhibition at Seongbuk Documenta 6 , Choi Manlin Museum, Seoul.

Alfred Harth is married to the Korean artist Yi Soonjoo and is an honorary citizen of Seoul.

Discography (selection)

With the so -called radical left wind orchestra

  • Hear, hear (LP on Trikont, 1977 + double CD on Trikont, 1999)
  • With yellow pears (LP on Trikont, 1980 + double CD on Trikont, 1999)

With Heiner Goebbels

With Cassiber

  • Man or Monkey (risky, 1982)
  • Beauty and the Beast ( Recommended Records + risky, 1984)
  • 1982–1992 (6 CDs + DVD, Recommended Records, 2013) - known as The Cassiber Box

With Otomo Yoshihide

  • Otomo Yoshihide New Jazz Orchestra: Out to Lunch (doubtmusic, Japan, 2005, with Axel Dörner , Mats Gustafsson , Taisei Aoki, Kenta Tsugami , Masahiko Okura, Ko Ishikawa, Sachiko M , Toshimaru Nakamura, Taku Unami, Kumiko Takara, Cor Fuhler , Hiroaki Mizutani, Yasuhiro Yoshigaki)
  • Otomo Yoshihide New Jazz Orchestra: ONJO (doubtmusic, 2005, with Axel Dörner, Mats Gustafsson and others)
  • Otomo Yoshihide New Jazz Orchestra: ONJO Live Vol.1 series circuit (double CD on doubtmusic, 2006)
  • Otomo Yoshihide New Jazz Orchestra: ONJO Live Vol.2 parallel circuit (double CD on doubtmusic, 2007)
  • Otomo Yoshihide's Invisible Songs: Sora (EWE, 2007, with Jim O'Rourke , Leonid Soybelman, Tatsuo Kondo and others)

More shots

literature

Web links

Commons : Alfred Harth  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Allaboutjazz.com: Alfred Harth: Forty Years of Synaesthetic Improvisation
  2. ↑ In 2009 the ensemble performed again at a festival in Frankfurt.
  3. ↑ concert announcement Frankfurt ; Recording of the concert at the Jazz in Autumn Festival in Moscow on the CD Cherry Blossoms with Hidden Explosives (2019).
personal data
SURNAME Harth, Alfred
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Harth, Alfred 23
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German musician, composer and multimedia artist
DATE OF BIRTH September 28, 1949
PLACE OF BIRTH Kronberg im Taunus