Mani Planzer

Emanuel "Mani" Planzer (born August 11, 1939 in Lucerne ; † December 12, 1997 in Lucerne) was a Swiss musician and composer as well as school and choir director .

Live and act

Between 1955 and 1959, Planzer worked as an organist in Weggis and Horw . At the same time he worked as a bassoonist in the Stadtmusik Luzern and came to jazz as an autodidact : as a pianist he played in a Dixieland band and as a vibraphonist in a jazz combo . In addition, he worked first as a freelance journalist, then as a primary school teacher at the lower school in Lucerne. He was also president of the “Jeunesses Musicales” Lucerne. In 1962 he organized the first Swiss jazz services in the St. Matthew's Church in Lucerne .

From 1962 to 1966 he studied at the Zurich Music Academy, where he graduated as a choir director and teacher of counterpoint. In addition, he attended master classes with György Ligeti , Karlheinz Stockhausen and Pierre Boulez in Basel . He also took part in the International Summer Courses for New Music in Darmstadt from 1959 to 1976 .

Between 1968 and 1995 he led various big bands , first the Mani Planzer Big Band, which took part in the Zurich Jazz Festival in 1969 , and later the MorschAchBlasorCHester , which also featured other composers such as Leo Bachmann or Thomas Mejer and improvisers such as Peter A. Schmid , Hans Kennel and Hans Anliker belonged and with whom he also premiered his work “Canto della balene” (together with the Basel Madrigalists and the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra ) at the Lucerne International Music Festival . He also directed the Kultur und Volk choir in Zurich and the CHOhr in Lucerne. He was also head of the Horbach Forest School, Zugerberg . From 1983 he worked at the music school in Basel, where he trained teachers for early musical education. He then took on a teaching position at the Winterthur Conservatory for the subject of "improvising music". In 1986 he was a lecturer at the summer courses at the Orff Institute in Salzburg.

As a composer, Planzer was “strictly committed to counterpoint , but was also able to let go and listen to a note until it died away. Pauses were an integral part of his music ”, which, according to Christina Omlin,“ often had something archaic ”about it,“ at times even something sacred ”.

In 1981 Planzer received the recognition award from the City of Lucerne's Art and Culture Prize . In 1998, Planzer was posthumously awarded the Lucerne Habitat Prize.

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Planzer wrote orchestral music, chamber music , vocal works, works for jazz and wind orchestras as well as theater and film music (for five films by Erich Langjahr ). The more than 200 compositions by Planzer, whose work is maintained by the “Mani Planzer Temporary” association, as well as all existing audio documents have been handed over to the Central and University Library of Lucerne.

Discographic notes

• Mani Planzer: Jiver's License (ML Records, 1971)
• Various Artists: Views (AHV, 1981–1984) /
• MorschAchblasorCHester (Unit, 1989)
• Mani Planzer: Modaladon (Sound Aspects, 1990)
• MorschAchblasorCHester: Esperar (Sound Aspects, 1990)
• Mani Planzer: exceptional (Earup, 1995)

literature

• Christina Omlin, From quotation to alloy - the slow convergence of jazz and art music in the Alpine country. In: Bruno Spoerri (Ed.): Jazz in Switzerland. History and stories . Chronos-Verlag, Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-0340-0739-6 , pp. 373-393
• Bruno Spoerri (Ed.): Biographical Lexicon of Swiss Jazz . CD supplement to: Bruno Spoerri (Ed.): Jazz in Switzerland. History and stories . Chronos-Verlag, Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-0340-0739-6

Web links

• Mani Planzer in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Catalog raisonné
• Mani Planzer's temporary association
• Memories (PDF; 44 kB) by Manfred Züfle

Individual evidence

1. ↑ estate directory ( Memento of the original March 24, 2016 Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link is automatically inserted and not yet tested. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.