Michio Woirgardt

Michio Woirgardt

Michio Woirgardt (born June 22, 1971 in Saarbrücken ), also known as Michio for short , is a German guitarist and composer. He plays classical guitar , flamenco guitar and other instruments. As a composer and on stage, he uses various classical instruments as well as a variety of sound-generating objects that he processes and arranges with the Ableton Live software . These sound objects include everyday objects such as household appliances, sealing rings or scotch tape.

Career

Musical beginnings

Michio Woirgardt was given his first guitar at the age of seven. From the age of eight he received classical guitar lessons. He became a member of the Saarbrücken Guitar Ensemble under the direction of Jörg Becker, in which young talents perform together with experienced players in an ensemble. The former professor of guitar at the Music Academy of the Saarland , Jiří Jirmal , became aware of the young guitar and taught him privately. In 1991 Michio Woirgardt became a student under Professor Jirmal at the Conservatory and graduated from there as a graduate music teacher.

He then switched to the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna , where he was accepted into the concert class of Professor Konrad Ragossnig . There he founded the flamenco trio Moros y Cristianos (guitar, bass, percussion) with his Spanish fellow students Pablo Martín (later bassist of the Gerardo Núñez Trio) and Daniel Oyárzabal .

In 1998 Michio Woirgardt won third prize at the Open Strings International Guitar Competition in Osnabrück. He was the recipient of the Rhenish Guitar Festival in 1998. He attended master classes with Manolo Sanlúcar and Rafael Riqueni and developed his style in the flamenco centers of Andalusia, including Seville, Jerez de la Frontera, Córdoba, Granada and Algeciras.

Concert guitarist and soloist

Michio works as a soloist and accompanist in Germany and Europe. He has made concert tours to Poland, Greece, Austria, the Czech Republic and plays at flamenco festivals in Germany. Since 2000 he has been touring Japan four times with different line-ups. Since 2001 he has been working with artists from the Madrid jazz and flamenco scene. In May 2007 he performed as soloist with the Loh-Orchester Sondershausen the Concierto de Aranjuez by Joaquin Rodrigo . In November 2007 he accompanied the European premiere of the opera Ainadamar by Osvaldo Golijov at the Staatstheater Darmstadt as a stage musician .

Michio Flamenco Project

After the breakup of his first trio Moros y Cristianos , Michio founded the Michio Flamenco Project in 2005 . The core line-up consists of Michio (flamenco guitar), Tom Auffarth (bass), Jan Zimmermann (percussion) and Tony Clark ( shakuhachi ), supplemented by various singers and dancers. In 2007 he appeared as the first non-Spanish guitarist with his own program at the Festival de Flamenco in Jerez de la Frontera .

Composer and musician for contemporary dance and ballet

Michio Woirgardt live on stage

Since 2010, his compositional approach has consisted of merging musical parameters that seem contradicting at first glance. Here, electronically heavily processed and rhythmized noises from devices and objects of all kinds (e.g. sewing machine, wire brush, tearing adhesive tape, piping, metal parts) are combined in loops with the sounds and melodies of classical instruments (including guitar, electric guitar, cello, keyboards ), Cuban Yoruba chants merge with the baroque suite. For his live performances, Michio arranges his instruments around the Ableton Live recording software, creating the impression of a polyphonic orchestra as a solo musician. The interaction of programmed sequences with partly composed, partly spontaneously developed and improvised processes enables him to enter into a dialogue with what is happening on stage and to adapt his music directly to individual actions. As a result of his many years of experience as a flamenco guitarist, rhythm plays a prominent role in the compositions. The unusual approach to the development of incidental music led to the collaboration with renowned choreographers from the ballet ensembles of state theaters and contemporary dance ensembles of the independent scene. Michio Woirgardt composed for the ballet of the Darmstadt State Theater under Mei Hong Lin, the ballet of the Saarland State Theater under Stijn Celis , the ballet of the Landestheater Linz, the dance company Landesbühnen Sachsen and the Ballet Vorpommern. Further works were created for the independent ensembles and choreographers Cooperativa Maura Morales , Landerer & Company , Company Idem , Felix Bürkle, Minako Seki and Yumiko Yoshioka, Leonor Leal, Massimo Gerardi and Minka Marie Heiß.

Cooperativa Maura Morales

In 2010 Michio Woirgardt founded the contemporary dance company Cooperativa Maura Morales together with the choreographer Maura Morales , which has since realized numerous stage pieces and with which he regularly performs throughout Europe, Asia and South America. This core collective will be expanded to include additional artists depending on the concept and scope of the respective project.

Works

2004

Michio wrote and played the stage music for the dance pieces Das Haus der Bernarda Alba and VergissMeinNicht after Federico García Lorca under the choreographic direction of Mei Hong Lin for the Staatstheater Darmstadt .

2011

• Commissioned by the Swiss harpsichordist Vital Julian Frey , he composed the first flamenco suite for harpsichord.
• Composition for the contemporary dance piece Haut by Felix Landerer and Maura Morales

2012

• Composer at the international forum for professional choreographers and composers Risk To Fail under the artistic direction of James Sutherland
• Composer for the contemporary dance theater piece request concert by Maura Morales
• For the dance theater project Hot Dog by Massimo Gerardi he composed and played the music.

2013

• Composer for the contemporary dance theater piece 40 palillos x 10 pesos by Maura Morales for the Cuban ballet company Ballet Contemporánea Endedans
• Composer for the contemporary dance theater piece Matter Matters? by Minka Marie Heiß
• Composer of the contemporary dance theater piece El Baile de San Vito by the Cooperativa Maura Morales, which premiered on August 31, 2013 as part of the artist residency Think Big , a co-production of the ballet of the Hanover State Opera and TANZtheater International.
• Composer and live musician of the contemporary dance theater piece Don Nadie - Mr. Nobody of the Cooperativa Maura Morales

2014

• Musical director, composer and stage musician of the Bernarda production (choreography and staging: Mei Hong Lin) at the Staatstheater Darmstadt
• The composer and live musician of the contemporary dance theater piece Sisyphus was a wife of the Cooperativa Maura Morales

2015

• Composer and live musician of the contemporary dance theater piece City of the Blind by the Cooperativa Maura Morales
• Musical director, composer and stage musician of the production Bernarda Albas Haus (choreography and staging: Stijn Celis ) at the Saarland State Theater
• Composer of the contemporary dance theater piece Momo by Tanzcompagnie Landesbühnen Sachsen under Wencke Kriemer de Matos

2016

• Composer and live musician of the contemporary flamenco dance piece Frágil by Leonor Leal
• Composer and live musician of the contemporary dance piece Phaidra - The Virtuosity of Suffering by Cooperativa Maura Morales
• Compositions for the Swiss dance company Company Idem for the pieces Control and Exposed

2017

• Composer of the piece Blinzeln, Zwinkern und Turn for the ballet Vorpommern
• Composition of incidental music for TWO by the two style icons of Butoh Minako Seki and Yumiko Yoshioka
• Composer and stage musician of the contemporary dance piece self-made / a one-man schow by Felix Bürkle
• Composer of the contemporary dance pieces Exceso de la nada - Abundance of Nothingness by Cooperativa Maura Morales

Discography

• Moros y Cristianos (1999)
• Zambúllete (Alameda Production, 2005)
• Así nada más (Alameda Production, 2008)

Web links

• http://www.michio-world.org Official website
• https://soundcloud.com/michiow/albums Profile on Soundcloud
• Flamenco guitarist is the “star of tomorrow”. stern.de, July 30, 2008, accessed October 4, 2008 . 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ CD New Strings '98, The winners of the “Open Strings” guitar competition 1998. (No longer available online.) Acoustic Music, formerly the original ; Retrieved October 5, 2008 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.    
2. ^ Winner of the Open Strings guitar competition 1998-2004. open-strings.de, accessed on October 5, 2008 . 
3. ↑ "Momo" puts the audience under the spell of Meißner Tageblatt of December 22, 2015
4. ↑ Unrequited WAZ request of October 14, 2016
5. ↑ Lin, Mei Hong: The house of Bernarda Alba , world premiere December 30, 2004. Darmstadt: State Theater. Proof in Worldcat
6. ↑ A harpsichord is cheating. The federal government of August 8, 2012