Peter K. Frey

Peter K. Frey (born May 21, 1941 in Baden AG ) is a Swiss bass player and sound artist.

Live and act

Frey received piano lessons during his primary school teacher training. He began performing as a musician on the double bass in the Zurich Jazz Cafe Africana . Since 1972 he has played in bands with Urs Voerkel . The idea for concept improvisations arose in a musician shared apartment with Irène Schweizer and Michel Seigner . Building on this, the Ensemble Karl ein Karl was created in 1983 with Michel Seigner and Alfred Zimmerlin , which performed at the Donaueschinger Musiktage , among others (the name of the ensemble comes from a text by Konrad Bayer ). In addition, Frey worked temporarily as a programmer for a software company before he decided to live as a professional musician. Frey works as a freely improvising musician with double bass and voice. He gives concerts with Karl an Karl and in a duo with his bass colleague Daniel Studer (which has also been expanded to a quartet with Joëlle Léandre and Lukas Frey), but also solo. Together with his wife, the ceramist Theres Stämpfli, he has been creating installations under the title TON since 1993.

Since 1978 he has also worked as a teacher for improvised music and music on the computer at various Swiss educational institutions such as the F + F School for Art and Media Design Zurich or the University of Social Work Zurich . He also taught in a postgraduate course in free improvisation at the Lucerne School of Music (2002/2003) and the City of Basel Music Academy (from 2003),

Frey is a founding member of the Musicians Cooperative Switzerland and co-founder and co-director of the workshop for improvised music in Zurich. In addition to concert and teaching activities, he works as a composer for musical productions as well as for installations with visual artists.

Discographic notes

• Voerkel-Frey- Lovens (1977)
• KARL's party (1991)
• "yes" KARL a KARL with Peter Schweiger and Wolfram Berger with texts by Konrad Bayer (1996)
• Markus Eichenberger Domino (2003)
• "two" double bass duo Studer-Frey (2006)
• KARL a KARL the bio-adapter (2008, based on a text by Oswald Wiener )
• "two" double bass duo Studer-Frey (2010)

Lexigraphic entry

• Bruno Spoerri , Biographical Lexicon of Swiss Jazz CD supplement to: B. Spoerri (Hrsg.): Jazz in Switzerland. History and stories. Chronos-Verlag, Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-0340-0739-6 .