Pindakaas saxophone quartet

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The Pindakaas Saxophone Quartet from the Ruhr area and Münster was founded in 1989/90. It has since established itself in the European classical music scene. The ensemble is dedicated to classical music from all epochs up to modern times, but also undertakes musical border crossings in the direction of Tango Nuevo, Klezmer, jazz, pop and film music.

Pindakaas saxophone quartet

The quartet performs regularly, also internationally, and has given chamber and church concerts in Kuwait, Scotland, Italy, Switzerland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands as well as throughout Germany. In addition, the saxophone quartet gave concerts at important music festivals such as the Rheingau Music Festival , the Hohenloher Kultursommer, the Kurt Weill Festival and the Franconian Summer .

The ensemble maintains an entertaining and informative form of presentation in its concerts. The repertoire consists of original literature for saxophone quartet as well as a large number of own arrangements of works from all epochs, which the ensemble does justice to with contemporary style and sensitive interpretation. The musicians were awarded the culture prize for this at the international master class for chamber music with saxophones in Unna .

Programs / repertoire

Under the title Voyage , the ensemble guides its listeners through six centuries and shows what diverse musical worlds the saxophone can open up: a parfocerit of medieval fanfares to organ-like sounds, for example in works by Johann Sebastian Bach , to the electrifying music of Kurt Weill .

Together with the Dutch organist and harpsichordist Léon Berben, Klangreisen presents the "Suite for Harpsichord and Saxophone Quartet" by the English composer Colin Cowles from 1979. The program also features original music by Johann Sebastian Bach and Arvo Pärt, and French solo literature for organ and harpsichord by Antoine Forqueray and Francois Couperin as well as chamber wind music by Giovanni Gabrieli and Georg Ph. Telemann.

The Children's Scenes program deals with childhood from the perspective of different composers and epochs. The compositions by Robert Schumann , Béla Bartók or Chick Corea , combined with texts by Rainer Maria Rilke or Bertolt Brecht, provide a varied picture of “being a child”.

Composers always created colorful and bizarre pieces from their imagination: Phantasia presents musical impressions of mythical animals, real creatures and exotic, alien worlds. Works by Jacques Ibert and Benjamin Britten as well as Albert Ketèlbey's picturesque theater music and the film music by John Williams are performed .

America! presents works by the great US composers Aaron Copland , Leonard Bernstein , George Gershwin and Samuel Barber as well as the suite for saxophone quartet by the Chicago composer Leon Stein from 1967. The program premiered at the Bodensee Festival 2017.

In cooperation with the Berlin actor Frank Dukowski , two music and literature programs were created: Ballads of Good Life offers music by Kurt Weill, Astor Piazzolla and Igos Stravinsky in conjunction with texts by Tucholsky, Brecht, Kästner, Döblin, Mann and Rose Ausländer. Shakespeares dreams takes a trip to the time of Elizabeth I and William Shakespeare with music by John Dowland and Henry Purcell.

The Brause program presents evergreens from pop, jazz and film music , cleverly arranged pop and jazz pieces, ballads and evergreens by the Comedian Harmonists, Beatles and Kinks as well as by Bobby McFerrin, Henry Mancini and Billy Joël, played in their very own new guise.

The quartet also developed two musical theater pieces for children with the Cologne actor and singer Martin Heim: The Adventures of Monsieur Sax tells the story of the crazy inventor Adolphe Sax and was named “Children's Theater of the Month NRW”. The WDR produced the piece as a live radio play. The master thief and the ghost quartet plays in the wondrous museum for music and has been performed nationwide.

In 2011, the children's music theater piece The magical world of Mr Alexander premiered at the European Classic Festival Ruhr. Together with the Berlin actor Frank Dukowski, the ensemble tells the story of the magician Alexander Heimbürger from Münster, who achieved great fame in the 19th century under the stage name "Herr Alexander". In 2012 the same team produced the children's play "The crazy dimensional journey of Dr. Bammel", and in 2013 an adaptation of the fairy tale "Nutcracker and Mouse King" by ETA Hoffmann came on stage.

The children's program was created in 2016: Alla Turca . With the actors Marcell Kaiser (as the genie in a bottle "Flizmed") and Frank Dukowski (as the conductor "Franz von Stock"), the Pindakaas Saxophone Quartet creates a musical fairy tale with oriental-inspired music by Mozart, Schumann, Schubert, Albéniz, Nielsen and Ibert as well as and world music by Chick Corea and Rabih Abou-Khalil.

Members

Born in Rheine, studied saxophone at the Detmold Music Academy, Münster department, with Wolfgang Bleibel and Simone Otto. Already during his studies he was particularly fond of the saxophone quartet. He has been working as a freelance musician since the mid-1990s and currently lives in Bielefeld. In addition to the saxophone quartet and other chamber music formations, his musical field of activity extends to the symphony orchestra, jazz and big bands, and even rock bands. Thorsten Floth plays nationally in musical and theater productions and is also a sought-after music teacher. Thorsten Floth has been a member of the Pindakaas Saxophone Quartet since 2015.

born in Duisburg, received his first lessons at the Folkwang Music School with Remy Filipovitch and at the same time at the Niederrheinische Kunst- und Musikschule Duisburg. There he was awarded the Köhler-Osbahr-Stiftung's sponsorship award. He later studied music at the University of Duisburg with Theo Jörgensmann . He received private lessons from the New York jazz saxophonist Jesse Bennett, and completed a master class with the Raschèr Saxophone Quartet. Grospietsch works in Duisburg as a freelance musician, photographer and music teacher and leads several ensembles, including the “BigBang Saxophones”.

born in Essen, studied music at the Folkwang University of the Arts with Hugo Read (saxophone) and Pierre W. Feit (oboe). There she also passed her concert exam. She was an orchestra musician at the theaters in Duisburg, Münster, Aachen and Wuppertal. She regularly plays in the orchestra of the Landestheater Detmold. Anja Heix works as a multi-instrumentalist (oboe, saxophone, flute, clarinet) at various musicals and theaters across Germany. She played u. a. at Starlight Express, Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables. She is also a studio musician and music teacher. Anja Heix lives in Schermbeck.

born in Oberhausen, first received piano, then clarinet and saxophone lessons. He took master classes at Berklee College of Music. Parallel to his work as a musician, Schröder studied history and journalism in Bochum and Münster. He received his doctorate from the University of Münster. phil. With a scholarship from the Bertelsmann Foundation, he completed advanced training courses for music critics. Matthias Schröder lives in Münster and works as a musician, cultural journalist and music dramaturge. He is the artistic director of the concert hall in the Steinfurter Bagno , the oldest free-standing concert hall in Europe. Schröder teaches music management as a professor at the Detmold University of Music.

  • Marcin Langer:

is a founding member of the ensemble and played the soprano saxophone until 2015. His successor in the ensemble is Thorsten Floth. Langer studied music at the University of Duisburg with Ferdinand Bruckmann (piano) and with Wolfgang Engstfeld and Theo Jörgensmann (saxophone). He was a member of numerous jazz and world music ensembles and plays in the Transorient Orchestra and in the band "Nefes in motion". Marcin Langer lives in Essen and works there as a freelance musician, composer and music teacher. His arrangements of Kurt Weill pieces for saxophone quartet were published by the renowned Viennese publisher Universal Edition.

References & awards

International:

  • Zeeland-Muziekfestival, Netherlands
  • Dumfries & Galloway Arts Festival, Scotland
  • International Summer Music Festival, Kuwait
  • German-Italian culture week with concerts in Venice, Bologna and Verona
  • Konzerthaus Berlin
  • Foreign concerts in Switzerland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Greece.

Festivals in Germany (excerpt):

  • Culture Prize at the Int. Master class "Chamber music with saxophones"

CDs

  • Voyage - A journey through the centuries - music by Bach, Schönberg, Berthomieu and others. a. (CLCL 905)
  • Ballads of Good Life - music by Weill, Piazzolla, Ketèlbey, Fiebig a. a. (CLCL904)
  • Children's scenes - musical childhood images from Robert Schumann to Chick Corea (CLCL901)
  • Brause - Evergreens from Jazz, Pop and Film Music (CLCL902)
  • Dialogue - music by John Dowland, Henry Purcell a. a. with counter tenor (FCD20020)
  • The Adventures of Monsieur Sax - Children's Music Radio Play (CLCL903)

Web links