Remo Rau

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Remo Rau (born July 19, 1927 in Yokohama ; † February 3, 1987 in Zurich ) was a Swiss businessman, composer and jazz musician (piano, vibraphone ).

Live and act

Rau grew up as the son of a Swiss abroad first in Japan , where he received classical oboe lessons and participated in various chamber ensembles and in the Anglican choir. In 1942 Rau came to Switzerland, where he continued his classical music education first in Solothurn (with Charles Dobler) and then in Zurich (with Wladimir Vogel ). At the music academy in Zurich he studied composition and oboe, clarinet and saxophone. In 1949 tuberculosis made it impossible to continue his career as a woodwind player; Rau switched to the piano and the vibraphone. He worked part-time in a Zurich carpet company in order to have enough time for his musical projects. In 1959 he took second place with his “Three Cities Quartet” at the Zurich Amateur Jazz Festival. With his quintet, to which Hans Kennel and Bruno Spoerri belonged, he made his first attempts at free jazz in the early 1960s . Very early he experimented in his compositions with twelve-tone rows , Raga -scales, as well as pop, funk and world music elements. Musicians such as Jürg Grau , Peter Hanel, Thomas Moeckel and Nick Liebmann played in his bands “Jungle Sob Soul Boppers” and “Ensemble Musica Giganthropos” .

Rau also wrote an opera trilogy "Gaia - Crystal - Terra Nova", which was dedicated to his "dream of a peaceful earth" but was never performed, a "Concerto for flute, string orchestra and percussion" (1965-1970), which under Marc Andrae was performed and broadcast on the radio, as well as chamber music works such as the duo for violin and piano "Caleidoscope" (1978).

As the programmer of the jazz bar “Africana”, in which in the early 1960s Abdullah Ibrahim and his trio, but also Horace Silver and Chris McGregor with the “Blue Notes” performed daily for a long period and where Irène Schweizer's trio gained their first experience , he played a central role in Zurich's jazz life, which he was able to continue as a promoter of the “Modern Jazz Zurich” concert series. He also realized complex multimedia projects. Concert performances organized by him such as “Ballet and Jazz”, “Ava and Edam” or “Multi-Media Dance Theater” received great local recognition.

Discographic notes

literature

  • Bruno Spoerri (Ed.): Jazz in Switzerland. History and stories . Chronos-Verlag, Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-0340-0739-6

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Rough, Remo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss jazz musician and composer
DATE OF BIRTH July 19, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Yokohama
DATE OF DEATH 3rd February 1987
Place of death Zurich