Stephan Micus

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Stephan Micus (born January 19, 1953 in Stuttgart ) is a German musician, singer and composer whose musical style is strongly influenced by his involvement with traditional instruments from different parts of the world, such as the sitar , shakuhachi , steelpan , the 10- and 14-string guitar , the nay , kalimba , zither or the shō .

Stephan Micus.jpg

Live and act

Micus is a self-taught composer . He brought back an arsenal of instruments from extensive exploratory trips, most of which he received on-site instruction from local teachers. So he dealt with the sitar during an extended stay in India , which followed his high school diploma. After three years of intense activity, he wrote his piece As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams in 1976 , which he released on the LP Implosions (1977) on JAPO Records and combined the sound of the sitar with that of the guitar and its vocals.

From the beginning Micus was not satisfied with being instructed in the playing techniques of traditional instruments, but has almost always tried to develop his own musical approach on the instrument. According to his own statements, it is "above all a matter of removing the instruments from their original context and creating a completely new world of sound for them." Therefore, he often plays the instruments with self-developed, unorthodox techniques or he changes them to adapt them to his sound ideas. In the same way he also deals with the sounds of hewn stone blocks and modern instruments, such as the slope . He is particularly interested in the unconventional combination of several instruments to form larger groups, which he achieves as the sole musician with overdub techniques.

"From a very own language" that has grown universally and organically, wrote the Jazz Podium when reviewing Micus' album Snow . Exactly on his 60th birthday on January 19, 2013, the multi-instrumentalist released a new album, Panagia . This, his twentieth solo album for ECM, sets six Byzantine prayers to music with various string instruments. The name Panagia is often used in the Greek Orthodox liturgy to denote the Virgin Mary.

Discography

  • Archaic Concerts , 1976
  • Implosions , 1977
  • Koan , 1977
  • Behind Eleven Deserts , 1978
  • Till the End of Time , 1978
  • Wings over Water , 1981
  • Listen to the Rain , 1983
  • East of the Night , 1985
  • Ocean , 1986
  • Twilight Fields , 1987
  • The Music of Stones , 1989
  • Darkness and Light , 1990
  • To the Evening Child , 1992
  • Athos , 1994
  • The Garden of Mirrors , 1997
  • Desert Poems , 2001
  • Towards the Wind , 2002
  • Life , 2004
  • On the Wing , 2006
  • Snow , 2008
  • Bold as Light , 2010
  • Panagia , 2013
  • Nomad Songs , 2015
  • Inland Sea , 2017
  • White Night , 2019

Together with Hans-Peter Krohn

  • Krohn + Micus , 1972

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Review of On the Wing ( Memento from November 15, 2007 in the Internet Archive ).
personal data
SURNAME Micus, Stephan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German multi-instrumentalist and composer
DATE OF BIRTH January 19, 1953
PLACE OF BIRTH Stuttgart