Fo[u]r Alto | Release Konzert at Loft

tickets:
regular: 12,- €uro
students, disabled persons: 6,- €uro

doors: 8.00 pm CEST
concert starts:
approx. 8.30 pm CEST

For Alto is the quadrupling of the alto saxophone as a unified body of sound. Since the ensemble was founded in 2008, the four saxophonists Frank Gratkowski, Salim Javaid (until 2023 Christian Weidner), Leonhard Huhn (until 2018 Benjamin Weidekamp) and Florian Bergmann have found a distinctive sound language characterised by artistic uncompromisingness and continuous musical research.

http://www.fouralto.com/

Collective improvisations combine with Gratkowski’s compositions. A wide variety of techniques are employed, such as spectral analysis, intervallic microtonal concepts, various extended playing techniques, and shimmering, dense bands of sound created by the multiplication of instrumental multiphonics. Recently, they have also incorporated percussion instruments such as gongs and singing bowls, which expand and enrich the ensemble’s expressive spectrum.
The conception of spatial music plays an important role. If the venue makes it possible, the musicians position themselves around the audience to give them a multi-directional musical experience.

For Alto has played numerous concerts throughout Europe, including at the Frank Gratkowski Jeunesse Spezial 2014 portrait concerts at Vienna’s Porgy & Bess and Trias 2018 at Cologne’s LOFT, as well as at the Acht Brücken Festival Cologne, Berlin’s Serious Series, Panakustika Wiesbaden, the Saxophonfestival Stuttgart, EuroMicroFest Freiburg and the Blurred Edges Festival Hamburg.

In 2021, the ensemble received grants from the Musikfonds and the Berlin Senate for Culture, with the help of which it was able to carry out several intensive work phases and a CD production. In 2020, with the support of the Musikfonds and the Kulturamt Köln, the octet concert For Alto & Strings was realised at the Kunst-Station Sankt Peter in collaboration with Lola Rubio (violin), Vincent Royer (viola), Elisabeth Coudoux (violoncello) and Kathrin Pechlof (harp). To mark its tenth anniversary, the ensemble presented the concert series Ten Years of For Alto in 2019, which took place at ausland, Wabe and Jazzkeller 69 with the support of the Berlin Senate Department for Europe and Culture. In autumn 2012 they released their first CD 4 Compositions by Frank Gratkowski on the English label Leo Records.

With the support of the Berlin Senate Department for Europe and Culture, the second release could now be realised.

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