Skip to main content

Bernhard Gander

 


Gander studied at the Provincial Conservatoire in Tyrolean State Conservatory in Innsbruck. He studies were marked with periodic meetings with Beat Furrer in Graz and the Electro Acoustic Studio at UPIC in Paris as well as the Swiss Centre for Computer Music in Zurich. 


Gander’s compositional voice is marked by his contrarian style. Forgoing classical aesthetics, Gander opts for something more akin to a heavy metal show than a chamber concert. While his orchestrations appear to use the classical instruments, his works bare the influence of his attendance at many metal and rap shows as well as his interest in electronics. 


In his work 'Take Five for Three,' he forgoes the double bass and opts for electric double bass and two percussionists eliminating any pretense of a classical performance. I chose this work from the CD Polyglot, produced and commissioned by the Ensemble Moderne ensemble for Paul Canon. Paul notes how his relationship with Gander has pushed him to pursue new musical ideas and compositional styles specifically in regards to this recording project as he was pushed to find a way to incorporate this work into the narrative of the CD. Take Five for Three closes the CD and acts as a bookend or foil to the opening work which features double bass and voice. 



This work also pushes the boundaries of ‘genre,’ inciting pause when trying to categorize where it fits. Paul Canon, in his interview about the project, mentions having difficulty fitting it in with the arc of the CD but stressing its importance because of what it does for the solo bass repertoire. Specifically, Canon mentions the collision of worlds when performing works by Gander. Ensemble Modern has performed at metal shows where both audiences from the metal scene and the contemporary classical scene are at the same venue exploring each others arts. 

- Stephen Jones 


Comments

  1. Melodie SpencerApril 21, 2022 at 9:49 AM

    Stephen! I really enjoyed your blog! I just listened to the Take Five for Three recording! It's so interesting how he uses somewhat traditional instruments to produce non-traditional music. I also found his use of the percussionists interesting in the recording. I think the use of instruments, even though it was an electric bass in this example provide a really unique and full sound to the metal genre.

    ReplyDelete
  2. CCM Students SP2022April 21, 2022 at 12:32 PM

    Thank you for your blog! It's very interesting to me as for pianist to see what abilities other instruments have. Bernhard Gander does it in a very cool way! I love an energy and the techniques he uses at his pieces. It's a discovery for me! Thanks for sharing!

    -Diana

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownApril 21, 2022 at 1:25 PM

    Thank you for introducing me to Gander's work! I really like his style and the way he blurs genres. I'm curious to know what his bass clarinet stuff sounds like - he's got one piece for solo contrabass clarinet! I can only imagine what kinds of wild stuff he has happening there!
    - Cameron DeLuca

    ReplyDelete
  4. UnknownApril 22, 2022 at 2:01 PM

    Thanks for sharing, Stephen! I love that Gander takes influence from metal when he composes. I am personally a huge fan of metal, so it's interesting to hear that kind of sound in a more "classical" setting. I also think it's great that his pieces are performed at metal festivals, this could definitely help to attract more people to the classical music world. Awesome! - Noah Ward

    ReplyDelete
  5. Citlalmina HernandezApril 22, 2022 at 4:16 PM

    Hi Stephen !
    Something that I really loved on your blog is that as you said this pieces want to push the boundaries of genre. I liked the fusion of double bass and electric double bass. Many times we categorize the instruments as an specific genre and this pieces shows us that the combination takes away that idea.
    Also I loved the visual aspect with the way that they chose to wear in a “classical” concert.
    I am not familiar with this style but I enjoyed the piece.
    Thanks for sharing!

    Citlalmina

    ReplyDelete
  6. LydiaApril 22, 2022 at 7:50 PM

    Hi Stephen! This composer was cool to learn about. I like that he doesn’t push the boundaries in genre. Also, the piece you link was sooo good! Thanks for sharing! -Lydia Young

    ReplyDelete
  7. Zack ToddApril 25, 2022 at 2:03 PM

    This composer's approach to boundaries within genres was super fun to learn about! I especially loved the classical/metal fusion. Very cool. -Zack T

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

VALERIE COLEMAN

Valerie Coleman is a Grammy-nominated composer and flutist.  She was a founding member of the Imani Winds wind quintet and is a current performer with the harp-viola-flute trio Umama Womama.  She is also currently the Clara Mannes Fellow for Music Leadership at the Mannes School of Music, serving on the flute and composition faculty.  Coleman has appeared with many orchestras, chamber groups, and on many records throughout her career.                                                                             She is also an accomplished composer and arranger.  In 2019 and 2020, the Philadelphia Orchestra commissioned her to arrange Umoja and write “Seven O’Clock Shout,” respectively.  Her piece Umoja has taken many forms, including wind quintet, concert band, and flute choir.  The word umoja is the Swahili word for “unity” and is the word associated with the first day of Kwanzaa.  The piece contains a call and response theme that represents unity in the music.  Seven O’Clock Shout was
10 comments
Read more

Menelaos Peistikos

  Menelaos Peistikos is a Greek composer and pianist currently based in Toronto, Canada. His music is inspired by an extreme variety of musical genres, ranging from baroque and renaissance music to contemporary classical and cinematic music, as well as from folk Greek to Japanese, Tibetan, and Indonesian Gamelan music. Peistikos is also heavily influenced by other artistic disciplines, especially by the oeuvres of Plato, Albert Camus, Friedrich Nietzsche, Alan Watts, and Edward Hopper. For Sun's Light: Molinari Quartet In February 2019, Menelaos won the  3rd Prize  and  1st Prize of Public  at the  7th Molinari String Quartet Composition Competition  in Montreal, Canada, for his string-quartet composition  For Sun’s light . In December 2018, he won the 2nd Prize at the  4th Opus Dissonus International Composition Competition  for solo piano in Brazil for his composition  On the Vision and The Riddle .  On the Vision and the Riddle He is a current student at the University of Toront
8 comments
Read more

_We Shall Not Be Moved_(2017) and Opera Philadelphia

We Shall Not Be Moved  was composed by Daniel Bernard Roumain with a libretto by Marc Bamuthi Joseph, and directed by Bill T. Jones. The opera brings in musical signifiers from several genres while pointedly critiquing issues such as police brutality, the rights of transgender individuals, and structural racism within the US public education system. While the opera has not been taken on by another company since its premiere in 2017, it is an overlooked example of the possibilities illuminated by the frameworks and orientations of Black Opera as defined by Naomi André , and, I would argue, contemporary US opera more broadly.  The opera grew out of an Opera Philadelphia collaboration with a non-profit called Arts Sanctuary called  "Hip H'Opera,"  initially launched in 2007. In the Hip H'Opera program, students "[learned] the history and aesthetics of hip-hop and opera . . . and then "[used] poetry, fiction, and non-fiction [to capture] their own urban stories.
1 comment
Read more