XASAX
Founded in Paris in 1991, after two encounters in Vienna and Rotterdam, since then, the ensemble proposed to
widen the repertoiry, the action range and eventually the image of this traditionnal formation of chamber music : the saxophone quartet. On one hand promoting a contemporary repertory still little known (Xenakis, Donatoni, Cage, Sciarrino etc.), commissionning many new pieces for a formation voluntarily mobile and open to all combinations or permutations offered by the large familly of the saxophones, and on the other hand XASAX explores less academic lands such as compositions originating in Jazz or improvised music, as well as in a une re-reading of the «Art of the Fugue» by BACH, of rennaissance franco-flemmish polyphonies, or Ars Subtilior from the XIVth century.
XASAX played in diverse festivals and institutions such as the Konzerthaus, Vienne (Autriche) - Jauna Muzika, Vilnius (Lithuanie) - West Deutscher Rundfunk, Cologne - Festival de Witten - ZKM Karlsruhe (Allemagne) - Musique Action, Vandoeuvre - E.N.A. , Strasbourg - Auditorium des Halles, Paris - Musicavoix, Evreux - Ulrichsberg Festival (Autriche) - Neue Muzik Rümlingen (Suisse) - Institut Cervantes, Toulouse - Festival Meslanges de Printemps, Dijon - Festival 2 days & 2 nights, Odessa (Ukraine) - East-West Kazan (Tatarstan) -Festival Archipel, Genève - Maison des Cultures du Monde, Berlin - Festival d’Automne, Paris - Festival d’Edimbourg - Darmstadt - Chicago - Salzburg - Milano Musica - Abbaye de Royaumont - Contempuls Prague ...
Repertory (selection) :
*Crosswind by Georges Aperghis
sax 4tet + viola
Kunst der Fuge by JS Bach
Canticum Novissimi testamenti (4tet + 4cl + 8vx) by Luciano Berio
*Hyperbaton (TTBB) by Alex Buess
*Ata9 (SSSS) by Alex Buess
*Equis by Bruno Giner
Méfie-toi des blancs (STTB) by Vincent Bouchot
Four5 by John Cage
Saxophone quartet by John Carisi
*Quiebros by Alvaro Carlevaro
Canon for 3 (AAA) by Elliott Carter
Rasch by Franco Donatoni
Quatuor de saxophones by Hugues Dufourt
Close the gap by Karlheinz Essl
Magic by Ivan Fedele
*Due Songs by Luca Francesconi
*Shift-Shaft by Claudio Gabriele
Quartet Op 109 by Alexandre Glazounov
Discours V by Vinko Globokar
Mobile Herbarium by Barry Guy
*even... the loudest sky ! by Bernardo Kuczer
*(S)AXE(S) by Robert Lemay
*Attractions by Denis Levaillant
*Saxophone quartet by Lubos Mrkvicka
*Avvicinamento by Giorgio Netti
*Cathode V by Otomo Yoshihide
(4tet + 3 gagaku + 2 electro)
*Axe à quatre by Ernest H. Papier
Vue sur les jardins interdits by Henri Pousseur
Spots by Frederic Rzewski
Pagine/Canzoniere da Scarlatti by Salvatore Sciarrino
La bocca, i piedi il suono by Salvatore Sciarrino (4A+100sax)
La harpe de Mellodie (AAT) by Jacob Senleches
*Approaching the arches of Corti (SSSS) by Elliott Sharp
Dawn II by Alessandro Solbiati
*Spuren (SATB) by Gerhardt Stäbler
*Albumblatt II by Hans Thomalla
Lamentatio by Errki-Sven Tüür
*So long (SATB) by Daniel Weissberg
3 Canons by Stefan Wolpe
XAS by Iannis Xenakis
*Cueillis par la mémoire des voûtes (4tet and string orchestra) by Alfred Zimmerlin
XASAX, modular saxophone ensemble
Discography (selection) :
-
-Georges Aperghis : Music for saxophones and viola
Kairos, Vienne
- LUCIANO BERIO : Canticum Novissimi Testamenti / A-Ronne DIAPASON D’OR Januar 2008 WERGO
- PAGINE/ CANZONIERE DA SCARLATTI by Salvatore Sciarrino ZigZag Territoires . Choc du Monde de la Musique 2003
-
-XASAX : Buess, Donatoni, Xenakis, Cage, Wolpe, Rzjewski Erol records
-
-ARS SUBTILIOR : Pousseur, Dufourt, Kuczer, Carlevaro, Senleches HatHut
- Conquest of Melody : Canons by Arnold Schönberg, Cage HatHut
-
-COUNTERPOISE : John Carisi, Eddie Sauter HatHut
Name : XASAX
Definition : Modular Saxophone Ensemble.
Age : 21
Members : Serge Bertocchi, Jean-Michel Goury, Marcus Weiss, Pierre-Stéphane Meugé (from left to right) .
Born in : Paris 1991, after some brief encounters in Vienna and Rotterdam.
Objective : widening the repertoiry, the action range and the image of the saxophone quartet.
Favorite music : all kinds of today’s music, without exclusivity.
En 2013, XASAX will tour in Austria, play twice with large orchestra the Concerto «Wal» by Roland Moser (in Bern and Basel) during a Swiss tour.
Two important premieres will be held in the Witten Festival (Germany). One concerns the second saxophone quartet by Fabien Lévy : Toward the door we never opened.
The other, Monadology XV by Bernhard Lang, consistst in a double tribute to Iannis Xenakis and to John Coltrane. It will bring together XASAX and a magnificent ensemble from Geneva, the 2 pianos and percussions MAKROKOSMOS quartet, with which we hope to play often now on !
Another Coltranian project this year with Yochk’O Seffer, an unconditionnal worshiper of the master. We will revisit A Love Supreme with his quartet along with his own compositions for a new CD project .
More d’info : click on the red subtitles on top of the page, the underlined titles or CD images.
Xasax in La Villette, Paris in 1991
XASAX at the Finnish institute on june 26th 2006
