Moers Festival, Wien Modern, Music Unlimited, Porgy&Bess, Künstlerhaus Wien
launched in 2004
by Michael Fischer, art.dir./instant composition conductor
'Partitur Im Jetzt/In This Present Space' (48min), Odeon Theater Wien:
youtube.com/watch?v=zeq4_eRWF1A The Vienna Improvisers Orchestra is focusing upon conducted instant composition: a piece of music, spontaneously developed by an improvising ense
mble and an improvising conductor using hand-signs for structuring the music given by the ensemble. Within an oscillating dialogical process between musicians and conductor the musicians are asked to interprete the given hand-signs by the conductor who rereacts to the music created by the ensemble by transmitting the spontanous creation, an ad hoc composition. The Vienna Improvisers Orchestra is Austria's first orchestra dedicated to this method which has been developed in variety by a few European improvising orchestras within the last 20 years, manly referring to Lawrence D. Performing in ever changing line-ups, the Vienna Improvisers Orchestra unifies singers and musicians from all musical fields out of acoustic and electro-acoustic improvised music, contemporary composed music, jazz and others, among them members of eminent Austrian ensembles such as Tonkünstler NÖ, Klangforum Wien, Ensemble Reconsil or ensemble xx. Since its beginning, the possible processes of merging sound and recitation, their vice versa influence, the metamorphosis of sound- and word-pictures a. phenomenons arising, were an additional beam of VIO's poetic presence, hence the VIO is collaborating with splendid writers in experimental poetry such as Gerhard Rühm (*1930, founding member of the Wiener Gruppe), Gerhard Jaschke, Magdalena Knapp-Menzel, Peter Waugh, Petra Ganglbauer, Margret Kreidl, Semier Insayif, Ferdinand Schmatz, Peter Pessl, Dieter Sperl, Sophie Reyer, Ilse Kilic, Fritz Widhalm and others.
‚Zur Morphologie der Plötzlichlichkeit’, 'ich spreche nicht : illusionsgebiet nervenruh', 'Explosive Litaneien', ‚einklang mitsprache’ and other titels were programmatic routes for VIO's ad hoc composed constructions of meaning. The Vienna Improvisers Orchestra works within different contexts not only with authors, but f.i. with the Budapest Improvisers Orchestra, GGRIL (Canada), Josefa Alonso (Madrid), choirs, non-local musicians or live-scoring the classic russion futuristic movie AELITA (1924) collaborating with institutions and partners such as KulturKontaktAustria, EU/SohoInOttakring (project MELT), Artacts Festival St.Johann, SeeLab, Brunnenpassage, Reaktor a.o.,
performing at Künstlerhaus Wien, festival Wien Modern, Porgy & Bess, 21er-Haus/New Museum of Contemporary Art, Art Brut Center Gugging, ZOOM! festival/Jazzwerkstatt Wien, RadioKulturhaus Wien, Harom Hollo Budapest, Offenes Haus Oberwart a.o. The VIO's music was air-played on ORF/Austrian broadcasting station Ö1 ZeitTon and Jazznacht. The Vienna Improvisers Orchestra was launched by Michael Fischer in 2004.
