Bernhard Günter

Bernhard Günter – A Short Biography
Bernhard Günter, born 1957 in Irlich, Germany, begins his musical life playing the drums at age 12, then changes to electric guitar at 17. He moves to Paris in 1980, where he takes up auto-didactic studies of contemporary composition techniques in the libraries of IRCAM and the Centre Pompidou, and attends Pierre Boulez's lectures at IRCAM and Collège de France.
Returning to Germany in 1986, he starts working on computer-based music in 1987; after four years of preparation and one year of work he releases his influential first CD Un Peu de Neige Salie (1993), followed by Détails Agrandis (1994). In 1995, he founds his own label, trente oiseaux. During the following decade, Günter releases numerous CDs and performs his music around the globe. Un Peu de Neige Salie is listed as one of the Top "100 Albums that set the World on Fire" by The Wire, one of his works receives an Honorable Mention at the 1999 PRIX ARS ELECTRONICA.
After a decade of composing electroacoustic music, Günter re-discovers his interest in playing instruments and improvised music in 2004. He records two albums that combine pre-recorded electroacoustic basis tracks and improvisation with Graham Halliwell and Mark Wastell under the name of +minus, and an entirely improvised album with Reinhold Friedl and Michael Vorfeld, playing a self-devised string instrument he calls the electric cellotar. Both trios also perform live concerts.
In 2005, Günter adds various bamboo flutes, the shakuhachi and the xiao among others, to his sound palette, and begins exploring a middle course between composition and improvisation that uses multi-tracking, editing, and arranging improvised parts that are exchanged between artists through the mail. The first result of this approach (which Günter tentatively calls 'compovisation') is the release of Ataraxia (2005) in collaboration with Heribert Friedl.
In November 2006, Friedl and Günter complete their second album, trans, making use of a field recording of three power transformers as its basis. Günter has begun to play the clarinet in mid-2006, using it for a through-the-mail collaboration project with guitarist Gary Smith and percussionist / stringed instrument player Michael Vorfeld that is nearing completion. Günter and Smith have formed a duo and given it the name of Klangstaub; in Klangstaub, Günter plays clarinet, acoustic baritone guitar, and contributes live looping and mixing to the duo. He continues exploring the synthesis of composition and improvisation, incorporating live looping as a means for the formal organization of 'instant compositions'. Further versions of Klangstaub may include field recordings and electronic sound sources, plus a pocket trumpet Günter has recently bought and is now learning to play.
Klangstaub has recorded several improvised pieces in July 2007 and are planning further recording in October; their first concert will take place at no.signal @ Wire 25 festival – AvantJazz in London on 17 November 2007. Günter will also play and record with the excellent French improvisation ensemble SAP(e) in Montpellier in February 2008.
To ensure his artistic independence regardless of economic considerations, Günter works part time as an English teacher in adult education, and as a translator. In his free time, he enjoys reading, photography, and mountain biking.
Bernhard has a personal website bernhardguenter.com and his recordings can be obtained from trente oiseaux's online shop .
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