The Vienna Art Orchestra - Europe’s leading international Jazz orchestra - was created in 1977 by mathias rüegg.
Since its international breakthrough in 1981, the orchestra has made guest performances in over 50 countries, including the USA and Japan, as well as in numerous other countries in Asia and Africa.
More than 100 of these performances took place at international jazz festivals.
The orchestra has made more than 35 recordings, many of which have been singled out for awards. For its special brand of contemporary jazz music, which is innovative yet which pays due respect to the European and American traditions from which it comes, the Vienna Art Orchestra has also received acclaim as Best Big Band in numerous countries, including in 1984-85 from Down Beat (USA).
What started in Vienna in 1977 out of the intense actionistic mood of a Zürich pianist lets the international jazz scene look back now on over 800 concerts in 50 countries and more than 35 recordings by one of the leading Big Band orchestras in the world. Mathias Rüegg is the founder, leader and trainer of his 20-man Big Band which has produced continually over the last three decades musical geniuses and set new milestones.
Trailer 2009
VIENNA ART ORCHESTRA - 3rd DREAM:
First, the good news: the Vienna Art Orchestra will continue to exist for another five years, even if the subsidy status is not yet completely clear. The current financial base is strong enough to allow for optimism about the future so plans have already begun for a new program and tour for 2009. Looking back, a change of style and line up has occurred every decade or so and so now, after ten years of big band, it’s time for another change.
It’s obvious from what you can hear and see that Vienna offers a large number of first rate young musicians who are equally at home in the jazz-related and improvisational styles. The new line up will therefore include both jazz and classical musicians who will also be featured as soloists. In the new program, rüegg will draw on his knowledge of both jazz and classical music to make them flow together into a new unified form. Virtuosity, complex rhythms/harmonies, creative tension and energy will be combined within the scope of a carefully thought out dramaturgical concept that is exciting and far from boring. As in the past 15 years, visual elements will give added interest to the presentation.
mathias rüegg
New Sounds out of Vienna
mathias rüegg, who’s busy making arrangements for his jazz chamber orchestra, recently took time out to play some examples of his new concept for several critics and friends. What he gave us to hear made everybody listen up, in the true sense of the word. Captivating, from the first note onwards,- such as the piano-trumpet duo of Bartos and Fanzowitz, that distilled the grandiose playfulness of the Vienna Art Orchestra into a highly-concentrated and exciting miniature, opening up a whole cornucopia of associations, from Charlie Parker and Miles Davis, to Mahler, Gershwin and John Adams. Better yet, you could then forget these names since they quickly blended into a unique Austro-Swiss brew of the type only mathias rüegg can make so well. If these are the new sounds coming out of Vienna, we definitely want to hear more!
Robert Fischer, Jazz Journalist, Munich
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