„When the very first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a 1000 pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies.“ J.M. Barrie.
Our senses are indeed the most honest element of ourselves, since they never deceive us. Not because they always interpret and judge things correctly, but because they never actually judge or interpret – when we are mistaken therefore, it is our minds that are to blame.
As an enfant manqué, I began to lose myself in the sensational world of music, much to the distress of my teachers and my mother. She has, since then, come to terms with my decision to become a musician. As far as my school career was concerned, I made every mistake in the book. Not because I wanted to – I couldn’t help it. Honestly. I was thrown out of the Marianum in Bregenz aged only 15!
I have been writing songs for as long as I can remember. I found it easier to discover new melodies than to imitate existing ones. After teaching myself to play several instruments, I began recording songs – composing, playing and producing them myself.
When I was 17 I decided that from that point on, I would dedicate myself to making music. Day and night! My first album ‘I Wanna Make Love to You’ (Polydor / now Universal) was released in 1995. This was followed by ‘Fonkononia’ (1997 / Polydor), Freedomland (2000 / Edel) including my big hit ‘One to Make Her Happy’, ‘Pirate of My Soul’ (2003 / BMG), and Transparent (2004 / Marquarium / Edel).
Somewhere in between all of that, 679 songs were also written, which have not yet been released.
If you want to listen to previous work klick here
Soul, Pop, Jazz, Funk, Electronic…everything…. and then, over years of musical searching and adventure, my heroes – Jimi Hendrix, Prince, Sly and The Family Stone – merged more and more with Purcell, Rameau, Corelli, Handel and Bach.
I started composing ‘baroque’: inventione, suites, rondos, minuets, sarabands, gigas etc., and began to bring them into the ‘here and now’. With rock guitars, a Wurlitzer, CP 80 pianos, Fender Rhodes, wahwah guitars, overlaid with oboes, violins, cellos, bassoons and any other instrument one could wish for. Playing, playing..
I became more and more like a child. Passion, light, shadows, homesickness, irrational joy…then... 3 years ago, I stumbled across J.M. Barrie’s ‘Peter Pan’ and it became clear; I would write a musical drama piece. Much of the music and much of the text (by the Austrian theatre author Fritz Schindlecker) has already been written now and the work will premiere in Vienna in 2009.
‘Peter Pan’ is one of the most brilliant stories to be bestowed upon us as readers in the 20th century. Though it has been degraded to the status of a mere ‘children’s story’ by inaccurate and 2D film versions, the story is in fact a stroke of genius. It is an uplifting, fascinating narrative about a boy who defies the passage of time in Neverland. Barrie lets a boy stay a child forever whilst still enabling him to encounter the seriousness of life. There are no limits to what Peter Pan will do to care for and help the lost and forgotten children. A child is called upon to be a child, and it has become a timeless symbol for childhood freedom and the instinct to spread goodness in the world. Peter Pan is a reflective child with a good heart, who everyone will carry inside themselves for life. In his acts we see childlike feelings and actions in the truest and most ingenuous of ways.
I am convinced that every single person, while in their very youth, knows what it is that they are destined for. In this stage of our lives, everything is so easy, children are not afraid to wish and to dream about the things they want to do with their lives. In the meantime, as life passes by, mysterious forces try to convince us, that it is not possible to fulfil our dreams. Yet every adult has these childhood instincts within themselves. It is just that they are swept out of sight and out of mind, they are buried and fade into obscurity. The childhood world has changed and we need to be aware of this and try hard to ensure that it does not become lost forever. Within us exists a deep passion to be a child once more and to deal with worldly pain and trouble in the way only children can. Peter Pan is alive in each and every one of us. We all somehow wish to leave the monotony of day to day life behind us, to fly away to Neverland, where life can be experienced in its full serious and joyful glory, where one lets go of what cannot be held onto, where one forgets that which is to be forgotten, where one does not yield to pointless sadness, where slights and disputes are ignored and where one is always prepared to forgive and forget.
The new album ‘Peter Pan’ will contain songs from the musical drama in contemporary arrangements and with other lyrics, but which still convey the morals as they are in J.M. Barrie’s original.
Every person who has the capacity to recognise beauty will indeed never grow old. Amen.
marque
