Is it possible to bring together music from such different social backgrounds as jazz and contemporary classical music without strikingly placing a Big Band together with a symphony orchestra on stage? With his Polytheistic Ensemble, composer and guitarist Matthias Ockert unites musicians from jazz and classical, supplemented by the video artist Dagmar Vinzenz.

The unconventional line-up with electric guitar, soprano, trumpet, violin, violoncello, contra bass, percussion, live electronics, and video sound lets one dive into an associative, oscillating cosmos of poly-stylistic sounds and images, inspired by a pantheon of musical role models. The Polytheistic Ensemble is a flexible lab for contemporary chamber music and performance art: groove-heavy, melodious, serious architectural conception, and their playfully entertaining transgression. Hypnotizing video images interact in loops, ellipses, circuits, and parallels.

Matthias Ockert, composition student with Wolfgang Rihm, learned to play jazz guitar from Attila Zoller and Bill Connors in New York. He has worked together with video artist Dagmar Vinzenz for the International Film Festival Munich and at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin. The ensemble includes members of the Bundesjugendjazzorchester (Federal youth jazz orchestra), jazz-prize winners from the state of Baden-Württemberg, fellows at the Kunststiftung Baden-Württemberg, or musicians who play at the Karlsruher Ensemble für Neue Musik TEMA.
 

Line-up

Matthias Ockert − composition, electric guitar, and electronics
Sarah Kortmann − soprano
Alwyn Westbrooke − violin
Paula Valpola − violoncello
Hans-Peter Ockert − trumpet
Markus Bodenseh − contra bass
Thorsten Krill − percussion
Dagmar Vinzenz − video art

Credits

• Matthias Ockert (Curator)

Organization / Institution

ZKM

Sponsors

Hoepfner Stiftung ; Kulturbüro der Stadt Karlsruhe ; ZKM | Karlsruhe