Academy

Marcus Weiss´ saxophone studio at impuls will offer:

Individual lessons with solo works, interpretation of ensemble and chamber music.
Discussion of related questions on performance, staging, embodiment.

Improvisation with a focus on extended playing techniques

Discussion of different artistic profiles of the "contemporary saxophonist". Participants are invited to bring their own programmatic (program!) ideas, plans and ideas for founding an ensemble. This also includes discussion of the existing repertoire.

Marcus Weiss is one of the leading international "classical" saxophone players. His repertoire includes all epochs of the instrument’s short history, from the beginnings in impressionistic France to the present. He is passionate about establishing the saxophone as a solo instrument in today’s classical music world. He has played a crucial role in increasing the repertoire for the saxophone with numerous premieres of new works.

Besides many others, the following contemporary composers have written solo and chamber works for him: Peter Ablinger, Georges Aperghis, Vykintas Baltakas, John Cage, Aldo Clementi, Beat Furrer, Michael Finnissy, Stefano Gervasoni, Vinko Globokar, Erhard Grosskopf, Manuel Hidalgo, Toshio Hosokawa, Thomas Kessler, Hanspeter Kyburz, Jô Kôndô, Yu Kuwabara, Helmut Lachenmann, Rolnad Moser, Giorgio Netti, Brice Pauset, Stefan Prins, Wolfgang Rihm, Rebecca Saunders, Salvatore Sciarrino, Elliott Sharp, Mauricio Sotelo, Johannes Maria Staud, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Hans Thomalla, Nadir Vassena, Christian Wolff, Walter Zimmermann... As a soloist, Marcus Weiss worked with many European orchestras and ensembles including, Ensemble Modern, Musik-Fabrik, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie, Scottish Symphony Orchestra, WDR Symphonieorchester, Orchestra Sinfonica do Porto, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Berliner Symphonie-Orchester, Klangforum Wien, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Bayerischer Rundfunk, Ensemble Contrechamps, ensemble recherche and others. He has been invited to festivals such as Wien Modern, Wittener Tage für Neue Kammermusik, Donaueschinger Tage für Neue Musik, Festival d’Automne à Paris, Märzmusik Berlin, Biennale Munich, Tage für Neue Musik Zürich, Salzburger Festspiele, Edinburg Festival, Eclat in Stuttgart, Darmstädter Ferienkurse, Warschauer Herbst and to festivals in Austria, France, Italy, Spain, England, Russia, Poland, Ukraine, USA and Japan.

Marcus Weiss is a dedicated chamber musician, primarily working with his two ensembles, the Trio Accanto with Nicolas Hodges (piano) and Christian Dierstein (percussion), as well as with the saxophone ensemble XASAX, a saxophone quartet that he forms together with three colleagues in Paris. Trio Accanto is one of the most featured new music chamber groups of the last two decades and has first performed more than a hundred works. The repertoire of XASAX includes not only contemporary music, but also early Renaissance works and music from other epochs. In this connection, the cooperating with italian composer Salvatore Sciarrino has proved extremely inspiring for XASAX. Bach and also the music of Leoš Janáček have been in the center of their latest projects.

Marcus Weiss is teaching saxophone and chamber music at the University of Music Basel (Hochschule), where he is also in charge of contemporary music. He is giving masterclasses at various international universities including Royal Academy of Music London, Universidad de Alcala Madrid, Universität der Künste in Berlin, CNSM de Paris, Universität für Musik in Wien, a number of universities in the USA, including in Boston, New York, Chicago, but also in Russia. He is a regular teacher at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse für neue Musik as well as at the impuls Academy in Graz (Austria). Together with Italian composer Giorgio Netti he wrote "The Techniques of Saxophone Playing" (Kassel, Germany: Bärenreiter, 2010).

Marcus Weiss was born in 1961 in Basel, Switzerland. He studied with Iwan Roth at the Hochschule für Musik Basel and Frederick L. Hemke at Northwestern University, Chicago.

marcusweiss.net