Band

When walking through the terraced vineyards of the Wachau region, the almost Mediterranean heat will sometimes make you believe to be in much more southern European realms. Under these special climatic circumstances, wine is maturing just as well as apricots and even the seemingly oriental luxury spice saffron is blooming there. Starting here – at their musical as well as biographical roots – seven young musicians project themselves into the world, distinguished by their artistic providence and innovative tonal language. They take their audience on a trip through Scandinavian mythology, Alpine mountain ridges or the Metropolitan Museum, dancing in filigree shoes on ballet stages or with their calves tied together on brute Innviertel dance floors. The seven-member wind ensemble advances forward along enchanted paths of sound, accompanied by acoustical mountain and valley landscapes without being hindered by any musical or ethnographic boundaries.

In a process of constant maturation since their establishment in 2004, Federspiel – initially in consideration of its only woodwind – is developing a more transparent and in terms of sound more layered tonal language than most other brass bands. As an artistic heavyweight traveling with compositions that are light as a feather, the ensemble has long arrived at performing on the world’s most established concert stages such as the Goldener Saal of the Wiener Musikverein, the Berliner Philharmonie, the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, the Vancouver Island Music Festival or Stanford University.

Pioneer-spirited yet full of respect, Federspiel betakes to traditional realms, interweaves echoes of the Hungarian and Mexican music tradition with the Alpine repertoire, or percussive play with electronical sounds in order to create something new – contemporary music that respectfully bows to its past just as much as it courageously designs the future.

Laura Wösch