Michael Wollny
Michael Wollny, photo Joerg Steinmetz
At the invitation of the CDH and the Digital and Cognitive Musicology Laboratory, jazz pianist and composer Michael Wollny explored the processes of creation, theory, and calculation in music during his residency at EPFL. During his first visit in the spring of 2022, he offered a workshop in collaboration with Professor Martin Rohrmeier, as well as a concert at the Rolex Forum with his trio. Michael Wollny and his trio — Michael Wollny (piano), Christian Weber (bass), and Eric Schaefer (drums) — performed some of their compositions. The event also included an academic dialogue and interaction with the audience. The discussion focused on the artists’ workflow, questions of aesthetics and expression, collective improvisation, and the role of the ‘now’ in live musical creation.
Partenaire: Digital and Cognitive Musicology Lab
Wunderkammer, Laboratory and Stage
Wunderkammer, Laboratory and Stage
What roles do “artistic research” and “intuition” play in the creative process?
How are pieces created?
How are ensembles formed?
How does one compose for improvising musicians?
During his residency, Michael Wollny offered a workshop led by Martin Rohrmeier. Using selected examples from Wollny’s work, the workshop highlighted underlying motifs, aesthetic ideas, musical structures, and the creative process itself. It focused on the relationship between material, process, and the moment.
Michael Wollny
Michael Wollny is an internationally successful jazz pianist, music inventor, unconventional thinker, and popular figure. Nobody plays piano like him. His trademark: the unpredictable, the quest for the never-before-heard, the courage to devote himself to the moment, to make the unforeseen sound self-evident. His desire to keep reinventing himself, both in terms of sound and composition; that is what makes him a “consummate piano maestro” (FAZ) and “the biggest (jazz) musician personality that Germany has produced since Albert Mangelsdorff” (Hamburger Abendblatt).
Wollny feels at home in many different formats: solo, in duo with musicians like Heinz Sauer, Vincent Peirani, Tamar Halperin or Konstantin Gropper, with the Michael Wollny Trio, the quartet „Out Of Land“ and many other collaborations with musicians from all kinds of musical directions such as Nils Landgren, Emile Parisien, the Norwegian Wind Ensemble, Marius Neset, Leafcutter John or Joachim Kühn.