Alex Buess is a Swiss composer,

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of Single-reed instrument, single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed (mouthpi ...

player, producer and

sound artist Sound art is an artistic activity in which sound is utilized as a primary medium or material. Like many genres of contemporary art, sound art may be interdisciplinary in nature, or be used in hybrid forms. According to Brandon LaBelle, sound art ...

born in 1954 in

Basel , french: link=no, Bâlois(e), it, Basilese , neighboring_municipalities= Allschwil (BL), Hégenheim (FR-68), Binningen (BL), Birsfelden (BL), Bottmingen (BL), Huningue (FR-68), Münchenstein (BL), Muttenz (BL), Reinach (BL), Riehen (BS ...

(CH).

Biography

He collaborates (has collaborated) with Stephan Wittwer,

Paul Schütze Paul Schütze (born 1 May 1958) is an Australian artist resident in London. Over thirty years his work has spanned composition, performance, installation, video, printmaking and photography. Biography Schütze was born in Melbourne, Australi ...

, Kevin Martin,

Peter Brötzmann Peter Brötzmann (born 6 March 1941) is a German saxophonist and clarinetist. Biography Early life Brötzmann was born in Remscheid, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. He studied painting in Wuppertal and was involved with the Fluxus movement ...

, William Parker,

Raoul Björkenheim Raoul Melvin Björkenheim (born February 11, 1956) is an American jazz guitarist from Los Angeles. His mother is Finnish-American actress Taina Elg.''Finlands ridderskaps och adels kalender 1992'', pp. 92–93. Esbo 1991. In his teens he moved ...

Toshinori Kondo was a Japanese avant-garde jazz and jazz fusion trumpeter. Career Kondo was born in Ehime Prefecture. He attended Kyoto university in 1967, and became close friends with percussionist Tsuchitori Toshiyuki. In 1972 the pair left university, and ...

Bill Laswell William Otis Laswell (born February 12, 1955) is an American bass guitarist, record producer, and record label owner. He has been involved in thousands of recordings with many collaborators from all over the world. His music draws from funk, ...

Kevin Shields Kevin Patrick Shields (born 21 May 1963) is an American-born Irish musician, singer-songwriter, composer, and producer, best known as the vocalist and guitarist of the band My Bloody Valentine. They became influential on the evolution of alter ...

( My Bloody Valentine),

Tim Hodgkinson Timothy "Tim" George Hodgkinson (born 1 May 1949) is an English experimental music composer and performer, principally on reeds, lap steel guitar, and keyboards. He first became known as one of the core members of the British avant-rock group ...

, Michael Wertmüller, Daniel Buess and many other musicians in the wide field of improvisation,

electronics The field of electronics is a branch of physics and electrical engineering that deals with the emission, behaviour and effects of electrons using electronic devices. Electronics uses active devices to control electron flow by amplification ...

, electroacoustic music and

composition Composition or Compositions may refer to: Arts and literature *Composition (dance), practice and teaching of choreography *Composition (language), in literature and rhetoric, producing a work in spoken tradition and written discourse, to include v ...

. He plays/played in the groups

ICE Ice is water frozen into a solid state, typically forming at or below temperatures of 0 degrees Celsius or Depending on the presence of impurities such as particles of soil or bubbles of air, it can appear transparent or a more or less opaqu ...

God In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...

, Phantom City, The Bug, Sprawl, Cortex and his own group 16-17 Buess has written compositions for various contemporary music ensembles such as e. g. the

Ensemble Modern Ensemble Modern is an international ensemble dedicated to performing and promoting the music of modern composers. Formed in 1980, the group is based in Frankfurt, Germany, and made up variously of about twenty members from numerous countries. Hi ...

, the Xasax Saxophone Quartett Paris or the Ensemble Phoenix Basel and also works as a producer and sound engineer. His compositions are performed in Europe and throughout the world. Several of his works have been commissioned by well known music festivals. Buess`s compositions are characterized by dense layers of sound, polyrhythmic and microrhythmic structures. He has a penchant for using acoustic instruments as well as electroacoustic tools to amplify and alienate the original sounds resulting in compositions characterized by textural density and huge impact Alex Buess has received various prizes and sabbatical years including those offered by the Musikkreditkommission of Basel City in 1992 and the Robert Thyll-Dürr Foundation in 1998. His studies include

, acoustics, musicology,

phonetics Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...

semantics Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and comp ...

and

. He has appeared at various international festivals including

Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival The Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (also known by the acronym HCMF, stylised since 2006 as the lowercase hcmf//) is a new music festival held annually in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, England. Since its foundation in 1978, it has feature ...

(England), Rostrum for Electroacoustic Music (Austrian / Swiss contribution 1997 Radio DRS 2), Tampere Festival (Finland), Musique Action Vandœuvres-les-Nancy (France), Taktlos 1993/95/96/2003 (CH), Tonart Festival 2000 (CH), Festival de Musica Contemporanea in Quito (Ecuador), and the Encuentro de Compositores Bolivianos in Sucre (Bolivia),

Lucerne Festival Lucerne Festival is one of the leading international festivals in the world of classical music and presents a series of classical music festivals based in Lucerne, Switzerland. Founded in 1938 by Ernest Ansermet and Walter Schulthess, it curren ...

(2005),

Warsaw Autumn Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officiall ...

(2006), Donaueschingen Music Festival (2007), Tage für Neue Musik Zürich(2013) and various concerts and festivals in Japan, Australia and China. Buess’s work reflects his experience with electronic technology, written contemporary music,

film music A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film. The score comprises a number of orchestral, instrumental, or choral pieces called cues, which are timed to begin and end at specific points during the film in order to e ...

, new mixing and production techniques and

computer music Computer music is the application of computing technology in music composition, to help human composers create new music or to have computers independently create music, such as with algorithmic composition programs. It includes the theory and ...

Discography (selection)

* Ice with Kevin Martin, Dave Cochrane, John Jobaggy, Justin Broadrick and Alex Buess. Title:'' Under The Skin''. Label: Pathological GB (1993) * ''Sprawl'' with Michael Wertmüller, Peter Brötzmann, Alex Buess, Stephan Wittwer and William Parker. Label: Trost, A (1997) * 16-17, title: '' Gyatso'', Label: Pathological GB (1993), Reedition 2008: Savageland Records * God, title: ''

The Anatomy of Addiction ''The Anatomy of Addiction'' is the second and final studio album by the experimental rock band God, released on 5 May 1994 by Big Cat Records. Reception Allmusic staff writer Ned Raggett gave the record three stars, calling it a "fantastic lis ...

'', Label: Big Cat GB, USA (1994) * The Bug, title: ''Tapping the Conversation'' with Kevin Martin, Dave Cochrane, Simon Hopkins, Label: Wordsound USA (1995) * Phantom City, title: '' Site Anubis'' with Paul Schütze, Raoul Björkenheim, Alex Buess, LolCoxhill, Bill Laswell and Dirk Wachtelaer, Label: Big Cat GB (1996) * Phantom City, title: '' Shiva Recoil: Live/Unlive'' at the Tampere Jazzfestival, Finland. Label: Virgin UK (1997) * Xasax Saxophon quartet: composition: ''Hyperbaton'', CD Erol 7019 by Xasax. Works by Donatoni, Xenakis, Cage, Aperghis, Wolpe, Buess, Essel und Rzewski. * Ensemble Phoenix Basel, title: ''Repulsion'': compositions: ''Maxwell’s Demon'' and ''Parallaxe A'', United Phoenix Records 001. Works by Dror Feiler, Tim Hodgkinson and Alex Buess.

Chamber music scores (selection)

* ''Ata-7'' for saxophone, live-electronics and

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Ex ...

* ''Khat'' for bass-flute, percussion and live-electronics * ''Parallaxe A'' for large ensemble and 5-channeltape * ''X_Syn_Drome_1'' for soprano, perkussion, live-electronics and tape * ''Metatron's cube'' for clarinet,

trombone The trombone (german: Posaune, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate ...

, amplified violin, amplified violoncello, amplified doublebass and percussion * ''Phylum'' for solo perkussion, solo electronics, large ensemble and live-electronics * ''Ghosts of Schizophonia'' for double ensemble and live-electronics

Sources

External links

Alex Buess website

Alex Buess at discogs

Alex Buess at allmusic
{{DEFAULTSORT:Buess Alex Swiss composers Swiss male composers Swiss saxophonists Male saxophonists Living people 1954 births Musicians from Basel-Stadt 21st-century saxophonists 21st-century male musicians 16-17 members