Stephan Micus (; born 19 January 1953) is a German musician and composer, whose musical style is heavily influenced by his study of traditional instruments and musical techniques from Japan, India, South America, and other countries. With the exception of his album ''The Music of Stones'' (1989), he plays all the instruments on his recordings, combining styles from different countries and using the instruments in unprecedented ways in each of his pieces. He often uses layers of a single instrument to create unusual combinations of sounds. He is one of the few

ECM Records ECM (Edition of Contemporary Music) is an independent record label founded by Karl Egger, Manfred Eicher and Manfred Scheffner in Munich in 1969. While ECM is best known for jazz music, the label has released a variety of recordings, and ECM's a ...

artists whose records are not produced by

Manfred Eicher Manfred Eicher (born 9 July 1943) is a German record producer and the founder of ECM Records. Life and career Eicher was born in Lindau, Germany. He studied music at the Academy of Music in Berlin. He started as a double-bass player of classic ...

. He has mixed instruments from around the world, or used whatever was at hand: stones, ordinary flowerpots tuned with water, and his voice—singing improvised syllables over ten years before others made this approach fashionable. Micus has played

bagpipes Bagpipes are a woodwind instrument using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. The Great Highland bagpipes are well known, but people have played bagpipes for centuries throughout large parts of Europe, No ...

, Japanese bamboo flute, rabab,

steel drums The steelpan (also known as a pan, steel drum, and sometimes, collectively with other musicians, as a steelband or steel orchestra) is a musical instrument originating in Trinidad and Tobago. Steelpan musicians are called pannists. Descriptio ...

, and

zither Zithers (; , from the Greek word ''cithara'') are a class of stringed instruments. Historically, the name has been applied to any instrument of the psaltery family, or to an instrument consisting of many strings stretched across a thin, flat bo ...

Discography

* 1976 - ''Archaic Concerts'' (Caroline/Virgin) * 1977 - '' Implosions'' (Japo/ECM) * 1978 - ''Behind Eleven Deserts'' (Wind) * 1978 – ''Till the End of Time'' (Japo/ECM) * 1981 - ''Koan'' (Japo/ECM) (recorded in 1977) * 1982 – ''Wings over Water'' (Japo/ECM) * 1983 – ''Listen to the Rain'' (Japo/ECM) * 1985 – ''East of the Night'' (Japo/ECM) * 1986 – ''

Ocean The ocean (also the sea or the world ocean) is the body of salt water that covers approximately 70.8% of the surface of Earth and contains 97% of Earth's water. An ocean can also refer to any of the large bodies of water into which the wo ...

'' (ECM) * 1987 – '' Twilight Fields'' (ECM) * 1989 – ''The Music of Stones'' (ECM) * 1990 – ''Darkness and Light'' (ECM) * 1992 – ''To the Evening Child'' (ECM) * 1994 – ''

Athos Athos may refer to: Fictional or mythical characters * Athos (character), one of the title characters in the novel ''The Three Musketeers'' (1844) by Alexandre Dumas père * Athos (mythology), one of the Gigantes in Greek mythology * Athos Fadiga ...

'' (ECM) * 1997 – '' The Garden of Mirrors'' (ECM) * 2001 – ''Desert Poems'' (ECM) * 2002 – ''Towards the Wind'' (ECM) * 2004 – ''Life'' (ECM) * 2006 – ''On the Wing'' (ECM) * 2008 – ''Snow'' (ECM) * 2010 – ''Bold as Light'' (ECM) * 2013 – ''Panagia'' (ECM) * 2015 – '' Nomad Songs'' (ECM) * 2017 – ''Inland Sea'' (ECM) * 2019 – ''White night'' (ECM) * 2021 – ''Winter's End'' (ECM) * 2023 - ''Thunder'' (ECM)

References

External links

Biography from ECM

Stephan Micus page on ECM

Stephan Micus: Solitary Pursuits (interviews)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Micus, Stephan 1953 births Living people Caroline Records artists German composers ECM Records artists Shō players Tin whistle players