Ulrike Haage (born in Kassel, lives and works in Berlin) is a German pianist and composer, producer for radio plays and a sound artist.

Biography

The jazz years

Ulrike Haage spent her childhood in Ruhr. She grew up listening to the big jazz record collection of her parents and trained to play piano listening to masters as

Bill Evans William John Evans (August 16, 1929 – September 15, 1980) was an American jazz pianist and composer who worked primarily as the leader of his trio. His use of impressionist harmony, interpretation of traditional jazz repertoire, block ch ...

and

Thelonious Monk Thelonious Sphere Monk (, October 10, 1917 – February 17, 1982) was an American jazz pianist and composer. He had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including " 'Round Midnight", "B ...

, improvising. As a teenager she started singing and playing guitar in a garage-band. After studying music and music therapy at Musikhochschule Hamburg, she stayed on an taught improvisation and orchestra direction from 1985 to 1989. During this time she begins to compose and starts playing piano for the first German Female Jazz band: Reichlich Weiblich. While working with

Peter Zadek Peter Zadek (; 19 May 1926 – 30 July 2009) was a German director of theatre, opera and film, a translator and a screenwriter. He is regarded as one of the greatest directors in German-speaking theater. Biography Peter Zadek was born on 19 May ...

on the theatre play ''Andi'', she meets

FM Einheit Frank-Martin Strauß, better known as F.M. Einheit and also known as Mufti, (born 18 December 1958, in Dortmund) is an industrial and electronic musician and actor from Germany. While primarily known for his percussion work with the influenti ...

. With him,

Alfred 23 Harth Alfred Harth, now known as Alfred 23 Harth or A23H, is a German multimedia artist, band leader, multi-instrumentalist musician, and composer who creatively mixes genres. Career Harth founded a free improvisation band, Just Music (1967 to 1972 ...

and

Phil Minton Phil Minton (born 2 November 1940) is a British avant-garde jazz/ free-improvising vocalist and trumpeter. Minton is a highly dramatic baritone who tends to specialize in literary texts: he has sung lyrics by William Blake with Mike Westbrook's ...

, the group

Vladimir Estragon Vladimir Estragon were an avant-rock group founded in West Germany in 1988 by German composer and reed player Alfred Harth with FM Einheit, Ulrike Haage, and Phil Minton ( UK). In 1980 Harth produced the LP ''Es herrscht Uhu im Land'' on JAPO/E ...

is founded, where Ulrike begins to introduce electronic music. A year later, because of the departure of Alfred Harth, the quartet becomes the trio

GOTO GoTo (goto, GOTO, GO TO or other case combinations, depending on the programming language) is a statement found in many computer programming languages. It performs a one-way transfer of control to another line of code; in contrast a function ca ...

, with the vocal acrobatics of

Pop and theatre years

In 1990, she joins

Katharina Franck Katharina Franck (born July 28, 1963) is a German singer, songwriter, and musician. She first achieved fame as singer, songwriter, and guitarist of pop rock band the Rainbirds in the late 1980s. Besides her work with Rainbirds, she was also a mem ...

in the pop group

Rainbirds The Rainbirds are a German pop rock band established in 1986 around singer Katharina Franck. Their greatest hit is the song "Blueprint". History The band formed in 1986 and named themselves after an instrumental track by Tom Waits. When they wo ...

, which is already facing recognition (their first album ''Rainbirds attained'' gold record). They release ''Two faces'' and ''In A Different Light'' . Between tours and recordings for the Rainbirds and the theatre music group

Stein Stein is a German, Yiddish and Norwegian word meaning "stone" and "pip" or "kernel". It stems from the same Germanic root as the English word stone. It may refer to: Places In Austria * Stein, a neighbourhood of Krems an der Donau, Lower Austr ...

(

) Ulrike Haage works at theaters in Zurich ( Uwe Eric Laufenberg), Düsseldorf (

Kazuko Watanabe Kazuko Watanabe (February 11, 1927 – December 30, 2016) was a Japanese religious sister, educationist, and writer. Her Christian name was Sister Saint John. She was a member of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur and served as president of the ...

.) and Berlin (e.g. The ''Ballade of Narayama'' with Kazuko Watanabe) In 1999 a close collaboration with the actress

Meret Becker Meret Becker (; born 15 January 1969) is a German actress and singer. Life and career Meret Becker was born in Bremen, the daughter of the actors Monika Hansen and Rolf Becker but she was raised in Berlin by her mother with her stepfather Ot ...

begins. In addition she becomes the music director of the concert’s program ''Nachtmahr'' and records the CD ''Fragiles''. With the translator and publisher Sylvia de Hollanda (Pociao's Books), she founds Sans Soleil, a publishing house for books and radio plays.

German jazz award: Alfred Mangelsdorff Preis

In 2003 Ulrike Haage becomes the first and up to then the youngest woman to win the

German Jazz Award The Deutsche Jazzpreis, also known as the Albert Mangelsdorff-Preis, is, together with the Hans Koller Preis, the most important jazz award in the German-speaking region. Since 1994, it has been awarded every two years by the Union Deutscher Jaz ...

. Markus Müller, presenting the award, pays tribute "to her outstanding and truly versatile life-work that permanently reinvents itself ». He emphasizes her artistic way through pop, art and avant-garde.

The solo period, not so solo

''Sélavy,'' her first instrumental solo album is released in 2004. In the next two years, the

Goethe Institut The Goethe-Institut (, GI, en, Goethe Institute) is a non-profit German cultural association operational worldwide with 159 institutes, promoting the study of the German language abroad and encouraging international cultural exchange and ...

of Moscow invites her to tour the cities along the Wolga and Siberia, playing concerts and giving workshops. In 2006, she records her second solo album ''Weißes Land''. Since then, she participates among other projects in the ''Ring'' with choreographer Felix Ruckert and musician Christian Meyer, where she plays simultaneously to the choreography happening in front of her in interaction with the dancers. 2007, she becomes an artist-in-residence at the Hartung-Bergman foundation, composing a "dialogue", a music piece for chamber vibraphone, marimbaphone and electronics (''Nunatak),'' in correspondence to the paintings of

Anna-Eva Bergman Anna-Eva Bergman (29 May 1909 – 24 July 1987) was a Norwegian abstract expressionist artist. She was a modernist artist and part of the School of Paris. Her abstract paintings were often inspired by nature and based on abstracted motifs. Bi ...

and produces more and more radio plays for the German public radio. For example, ''Alles aber Anders (2009)'', a radio play for the Bavarian Radio,

Bayerischer Rundfunk Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR; "Bavarian Broadcasting") is a public-service radio and television broadcaster, based in Munich, capital city of the Free State of Bavaria in Germany. BR is a member organization of the ARD consortium of public broadcas ...

,http://www.br-online.de/bayern2/hoerspiel-und-medienkunst/sendungen2009-1-hoerspiel-artmix-br-ursendung-ID1230322565881.xml after the diary of the sculptor

Eva Hesse Eva Hesse (January 11, 1936 – May 29, 1970) was a German-born American sculptor known for her pioneering work in materials such as latex, fiberglass, and plastics. She is one of the artists who ushered in the postminimal art movement in the 196 ...

. For the celebration of the 90th Anniversary of the

Bauhaus The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the Bauhaus (), was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., 200 ...

, she performs her radio play ''Der Kreis ist rot'', after the diary of

Oskar Schlemmer Oskar Schlemmer (4 September 1888 – 13 April 1943) was a German painter, sculptor, designer and choreographer associated with the Bauhaus school. In 1923, he was hired as Master of Form at the Bauhaus theatre workshop, after working at the wo ...

. The opera radio play ''Amnesie der Ozeane'' in collaboration with Stephan Krass, is produced in 2010, as is the music for the sound-book ''Heimsuchung (''novel by

Jenny Erpenbeck Jenny Erpenbeck (born 12 March 1967) is a German writer and opera director, recipient of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. Life Born in East Berlin, Erpenbeck is the daughter of the physicist, philosopher and writer John Erpenbeck and th ...

). Between concerts and conferences her third solo album ''In:finitum'' is in the making and released in 2011. In 2012 Ulrike Haage spends 3 months at the artist-residence ''Villa Kamagowa'' in Kyoto, Japan. Here the idea for the composition of ''For all my walking'' takes root. Another artist-in-residence program, this time at the Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, is where she produces an audio-visual piece ''between sound and silence'', which deals with the subject of public space as a sound space. 2015 saw the release (September 4) of her fourth solo album ''Maelstrom.'' The same year the production of two radio plays ''Lockbuch'' and ''Geld were finished'' and the composition of the soundtrack to the new

Doris Dörrie Doris Dörrie (; born 26 May 1955) is a German film director, producer and author. Biography Born in Hanover, Dörrie completed her secondary education there in 1973. The same year, she began a two-year attendance in film studies in the drama de ...

film
Grüße aus Fukushima
', which was running at the 66th

Berlinale The Berlin International Film Festival (german: Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin), usually called the Berlinale (), is a major international film festival held annually in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the festi ...

International Film Festival, was recorded. Also showing at the 2016 Berlinale was the fil
Landstück
by German filmmaker

Volker Koepp Volker Koepp (born 22 June 1944) is a German documentary film producer. Early life Koepp was born in Stettin, a German port city then subjected to a sustained campaign of bombing during World War II. By the time the city was taken over by the ...

featuring music by Ulrike Haage.

Influences

When you listen to her music, you can go to the quest for the different musics which have had a strong influence on her style. Of course, there is the

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

– since her debuts with the records of her parents, up to her first jazz-band. Her compositions, even today leave a big part to improvisation. Oft one could find on her partitions only an indication of chord on which she will improvise during the concert. Her very thorough and classic training of music brings an instrumental acuteness and sharpness to her music. Each break is controlled, each period has its sens. She puts her music together using repetitions of more or less long terms, according to the tradition of the

ostinato In music, an ostinato (; derived from Italian word for ''stubborn'', compare English ''obstinate'') is a motif or phrase that persistently repeats in the same musical voice, frequently in the same pitch. Well-known ostinato-based pieces include ...

. Music is not her sole inspiration, she is also an artist with words. She works with them as she works with musical subjects. A lot of these play-on-words have an artist´s words for inspiration. ''Alles aber Anders'', from

´s journal, is a particularly interesting example; she repeats certain words according to a particular rhythm, replaced by a sound, until exhaustion. Just like these visual artists (

Louise Bourgeois Louise Joséphine Bourgeois (; 25 December 191131 May 2010) was a French-American artist. Although she is best known for her large-scale sculpture and installation art, Bourgeois was also a prolific painter and printmaker. She explored a varie ...

), whose words she puts into music, we can hear breaks, "flat areas", as if she were drawing musical landscapes with big streaks of colors. Ulrike Haage herself is an influence to new artists such as Nepomuk, who remixed "Magic Waters".

Defining the "genre"

How could her music, taking inspiration in the whole music history, be defined? electro-jazz? nu-jazz? film soundtrack? theatre music? and what about the piano? and the more classic parts? Ulrike Haage is constantly redefining her music and her way of composing and creating. She flees in order to invent a new writing each time. An adjective stands out: eclectic. Then, others come to mind; still, light, crystalline. Maybe the time has come, as Frédéric Derval said it, to forget about the encompassing "genres" and names in order to find a new way to express music.

Discography

* ''Grüße aus Fukushima'' (2016), BPM, soundtrack * ''Maelstrom'' (solo album, 2015), BPM * ''Erzählung des Gleichgewichts 4:W'' (2015) Blue Pearls (Indigo) * ''Das verschwundene M'' (2014) soundtrack * ''For all my walking'' (2014), Sans Soleil * ''Meret Oppenheim: Eine Surrealistin auf eigenen Wegen'' (2013) DVD * ''Flügel und Katze''. Musik für Kinder (2012) * ''Ema. Akte auf der Treppe'' (2011) soundtrack * ''Ana:mnesis'' (2011), BPM * ''In:finitum'' (solo album, 2011), BPM * ''Goldrausch'' (2011), BPM, soundtrack * ''Zwiebelfische'' (2010) DVD, soundtrack * ''Edition Filmmusik - Komponiert in Deutschland #13: Ulrike Haage'' (2010), NORMAL Records * ''Le Pianoscope'' (2007) Edition UBM/Universal Publishing Production Music GmbH * ''Weißes Land'' (solo album, 2006), content records * ''Sélavy'' (solo album, 2004) content records Reichlich Weiblich - ''Live in Moers'' (1987) Vladimir Estragon (mit Alfred Harth, FM Einheit, Phil Minton) - ''Three Quarks for Muster Mark'' (1989) Rainbirds - ''3000.live'' (1999), ''Forever'' (1997), ''Making Memory'' (1996), ''The Mercury Years'' (1995), ''In a Different Light'' (1993), ''Two Faces'' (1991) Gruppe Stein (Katharina Franck und FM Einheit) - ''König Zucker'' (1994), ''Steinzeit'' (1992) Goto - ''Goto'', Phil Minton, FM Einheit, Haage (1995)

''Filmography''

* ''Landstück'' (Vineta Film & RBB, D 2016) directed by Volker Koepp, music by Ulrike Haage * ''Grüße aus Fukushima'' (OLGA FILM, D 2016) directed by Doris Dörrie, music by Ulrike Haage * ''Snapshot Mon Amour''. Haiku-short film (thede filmproduktion, D 2015) a film by Christian Bau, music by Ulrike Haage * ''Das verschwundene M'' (thede filmproduktion, D 2014) directed by Maria Hemmleb, music by Ulrike Haage * ''Meret Oppenheim: Eine Surrealistin auf eigenen Wegen'' (Kobalt Productions, D 2013) directed by Daniela Schmidt-Langels, music by Ulrike Haage * ''Ema. Akt auf Treppe'' (zero one film, SWR & ARTE, D 2012) directed by Corinna Belz, music byUlrike Haage * ''Goldrausch'' (zero one film, SWR, NDR & MDR, D 2012) produced by Thomas Kufus, music by Ulrike Haage * ''Zwiebelfische'' (thede filmproduktion, D 2010) a film by Christian Bau & Artur Dickhoff, music by Ulrike Haage

Radio Plays

* ''Geld'' (DKultur, 2015) text: Gertrude Stein, direction and composition: Ulrike Haage * ''Lockbuch'' (NDR2, 2015) text: Nora Gomringer und

Annemarie Bostroem Annemarie Bostroem (24 May 1922 – 9 September 2015) was a German poet, playwright, and lyricist. She lived most recently in the Prenzlauer Berg neighborhood of Berlin. Career and life Bostroem was born to a family of doctors in Leipzig. Having ...

, direction and composition: Ulrike Haage * ''The Moon Tapes'' (SWR, 2014), Stephan Krass, Ulrike Haage, composition for the SWR vocal ensemble und 3 narrators * ''Der Kreis ist rot'' (WDR3, 2014) feature about the Bauhausmeister Oskar Schlemmer * ''Die magische Pfeilspitze'' (WDR5, KiRaKa, 2013) for children * ''Orlando'' (BR, 2013), Random House * ''Alle Vögel fliegen hoch'' (BR2,^{/sup> 2012) after the stories by the painter Leonora Carrington
* ''Erzählung des Gleichgewichts 4:W'' (DKultur, 2012) text: Jean Daive, composition: Ulrike Haage
* ''Nichts. Was im Leben wichtig ist'' (SWR2, 2011) Janne Teller, Ulrike Haage
* ''Wenn ich vier Dromedare hätte'' (WDR3, 2011) feature about the film essayist Chris Marker
* ''Heimsuchung'' (BR2, 2009) novel by Jenny Erpenbeck
* ''Amnesie der Ozeane'' (SWR2, 2009)
* ''Alles aber anders'' (BR, 2009), from the diaries by Eva Hesse, Sans Soleil
* ''Der Wind in der Weiden'' (WDR, 2008), after the text by Kenneth Grahame
* ''Die Stille hinter den Worten'' (BR, 2008)
* ''Pikdame''. Pamphletes and letters by Nancy Cunard (BR, 2006)
* ''Exakte Vision'' (BR, 2004), Ulrike Vosswinkel, Ulrike Haage, Sans Soleil
* ''Ding fest machen'' (BR, 2003), after the writings by Louise Bourgeois, Sans Soleil
* ''Bombsong'' (HR, 2002), Thea Dorn, Ulrike Haage (commission for Frankfurter Positionen),Sans Soleil
* ''Reise, Toter'' (BR, 2001) Durs Grünbein, Ulrike Haage, Sans Soleil
* ''Last Words : Qui Vivre Verra'' (BR, 2001), W. S. Burroughs, Ulrike Haage, Barbara Schäfer, Sans Soleil
* ''Die Wüste Lop Nor'' (BR, 2000), Raoul Schrott, Musik von Ulrike Haage, HÖR Verlag, 2000
* ''Bei unserer Lebensweise ist es sehr angenehm, lange im voraus zu einer Party eingeladen zu werden'' (BR, 1999), Jane Bowles, Katharina Franck, Ulrike Haage), Sans Soleil
* ''Odysseus 7'' (BR, 1998), Ammer, Einheit, Haage ; FM 4.5.1
* ''7 Dances Of The Holy Ghost'' (BR, 1998), Ammer, Haage, Sans Soleil
* ''Apokalypse live'' (BR, 1994), Ammer, Einheit, Haage, Hörspielpreis der Kriegsblinden
The Hörspielpreis der Kriegsblinden (War Blinded Audio Play Prize), also known as the Kriegsblindenpreis (War Blinded Prize) is the most important literary prize granted to playwrights of audio plays written in the German language. The award was e ...
, Special Prize for Fiction des Prix Italia 1995, Verlag: FM 4.5.1

''Other projects''

* ''Schlachtplatte'', 1998 with the Stein group, German operette from the ''Ring'', produced by the Marstall Theater München.
* ''Imaginary Landscapes'', podcast
cklab

Collaborations

* ''Fragiles'' (2001), Meret Becker, Buddy Sacher, Ulrike Haage
* Music for the bonus of the DVD ''Requiem'' by Hans-Christian Schmid

Hans-Christian Schmid (born 1965) is a German film director and screenwriter.
Life and work
Hans-Christian Schmid has collaborated with on several of the movies that he directed. Gutmann wrote screenplays for ''23 (film), 23 — Nichts ist so ...
, 2007

Sources

This article is based on translation of article on the German Wikipedia and the French one Ulrike Haage

Ulrike Haage (born in Kassel, lives and works in Berlin) is a German pianist and composer, producer for radio plays and a sound artist.
Biography
The jazz years
Ulrike Haage spent her childhood in Ruhr. She grew up listening to the big jazz r ...
, as from her internet sit
myspace

The biography extracted fro
Creative Europe
ref>Ulrike Haage was invited to the conference''Creative Europe - The Power of Culture in European Cities '' to explain particularly the status of the artist in front of the was consulted also this on
hardscore.de

Further reading

*Ulrike Haage, « Klanggefüttert im Dunkeln nach Hause », in Räumungen – Von der Unverschämtheit, Theater für ein Medium der Zukunft zu halten, Acte du colloque dirigé par Ralph Hammerthaler

Ralph Hammerthaler (born 2 December 1965) is a German writer.
Life
Born in Wasserburg am Inn, Hammerthaler studied in Munich, Berlin and Jena and wrote a dissertation on political public sphere in sociology. After eight years as a writer in the ...
et Elisabeth Schweeger, p. 104-107, Berlin, Alexander, 2000.
*Ulrike Haage, « Meine Sehnsucht nach Musik im Theater », in TheaterPeripherien, p. 221-227, Tübingen, Konkursbuchverlag Claudia Gehrke, 2001.

References

External links

Official Site

Edition Sans Soleil

Rainbirds Official Site

{{DEFAULTSORT:Haage, Ulrike
German pianists
German women pianists
German composers
1957 births
Living people
Musicians from Kassel
21st-century pianists
21st-century women pianists}