Ulrike Haage
Encyclopedia
Ulrike Haage is a German pianist and composer. She is also a producer for radio plays, for which she does the dramaturgy and the music composition. Last but not least, she is a sound artist.
and Thelonious Monk
: she used to improvise on the discs. Teenager she sang and played guitar in a garage-band.
To study music and music therapy, she goes to Hamburg. From 1985 to 1989, she teaches in Musikhochschule of Hamburg improvisation and orchestra direction. During this time she begins to compose and build the first German Jazz-band: Reichlich Weiblich. Thanks to her work with Peter Zadek
on the theatre play Andi, she meets FM Einheit. With him, Alfred 23 Harth and Phil Minton
, she founded the group Vladimir Estragon
. She begins to use the electronic music. A year later, because of the departure of Alfred Harth the quartet become a trio GOTO
, with the vocal acrobaties of Phil Minton
.
in the pop group Rainbirds
, which is already facing recognition amongst its pairs (their first album was gold disc). She then records the following albums along with the group, of which Two faces and In A Different Light. Anton Corbijn
produces the clip of the song Two Faces.
Between tours and recordings for Rainbirds and the theatre music group (Theatermusikgruppe) Stein
, made up of Katharina Franck
, FM Einheit and Ulrike Haage, she works with famous theatre directors like Uwe Eric Laufenberg (in Zurich), Kazuko Watanabe.
In 1999, she begins an intensive work with the actress Meret Becker
. She works as music director of the concert’s program Nachtmahr and records the CD Fragiles.
With the translator and publisher Pociao, she founded Sans Soleil, radio plays publishing house (sound books). Till today they published nine CDs and seven books.
. Markus Müller
, giving her the prize, pays tribute “to her outstanding and truely versatile life-work that permanently reinvents itself ». He has also emphasized her artistic way through pop, art and avant-garde.
In year 2006, she records her second solo album, Weißes Land.
Since 2006, she participated to the Ring project with the choreographer Felix Ruckert and the musician Christian Meyer
. She plays simultaneously with a choreography happening in front of her eyes, playing in interaction with the dancers.
She was also, since 2008, artist-in-residence of the Hartung-Bergman foundation. She is composing as in dialoging with the paintings of Anna-Eva Bergman, a music piece for chamber vibraphone, marimbaphone and electronics, Nunatak.
In May 2009, took place the production of Alles aber Anders, radio play for the Bavarian Radio, Bayerischer Rundfunk
, from the diary of the plastic artist, Eva Hesse
. She also gave some performances after her radio play Der Kreis ist rot, from the diary of Oskar Schlemmer
for celebration of the 90th Birthday of the Bauhaus
.
Between concerts and conferences she composes her third album. At the same time she composes an opera-radioplay with the collaboration of Stephan Krass, to be produced in 2010, as the music for the sound-book Heimsuchung, from the novel of Jenny Erpenbeck
, .
– since her debuts with the discs 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
.
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 Eva Hesse
´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 (Eva Hesse
, Louise Bourgeois
), 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".
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.
Not published radio plays
Other projects
The biography extracted from Creative Europe was consulted also this one hardscore.de.
The jazz years
Ulrike Haage spent her childhood in Ruhr. She grew up listening to the big jazz discs collection of her parents. and she trained to play piano listening to masters as Bill EvansBill Evans
William John Evans, known as Bill Evans was an American jazz pianist. His use of impressionist harmony, inventive interpretation of traditional jazz repertoire, and trademark rhythmically independent, "singing" melodic lines influenced a generation of pianists including: Chick Corea, Herbie...
and Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer considered "one of the giants of American music". Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "Epistrophy", "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser"...
: she used to improvise on the discs. Teenager she sang and played guitar in a garage-band.
To study music and music therapy, she goes to Hamburg. From 1985 to 1989, she teaches in Musikhochschule of Hamburg improvisation and orchestra direction. During this time she begins to compose and build the first German Jazz-band: Reichlich Weiblich. Thanks to her work with Peter Zadek
Peter Zadek
Peter Zadek was a German theatre and film director, play translator and screenwriter and is regarded as one of the greatest directors in German-speaking theater. He was the head of the Schauspielhaus Bochum, Bochum , the Deutsches Schauspielhaus, Hamburg and the Berliner Ensemble from 1992 to 1996...
on the theatre play Andi, she meets FM Einheit. With him, Alfred 23 Harth and Phil Minton
Phil Minton
Phil Minton is a 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 group, Daniil Kharms and Joseph Brodsky with Simon Nabatov, and extracts from James Joyce's...
, she founded the group Vladimir Estragon
Vladimir Estragon
Vladimir Estragon were an avant-rock group founded in Germany in 1988 by German composer and reed player Alfred Harth with FM Einheit, Ulrike Haage, and Phil Minton...
. She begins to use the electronic music. A year later, because of the departure of Alfred Harth the quartet become a trio GOTO
Goto
goto is a statement found in many computer programming languages. It is a combination of the English words go and to. It performs a one-way transfer of control to another line of code; in contrast a function call normally returns control...
, with the vocal acrobaties of Phil Minton
Phil Minton
Phil Minton is a 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 group, Daniil Kharms and Joseph Brodsky with Simon Nabatov, and extracts from James Joyce's...
.
Pop and theatre years
From 1989, she rejoins Katharina FranckKatharina Franck
Katharina Franck is German singer who became famous with her band Rainbirds and has produced several solo albums.-Biography:...
in the pop group Rainbirds
Rainbirds
The Rainbirds were a German Pop rock band established in 1986 around the singer Katharina Franck. Their greatest hit was "Blueprint".-History:...
, which is already facing recognition amongst its pairs (their first album was gold disc). She then records the following albums along with the group, of which Two faces and In A Different Light. Anton Corbijn
Anton Corbijn
Anton Corbijn is a Dutch photographer, music video and film director. He is the creative director behind the visual output of Depeche Mode and U2, having handled the principal promotion and sleeve photography for both for more than a decade...
produces the clip of the song Two Faces.
Between tours and recordings for Rainbirds and the theatre music group (Theatermusikgruppe) Stein
Stein
Stein is a German and Norwegian word meaning "stone" and may refer to:* Beer stein* Stein , a beer brewery in Bratislava, Slovakia* USS Stein , a frigate in the U.S...
, made up of Katharina Franck
Katharina Franck
Katharina Franck is German singer who became famous with her band Rainbirds and has produced several solo albums.-Biography:...
, FM Einheit and Ulrike Haage, she works with famous theatre directors like Uwe Eric Laufenberg (in Zurich), Kazuko Watanabe.
In 1999, she begins an intensive work with the actress Meret Becker
Meret Becker
- Life and career :Becker was born in Bremen, the daughter of the actors Monika Hansen and Rolf Becker. She is the sister of Ben Becker, stepdaughter of Otto Sander and granddaughter of Claire Schlichting....
. She works as music director of the concert’s program Nachtmahr and records the CD Fragiles.
With the translator and publisher Pociao, she founded Sans Soleil, radio plays publishing house (sound books). Till today they published nine CDs and seven books.
German jazz award: Alfred Mangelsdorff Preis
In year 2003, Ulrike Haage is the first woman (and the youngest “jazzman”) to win the German Jazz AwardGerman 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...
. Markus Müller
Markus Müller
Markus Müller is a German footballer who plays for SV Babelsberg 03.-External links:...
, giving her the prize, pays tribute “to her outstanding and truely versatile life-work that permanently reinvents itself ». He has also emphasized her artistic way through pop, art and avant-garde.
The solo period, not so solo
In year 2004, her first instrumental solo album comes out; Sélavy. The next two years, the Goethe Institut of Moscow organizes two tours with her, in the following cities of the Wolga and in Siberia in order to introduce her and make her teach in some workshops.In year 2006, she records her second solo album, Weißes Land.
Since 2006, she participated to the Ring project with the choreographer Felix Ruckert and the musician Christian Meyer
Christian Meyer
Christian Meyer is a retired track cyclist from Germany, who won the gold medal for his native country in the men's team time trial at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain. His winning teammates were Michael Rich, Bernd Dittert and Uwe Peschel.-References:...
. She plays simultaneously with a choreography happening in front of her eyes, playing in interaction with the dancers.
She was also, since 2008, artist-in-residence of the Hartung-Bergman foundation. She is composing as in dialoging with the paintings of Anna-Eva Bergman, a music piece for chamber vibraphone, marimbaphone and electronics, Nunatak.
In May 2009, took place the production of Alles aber Anders, radio play for the Bavarian Radio, Bayerischer Rundfunk
Bayerischer Rundfunk
Bayerischer Rundfunk [Bavarian Broadcasting] is the public broadcasting authority for the German Freistaat of Bavaria, with its main offices located in Munich. BR is a member of ARD.- Legal foundation :...
, from the diary of the plastic artist, Eva Hesse
Eva Hesse
Eva Hesse , was a German-born American sculptor, known for her pioneering work in materials such as latex, fiberglass, and plastics. -Early life:Hesse was born into a family of observant Jews in Hamburg, Germany...
. She also gave some performances after her radio play Der Kreis ist rot, from the diary of Oskar Schlemmer
Oskar Schlemmer
Oskar Schlemmer 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 some time at the workshop of sculpture...
for celebration of the 90th Birthday of the Bauhaus
Bauhaus
', commonly known simply as Bauhaus, was a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It operated from 1919 to 1933. At that time the German term stood for "School of Building".The Bauhaus school was founded by...
.
Between concerts and conferences she composes her third album. At the same time she composes an opera-radioplay with the collaboration of Stephan Krass, to be produced in 2010, as the music for the sound-book Heimsuchung, from the novel of Jenny Erpenbeck
Jenny Erpenbeck
-Life:Jenny Erpenbeck is the daughter of the physicist, philosopher and writer John Erpenbeck and the Arabic translator Doris Kilias. Her grandparents are the authors Fritz Erpenbeck and Hedda Zinner. In Berlin she attended an Advanced High School, where she graduated in 1985...
, .
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 jazzJazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
– since her debuts with the discs 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
Ostinato
In music, an ostinato is a motif or phrase, which is persistently repeated in the same musical voice. An ostinato is always a succession of equal sounds, wherein each note always has the same weight or stress. The repeating idea may be a rhythmic pattern, part of a tune, or a complete melody in...
.
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 Eva Hesse
Eva Hesse
Eva Hesse , was a German-born American sculptor, known for her pioneering work in materials such as latex, fiberglass, and plastics. -Early life:Hesse was born into a family of observant Jews in Hamburg, Germany...
´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 (Eva Hesse
Eva Hesse
Eva Hesse , was a German-born American sculptor, known for her pioneering work in materials such as latex, fiberglass, and plastics. -Early life:Hesse was born into a family of observant Jews in Hamburg, Germany...
, Louise Bourgeois
Louise Bourgeois
Louise Joséphine Bourgeois , was a renowned French-American artist and sculptor, best known for her contributions to both modern and contemporary art, and for her spider structures, titled Maman, which resulted in her being nicknamed the Spiderwoman...
), 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.
Rainbirds
- Two faces (1991)
- In a different light (1993)
- Making Memory (1996)
- Forever (1997)
- 3000.live (1999)
Radio plays
Radio plays on CD- Apokalypse live (Bayerischer Rundfunk, 1994), Ammer, Einheit, Haage (Preis der Kriegsblinden, Prix ItaliaPrix ItaliaThe Prix Italia is an international Italian television, radio-broadcasting and Website award. It was established in 1948 by RAI - Radiotelevisione Italiana in Capri...
), published by FM 4.5.1, ISBN : 3-934847-52-8. - Odysseus 7 (Bayerischer Rundfunk, 1998), Ammer, Einheit, Haage; published by FM 4.5.1, ISBN : 3-934847-53-6 .
- 7 Dances Of The Holy Ghost (Bayerischer Rundfunk, 1998), Ammer, Haage (named for the Futura Award by ARD, Arbeitsgemeinschaft der öffentlich-rechtlichen Rundfunkanstalten der Bundesrepublik Deutschland), published by Sans Soleil, ISBN : 3-88030-034-8.
- Bei Unserer Lebensweise ist es sehr angenehm, lange im voraus zu einer Party eingeladen zu werden (BR, 1999), Jane Bowles, Katharina Franck, Ulrike Haage (Radio play of the month, septembre 1999, Wikipedia allemand : Hörspiel des Monats ), published by Sans Soleil, ISBN : 3-88030-036-4.
- Die Wüste Lop Nor (Bayerischer Rundfunk, ARD 2000), Raoul Schrott, Music by Ulrike Haage (Radio play of the Month, Août 2000], Wikipedia allemand : Hörspiel des Monats), published by HÖR Verlag, 2000, ISBN :978-3895848407.
- Reise, Toter (Bayerischer Rundfunk, 2001) Durs Grünbein, Ulrike Haage, published by Sans Soleil, ISBN : 3-88030-037-2.
- Last Words : Qui Vivre Verra (Bayerischer Rundfunk, 2001), W. S. Burroughs, Ulrike Haage, Barbara Schäfer (Radio play of the Month, Septembre 2001, Wikipedia allemand : Hörspiel des Monats), published by Sans Soleil, ISBN : 3-88030-039-9.
- Bombsong (2002), Thea Dorn, Ulrike Haage (Auftragswerk der Frankfurter Positionen), published by Sans Soleil, ISBN : 3-88030-040-2.
- Ding fest machen (Bayerischer Rundfunk, 2003), from the texts ofLouise Bourgeois, published by Sans Soleil, ISBN : 3-88030-041-0.
- Exakte Vision (WDR3 2004), Ulrike Vosswinkel, Ulrike Haage, published by Sans Soleil, ISBN : 978-3880300422.
- Die Stille hinter den Worten (Bayerischer Rundfunk, 2008), Ulrike Haage, broadcast the 24th February 2008, published by Sans Soleil, ISBN : 978-3-88030-043-9.
- Der Wind in der Weiden (Deutschlandradio Kultur, broadcast in four parts in April 2009), d'après le texte de Kenneth Grahme.
- Alles aber anders (Bayerischer Rundfunk, 2009), from the Eva Hesse’s diary, broadcast the 7th May 2009 (il devrait sortir à la rentrée en éditon limitée), published by Sans Soleil, septembre 2009, ISBN : 978-3880300446.
Not published radio plays
- Pikdame. Pamphlets and letters of Nancy Cunard (Bayerischer Rundfunk, 2006).
- Amnesie der Ozeane (SWR2, 2009).
Other projects
- Schlachtplatte, 1998 with the Stein group, German operette from the Ring, produced by the Marstall Theater München.
- Imaginary Landscapes, musical command of podcasts, listenable on the internet site cklab.
Collaborations
- Fragiles (2001), Meret Becker, Buddy Sacher, Ulrike Haage
- Music for the bonus of the DVD of Requiem de Hans-Christian SchmidHans-Christian SchmidHans-Christian Schmid is a German film director and screenwriter.-Life and work:Hans-Christian Schmid has collaborated with Michael Gutmann on several of his the film that he has directed. Gutmann wrote screenplays for 23 - Nichts ist so wie es scheint , and Crazy...
, 2007
Solo
- Sélavy (2004), (named in the furth list of the best albums in year 2004 of the price of disc’s German Critic, catégorie Frontière)
- Pianoscope (2005), piano score, published by Ricordi
- Weißes Land (2006), played with Eric Schaefer (Ingénieur du son : Ricky Ojijo)
- Le Pianoscope (2007) Klavierkompositionen für Film (piano composition for films), Universal Publishing Production Music, numeric publishing for the public the 2nd octobre 2009.
Sources
This article is based on translation of article on the German Wikipedia and the French one Ulrike Haage, as from her internet site myspace.The biography extracted from Creative Europe was consulted also this one 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 et Elisabeth Schweeger, p. 104-107, Berlin, Alexander, 2000. Isbn 3-89581-048-7
- Ulrike Haage, « Meine Sehnsucht nach Musik im Theater », in TheaterPeripherien, p. 221-227, Tübingen, Konkursbuchverlag Claudia Gehrke, 2001. Isbn 3-88769-2357