EUROPEAN MUSIC PROJECT

Adventures In Sound

The ensemble European Music Project (EMP) is dedicated to contemporary music in the most diverse forms. All members of the ensemble are soloists* with extensive experience in classical ensemble playing as well as in improvisation and experimental forms. EMP stands for innovative programming, well thought-out forms of presentation and the idea of communicating with a wide variety of audiences. Many projects are developed in collaboration with artists* from dance, visual arts and literature.

EMP shows lines – from classical modernism to the present, from chamber music to club sound. Music is placed in the context of the questions of a world in a new order with its cultural and social challenges. EMP experiments with different space, sound and performance concepts between concert, ritual, installation, staging and open forms.

The ensemble plays in formations ranging from trio to chamber ensemble.
The core instrumentation consists of
voice/performance (Anna Clementi annaclementi.com), soprano (Maria Rosendorfsky), percussion/DJ (Jürgen Grözinger, juergen-groezinger.klazzik.de), piano/keyboards (Antonis Anissegos, enstase.com), violins (Wolfgang Bender, Salma Sadek), viola (Miriam Götting), cello (Mathis Mayr) and double bass (Adam Goodwin, adamgoodwin.jimdofree.co).  In accordance with the project requirements, EMP is expanding to include other musicians and performers associated with the ensemble. The conductor is Chatschatur Kanajan.

EMP has been Ensemble-In-Residence at the festival Klanghaus/neue musik im stadthaus in Ulm, Germany.
Invitations have been extended to the following series, festivals and institutions:
Spazio Musica (Cagliari), Tête-à Tête (London), Louisiana Museum (Copenhagen), Janacek Academy (Brno), Kasseler Musiktage, Festival Europ. Kirchenmusik (S.Gmünd), Musik 21 (Hannover), Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Mozartfest Augsburg, Chiffren Kiel and in Berlin at Radialsystem, BKA, Philharmonie, Konzerthaus and other places.

Radio and CD productions have been made for WERGO, Cantaloupe Music (New York), Deutschlandfunk, SWR, SR and BR.

Many internationally renowned artists worked with the ensemble. Among them are the composers Klaus Huber, Michael Nyman, David Lang, Laurie Schwartz, Samir Odeh-Tamimi, Violeta Dinescu, Stepha Schweiger, Minas Borboudakis, Bernd Franke, Sandeep Bhagwati. Also singers and instrumentalists like bassoonist Sergio Azzolini, vocal performers Nicholas Isherwood, Angela Denoke, Jaap Blonk, Alex Nowitz and Yuka Yanagihara; cellist Fried Dähn, double bassists Wolfgang Güttler, Stefano Scodanibbio and Matthias Bauer and trombonists Mike Svoboda and Hilary Jeffery. There have been projects with artists* from the USA, Russia, Egypt, Azerbaijan, Guinea, Uzbekistan, Iraq, Cameroon, Turkey, Serbia, Great Britain and France.

EMP is based in Berlin. Artistic director is Juergen Groezinger.

Comments on EMP:

Two things, at least, were remarkable about the performance of my ‚I sonetti lussuriosi‘ in Ulm: first that Jurgen Groezinger (…) was sophisticated enough to include a work as controversial as this erotic song cycle and secondly, and more importantly, that the performance by the European Music Project was as authentic as anything I could have hoped for. And the passion and accuracy of the singing of Maria Rosendorfsky was nothing short of revelatory. I look forward to working with all these musicians again as soon and as regularly as possible.

– Michael Nyman, Composer

This is a piece of music that helped change history: the philosopher’s stone of early minimalism, or „systems music“. A new recording by the European Music Project (…) on the Wergo label brings the work to life in a way that was impossible for its first performers and listeners. I know the work well, and once hoped to produce a recording of it. My first response was jealousy: this is the album I should have made, if only I’d got my act together! So my opinions are subjective. But I can say that this version is made with a great deal of respect and care, using technology to bring out qualities in the piece that have been hard to fathom in earlier versions, including the debut recording for Columbia Masterworks, an odd recording by the Shanghai Film Orchestra and an all- star bash on New Albion. (…) .

– The Guardian, London / John L.Waters about EMP´s „Terry Riley – In C“ , WERGO

Grözinger relies on the immediacy of musical experience, on transfers that are derived from the programmatic context. He spans arches between different genres, times, aesthetic ideas, philosophies. He is a specialist in extravagant mixtures. Grözinger wants to involve young audiences and overcome the stiffness and distance of the concert business.

– Rainer Schlenz (SWR 2 / deutschlandfunk)

The many drops of sound become a sound stream which creates an enormous suction when the listener gets involved. Joachim Glasstetter and Jürgen Grözinger have now, with the Ensemble European Music Project, brilliantly interpreted this pulsation for a good hour. In no well-sorted CD collection should Riley’s minimal big bang „In C“ be missing“.

– Der Spiegel

What Jürgen Grözinger does is to try to address an audience that does not belong to the inner circle of new music listeners, away from the mainstream. He succeeds in this extraordinarily well. (…)

– Rolf W. Stoll, WERGO, Schott Music

Grözinger not only cultivates a narrowly defined garden, but also acts across and through – wanders the big wide world of music with open ears, always ready to make new experiences.

– Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, Germany

Upcoming projects

Festival Klanghaus: 18. -20. Februar 2021

Heidenheimer Opernfestspiele: 18. -20. Juni 2021

Festival Klangzeit Münster:  25.September 2021