Performed by trio accanto (Markus Weiss: saxophon, Yukiko Sugarawa: piano, Christian Dierstein: percussion) and Karlheinz Essl (electronics) at Konzerthaus Vienna on March 28th, 2000.

onwards is a composition for improvising musicians. The score provides each instrument with four different sound types - drones, textures, points, and repetitions - to be played in accordance with a definite time plan. The performers are free to interpret those sound types according to the given structural indications. The composer not only provides them with material which they can interpret at will, but also furnishes them with specific parameters. By exactly defining the time plan (which can be seen as a precise schedule), the progression of the composition is determined in advance.

Score and more: http://www.essl.at/works/onwards.html

Info

onwards (2000) - for saxophone, piano, percussion and electronics

Born 1960 in Vienna. Austrian composer, improviser and performer. He studied composition with Friedrich Cerha and musicology in Vienna. Besides writing experimental instrumental music, he performs on his own electronic instrument m@ze°2, develops software environments for computer-aided composition and creates generative sound and video environments. Since 2007 professor of composition for electro-acoustic and experimental music at the University of Music in Vienna.

Karlheinz Essl performs on a laptop computer that he has transformed into a live electronic musical instrument. The result is exciting and musical. You just won't hear these sounds anywhere else. He performs solo and in duets and trios, responding with sensitivity to fellow musicians, producing fascinating sound transformations, creating spontaneous surprises, and moving quickly from loops to cacophony to tiny clips of vocal sounds to all kinds of textures and ideas. He does all this with his m@ze°2(Modular Algorithmic Zound Environment) performance software. (Joel Chadabe, CDeMusic, Januar 2002)
