franz hautzinger

composer and performer of new and improvised music.
born in 1963. studied trumpet and composition at the graz academy of music and the performing arts and at the vienna conservatory. since 1989 he teaches ensemble, composition, and arrangement at the vienna university of music and the performing arts. he is (guest-)soloist in various ensembles, partner in international art cooperations (e.g. of elliott sharp, ben patterson, joachim kuhn, tony oxley, otomo yosihide), and creator of his own projects ('franz hautzinger speakers corner', 'dachte musik', 'regenorchester', soloprojects). franz hautzinger plays a unique instrumental idiom fitting into contemporary jazz. in the last years he has turned to a vernacular that is inspired mostly by new music and practically independent of jazz in his improvising, composing, and concepts. his explicit linearity that incorporates elements of modal (miles davis) and of free jazz (bill dixon) increasingly makes way for a sound-emphasizing exploration of spaces of action and incident. despite all outward reduction to aphoristic abbreviations and laconic gestures (flightily breathed melody fragments, single tones imploding in silence, elaborate microsounds, or the poignant application of quarter tone intervals) hautzinger's music still features a closely knit texture, rich in association, which rather communicates via parameters like density, volume, and color, than by distinctive pitches and time values. the musician's works are radically subjective, from the solo performance that deals with non-musical subjects like privacy and intimacy all the way to variably instrumentalized ensemble works. often these works are predetermined by flexible frame notation or graphic structure planning and lose nothing of their precision, transparency, and brittle beauty if they are left totally to the intuition of the moment ('realtime composing'). by klaus peham

¡like bill dixon,
hautzinger is a trumpet player having a complete mastery of the instrument and an aesthetic that demonstrates this mastery without having to resort to musical hysterics or unmeasured playing for techniques sake. like the de chellis, tomasic, naktani trio, hautzinger is familiar with the more exciting developments in '20th century classical music' and is able to incorporate these developments into his work, placing him somewhere between that music and 'free jazz' in a successful way. hautzinger's group features martin siewert, a very skilled and talented guitarist of the younger austrian scene. the guitarist doubles on 'electronic devices'. while the group sound might be referred to as being 'european' (which to some may be a pejorative), it is some of the most unique and least tiresome music coming out of the european avantgarde scene today and certainly does not need to be geographically contextualized to be enjoyed. much of this groups freshness is due to the fact that the listener unsure as to what is composed and what is improvised. as such, this project will be of interest to both improvised jazz and 'contemporary classical' fans--and that's an accomplishment.
jason zappa, for bananafish,usa