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Charlotte Hug
Maggie Nicols, Caroline Kraabel, Charlotte Hug.: On Dizziness
by John Eyles
Maggie Nicols, Caroline Kraabei and Charlotte Hug first came together as a trio in the autumn of 2000 when they played together in Nicols' front room. In May 2001 they came together again, playing a concert at the (now defunct) Freedom of the City festival in London's Conway Hall. At the same venue, on June 4th, 2001, they were recorded, without an audience, by Martin Davidson for his Emanem label. The resulting album, Transitions was released on the label in ...
read moreTwo contrasting releases from Charlotte Hug on the Fundacja Słuchaj! label
by John Eyles
For many followers of improvised music, their first experience of Switzerland's Charlotte Hug was around the turn of the millennium, as a viola player, an instrument on which she was classically trained. In collaborations such as the all-female trio with Maggie Nicols and Caroline Kraabel, or the London Improvisers Orchestra (LIO), she soon gained a reputation as a striking performer who was not shy of deploying innovative or experimental playing techniques. Gradually, the picture of Hug was filled ...
read moreCharlotte Hug & Frederic Blondy: Bouquet
by John Eyles
This meeting of French pianist Frédric Blondy and Switzerland's Charlotte Hug on viola and voice was studio-recorded in March 2008 in Paris. Performing as a duo since 2005, Hug and Blondy continue to do so. The album sleeve bears a phrase that is increasingly seen in recent years: No overdubbing or electronic modification was used." In other words, everything on the album was played by the two musicians in real time. However, the aural evidence may lead some to doubt ...
read moreCharlotte Hug: Slipway to Galaxies
by Raul d'Gama Rose
There has always been something special about a performance by Charlotte Hug. Her revolutionary playing celebrated in the unique soft-bowing" technique has turned the shrill glissandi of the viola into hues of deep, indulgent warmth. As her passion for the human interaction with her instrument developed, she began to meld her unique vocalistics, as well as her Son-Icons" into her artful reinvention of the viola and her music. Although nothing about her work may ever be described as typical, Slipway ...
read moreCharlotte Hug: Slipway to Galaxies
by John Eyles
On parts of her last Emanem release, Fine Extensions (2010)--a duo with cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm--in addition to playing her customary viola Charlotte Hug also used her voice. She sang in a quasi-operatic style as well as vocalizing, to produce eerie, other-worldly sounds, her voice combining with and complementing the strings to good effect. Now, on Slipway to Galaxies, Hug uses her voice for the first time on a solo recording. Recorded at the studio of Swiss radio DRS, ...
read moreCharlotte Hug / Fred Lonberg-Holm: Fine Extensions
by Raul d'Gama Rose
Viola and cello have coexisted in splendid harmony on the concert stage for hundreds of years, both instruments bolstering powerful orchestral settings for every composer, even before Haydn, Bach, Mozart and Beethoven employed violin and cello in compositions with vivid effect. What delights the inner ear, however, especially on the brazen Fine Extensions, is the fact that these instruments transcend all earlier sonic relationships between the strings. Locked in the embrace of a tonal adventure, jousting with one another, egging ...
read moreCharlotte Hug: Neuland (2001-2)
by John Eyles
In a relatively short time in London, Swiss violist Charlotte Hug (pronounced Hoog) made a big impression through her work at All Angels, with Tony Wren's Quatuor Accorde, at the Freedom of the City festival with Maggie Nichols & Caroline Kraabel and with the London Improvisers' Orchestra.She is somewhat renowned for performing in unusual venues. These have included ice caverns of the Rhone Glacier, and an acoustically insulated S&M torture chamber. Hug herself is a dramatic performer, strikingly ...
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