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Peter A. Schmid

Musically active for over twenty years in various groups blurring the boundaries between jazz, improvised music and modern classic music.

In (almost) every formation, own compositions and concepts with plenty of room for structured or free improvisation are used. A melting and fusing of composed and improvised parts is a central concern.

Over the past few years, duos ��" beside wind ensembles - have become more and more my favorite form. They allow a very direct and personal communication between two independent musicians, and furthermore, it usually means regular collaboration poses no organizational problem… Since 2003, I play regular duo concerts at my homeplace in Uster, Switzerland, with both musicians with whom I play duets for years as well as with “new” musicians, who meet for spontaneous improvised concerts. CD trilogy with woodwind duos: September Duos with Evan Parker, Birdology with Vinny Golia and en passant with Ned Rothenberg.

An important field is music in special architectonical and acoustic buildings. Concerts and recordings in an empty water cistern in Zürich (with Vollmond, September Winds and in duo with Evan Parker and Matthias Ziegler). 2002 and 2004 concerts with September Winds in the thermes of Vals and in churches and museums. 2003 duo concert with Evan Parker at the Yerebatan cisterns in Istanbul.

I am very fascinated be the very deep wind instruments. Beside bass clarinet, baritone saxophone, bassax and bass flute I play often contrabass clarinet and tubax in Eb and Bb (newly designed contrabass and subcontrabass saxophones ��" built by German B.Eppelsheim www.eppelsheim.com). The Taragot (or Taragato) has also become an important instument for me: a woodwind instrument in Bb with a conical form similar to soprano saxophone. The instrument probably originated in Turkey, and was played with a double reed. Around 1890, the instrument maker Schunda of Budapest invented the Taragot in its present-day form ��" now with a clarinet-like mouthpiece and a key mechanism with characteristics of the oboe and the German clarinet . In contrast to the clarinet, the Taragot overblows to the octave (like the oboe and the saxophone). Today, the taragot is mainly used in Hungarian and Rumanian traditional music. My instrument was newly built by Stephen Fox www.sfoxclarinets.com.

Most of these instruments appear on my solo CD Windscapes as well as on a master class CD for the Saxophone Journal (october 2005), including compositions that where recorded with overdubs.

I live with my wife Salomé Courvoisier and our two children Ursina and Silvio in Uster, Switzerland.

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Album Review

Peter A. Schmid: Chicago Conversations

Read "Chicago Conversations" reviewed by Alberto Bazzurro


Ventiquattro brani per lo più molto brevi compongono questo sfiziosissimo nuovo lavoro del cinquantaseienne polistrumentista zurighese Peter A. Schmid, che è andato a inciderlo (in un unico giorno, il 31 agosto 2014) allo Strobe Recording di Chicago, dividendosi fra duetti (quindici), una sua specialità (fra i suoi numerosi partner nel corso degli anni ricordiamo almeno Evan Parker, Ned Rothenberg e Vinny Golia), e trii (nove, consecutivi). La preferenza, come spesso accade nella musica di Schmid, va di ...

255
Album Review

Peter A. Schmid / Ned Rothenberg / Matthis Ziegler: El Ni

Read "El Ni" reviewed by Henry Smith


According to Meinrad Buholzer's liner notes, El Niño is, in weather terms, a habitual pattern of intermingling air currents and water temperatures that affects the Pacific Ocean and west coast of Latin America. This serves as a most suitable title for the music of the album, which represents a highly communicative and spontaneous meeting between three virtuoso wind instrumentalists: reedist Peter A. Schmid, flutist and fellow Swiss resident Matthias Ziegler, and New York-based woodwind multi-instrumentalist Ned Rothenberg.

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Album Review

Peter A. Schmid & Vinny Golia: Birdology

Read "Birdology" reviewed by Rex  Butters


Just in time for spring, Leo Records releases Birdology, a collection of duets played by reed regent Vinny Golia with Swiss gastroenterology specialist and fellow horn collector Peter A. Schmid. Their common interest in Benedict Eppelsheim’s tubax, a newly redesigned contrabass sax, impelled their initial contact. Then the synchronicities began falling into place. Like Golia, Schmid experiments with new ways of fusing composition and free improvisation. He shares the fascination for extreme instruments, as well as the allure of birdsong. ...

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Chicago Conversations

Creative Works Records
2016

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El Ni

Creative Works Records.ch
2007

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El niño

Creative Works Records.ch
2006

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Birdology

Leo Records
2004

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Schmilz

FMP
2002

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