Bruno Heinen brought together his band The W (Heidi Vogel, Andrea di Biase, Gene Calderazzo) and an orchestra from Trinity Laban with two special string players as guests, Alice Zawadzki and Sascha Bota. It can be regarded as the “coming together” of several of his special projects over the past decade. These range from his reimagining of Stockhausen’s Tierkreis for jazz ensemble, via his work with string ensemble Camerata Almaviva based around Vivaldi’s Four Seasons – actually a sort of piano concerto, to his solo piano album, and then his development of Bartok with his band the W.
Heinen’s move into using more astringent orchestral sounds contrasts with some of his contemporaries who, when “going large”, are drawn to the more opulent and luxuriant big band sounds – as I have heard over recent days with new compositions from Alcyona Mick and Calum Gourlay (with the London Jazz Orchestra) and Jim Hart (with the Royal Academy of Music Big Band) .
The make-up of the orchestral ensemble was intriguing: 4 violins, 2 violas on one side of the quartet, with woodwind, brass, harp and an additional percussion on the other. This really allowed for a wide sonic variety, in how the different timbres of the instruments were overlaid. A potential muddiness of the sound was avoided by impeccable natural balance and work from the mixing desk.
Heinen’s indebtedness to the 20th century contemporary music tradition was shown by how four of the five movements were dedicated to four leading composers (Kurtag, Ligeti, Stockhausen and Bartok). Three, intriguingly, are of Hungarian heritage. Just Stockhausen is from the “purer” Western European tradition.
The first section, “Mr Vertigo”, was an original that had first appeared on his solo piano album, itself strongly influenced by two jazz piano greats, John Taylor and Fred Hersch. He was lucky that he had some particularly stand-out musicians with him. There was a haunting introduction with a beautifully articulated bowed bass solo by Andrea di Biase, leading into Heidi Vogel’s wordless vocals and soloing, playing off the rest of the orchestra, which had some quite busy interplay around. Followed by a concerto-like piano solo, with dynamic drums and percussion. In fact, one of several such solos throughout the whole work, which often seemed quite meditative.
Meanwhile, as special co-leaders of the string section, we heard Sascha Bota on viola and Alice Zawadzki. Both were able to marshal their different parts of the string section, but the ability to improvise in mind-blowing ways. Bota particularly, as he originally comes from Romania, had a certain East European flair in how his soloing developed.
The orchestra was made up of a mixture of jazz and classical students. This meant that quite a few musicians were able to solo, in addition to the members of The W, Alice Zawadzki and Sascha Bota. For example, we heard Otto Kampa on saxophone, Noah Ojumu on percussion and Olivia Hughes on euphonium. And there were also moments when Heinen brought the orchestra in behind the solos, to provide chordal stabs, rather like backing figures from a horn section. And furthermore, with a rhythm section as persuasive and propulsive as that of The W – Andrea di Biase and Gene Calderazzo – the music always kept a strong, life-affirming feeling of energised flow.
SET LIST
1 Mr. Vertigo
2 For Selim / For Kurtág
3 For Ligeti
4 For Bartók
5 For Stockhausen
PERSONNEL:
Bruno Heinen (Piano / Compositions)
Heidi Vogel (Voice)
Andrea Di Biase (Bass)
Gene Calderazzo (Drums)
Alice Zawadzki (Violin)
Sascha Bota (Viola)
Maddie Williams (Piccolo)
Poppy Helmer (Flute)
Lydia Brookes (Oboe)
Otto Kampa, Louis Sheridan-Wildi, Jake Phillips (Saxophone)
Olivia Hughes (Euphoniums)
Charlie Mellon (Trombone)
Lydia Kinowski-Don (Harp)
Alma Zupan, Robert Petik, Anna Ferrarese (Violins)
Lydia Elderfield (Viola)
Noah Ojumu (Percussion)
