EUROPEAN MUSIC PROJECT

Adventures In Sound

Berlin based chamber ensemble European Music Project (EMP) has been dedicated to contemporary music in its many forms. The classically trained musicians of the ensemble are equally at home in improvisational and experimental performance practices. EMP stands for innovative musical presentation and mediation, often in collaboration with artists from the fields of dance, visual arts, and literature.

EMP traces artistic lines from the early 20th century to the present day, from chamber music to club sounds. Music becomes a lens through which to explore the pressing questions of a world in flux, shaped by new cultural and societal dynamics. The ensemble experiments with spatial, acoustic, and performative concepts that move fluidly between concert, installation, staging, ritual, open formats, and educational endeavors.

The ensemble performs in various formations, ranging from trio to chamber groups.
Its core members include:

Antonis Anissegos – keyboards, electronics, composition
Anna Clementi – voice, performance
Jürgen Grözinger – composition, percussion, dj

Strings :
Wolfgang Bender & Salma Sadek – violins
Miriam Götting – viola
Mathis Mayr – cello
Adam Goodwin – double bass, composition

EMP has been the ensemble-in-residence at the Klanghaus/neue musik im stadthaus (Ulm) since many years. Over the years, the ensemble has realized multifaceted projects at prominent international festivals and concert series, including Klangzeit Münster, Spazio Musica (Cagliari), Tete-a Tete (London), Louisiana Museum (Kopenhagen), Janacek Academy (Brno), Kasseler Musiktage, Festival Europ. Kirchenmusik (S.Gmünd), Musik 21 (Hannover), Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Mozartfest Augsburg, Chiffren Kiel. Berlin: Radialsystem, Unerhörte Musik/BKA, Philharmonie, Konzerthaus.

Radio and CD productions have been made for WERGO, Cantaloupe Music (New York), Deutschlandfunk, SWR, SR and BR.

EMP´s artistic director is Juergen Groezinger

Two things, at least, were remarkable about the performance of my ‚I sonetti lussuriosi‘ in Ulm: first that Jurgen Groezinger (…) was sophisticated enough to include a work as controversial as this erotic song cycle and secondly, and more importantly, that the performance by the European Music Project was as authentic as anything I could have hoped for. And the passion and accuracy of the singing of Maria Rosendorfsky was nothing short of revelatory. I look forward to working with all these musicians again as soon and as regularly as possible.

– Michael Nyman, Composer

This is a piece of music that helped change history: the philosopher’s stone of early minimalism, or „systems music“. A new recording by the European Music Project (…) on the Wergo label brings the work to life in a way that was impossible for its first performers and listeners. I know the work well, and once hoped to produce a recording of it. My first response was jealousy: this is the album I should have made, if only I’d got my act together! So my opinions are subjective. But I can say that this version is made with a great deal of respect and care, using technology to bring out qualities in the piece that have been hard to fathom in earlier versions, including the debut recording for Columbia Masterworks, an odd recording by the Shanghai Film Orchestra and an all- star bash on New Albion. (…) .

– The Guardian, London / John L.Waters about EMP´s „Terry Riley – In C“ , WERGO

Grözinger relies on the immediacy of musical experience, on transfers that are derived from the programmatic context. He spans arches between different genres, times, aesthetic ideas, philosophies. He is a specialist in extravagant mixtures. Grözinger wants to involve young audiences and overcome the stiffness and distance of the concert business.

– Rainer Schlenz (SWR 2 / deutschlandfunk)

The many drops of sound become a sound stream which creates an enormous suction when the listener gets involved. Joachim Glasstetter and Jürgen Grözinger have now, with the Ensemble European Music Project, brilliantly interpreted this pulsation for a good hour. In no well-sorted CD collection should Riley’s minimal big bang „In C“ be missing“.

– Der Spiegel

What Jürgen Grözinger does is to try to address an audience that does not belong to the inner circle of new music listeners, away from the mainstream. He succeeds in this extraordinarily well. (…)

– Rolf W. Stoll, WERGO, Schott Music

Grözinger not only cultivates a narrowly defined garden, but also acts across and through – wanders the big wide world of music with open ears, always ready to make new experiences.

– Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, Germany