Tristan Honsinger
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Tristan Honsinger is a cello player active in free jazz and free improvisation. He is perhaps best known for his long-running collaboration with free jazz pianist Cecil Taylor and guitarist Derek Bailey. Tristan Honsinger's extremely energetic style of playing leads to the necessity to change bows at least once every few minutes.
Born in Vermont in 1949, Honsinger was given music lessons from a very early age on, as his mother had hopes of creating a chamber orchestra together with Tristan's brother and sister. At the age of 12, Tristan would give concerts on a nearly weekly basis. He studied classical cello at the prestigious New England Conservatory in Boston before moving to Montreal in 1969 to avoid the draft. While in Canada, he became interested in improvisational music. He moved to Europe in 1978 and was active throughout the continent. He currently operates from Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
Tristan has a very striking appearance, with body-language reminiscent of a slapstick actor. His theatrical side surfaces in every combo he has played with.
He has experimented with a combo of three string-players (violin, cello and double bass) and drums in 1991, under the name Fields in Miniature, and has worked in other musical fields, including collaboarations with UK post punk band The Pop Group in 1979, and The Ex during the early 1990s. More recently, his group This, That and The Other influences from Italian folk music are ever present.
According to Dutch Volkskrant journalist Erik van de Berg "Honsinger someone who hasn't lost his childhood fantasy entirely. His compositions are like a child's drawing, or even more like a story from Winnie The Pooh: awkward and touchingly simple, yet full of deeper meanings for those who want to see them."
In the same article, Tristan commented: "Simple things fascinate me, simple stories and simple characters. It's not that I write for children in particular, but I think they would understand it very well. I usually get the best reactions from an audience with a good mix of children and adults. I don't like to play for one particular age group. It is almost a necessity for me to compose in the form of stories and texts. It gives me ideas and it does help the musicians in their improvisation if they can think: this story is about a little man who takes a walk and experiences this, that and the other. It also helps the audience, it gives them something to hold on to."
