Global Kryner
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Global Kryner is a six-piece Austrian progressive jazz-folk band, consisting of clarinet player Christof Spörk, bass trombonist, tenor and yodeller Sebastian Fuchsberger, guitarist Edi Koehldorfer, trumpet player Karl Rossmann, accordion player Anton Sauprügl, and jazz vocalist Sabine Stieger. The youngest member, Ms Stieger is also a recent addition to the band, which was formerly fronted by jazz singer Anne-Marie Höller. The group has won numerous awards in Germany and Austria, and represented Austria in the Eurovision Song Contest 2005 in Kiev, Ukraine. In 2005, Global Kryner won the Amadeus Austrian Music Award in the category "Best national pop/rock group".
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[edit] Formation, ideology and musical objectives
Global Kryner originally grew out of the Vienna-based musical cabaret group Die Landstreich, and was founded by clarinettist and lyricist Dr Christof Spörk, a political scientist, cabarettist and musician. An expert on Cuba, Spörk saw how folk music there was popular with and enjoyed by all generations, particularly the young, and how happy the Cubans were with their own culture. In Austria and Germany however, there is a large stigma attached to enjoying Austrian/Germanic folk music, as it is associated with somewhat taboo notions of nationalism and is generally enjoyed only by the elderly, the dominant music among younger generations being American pop and particularly hip-hop. Dr Spörk had the idea to create a band which would "rework" both classic and current pop and rock songs of Anglo-American and African-American origin in an Austrian folk style with a high level of musicality. Together with co-founder Sebastian Fuchsberger, an accomplished trombonist, tenor and "voice artist" from Salzburg, they spent 18 months auditioning for the remaining band members until finally a 6-piece line-up was formed. The current band members are all professional musicians and live performers at the top of their field.
The first ever Global Kryner concert took place on the 4th May 2003 in Scheibbs as part of the Lower Austrian Volksmusik festival AufhOHRchen. Accordionist Anton Sauprügl joined Landstreich in Autumn 2003 as a substitute for Krzysztof Dobrek, and played as part of Global Kryner for the first time in March 2004. Trombonist Sebastian Fuchsberger and original trumpeter Thomas Gansch both came to Global Kryner from the brass-cabaret group Mnozil Brass, but when the two groups began to have too many parallel concerts and appearances, Fuchsberger joined Global Kryner permanently while Gansch remained with Mnozil Brass.
The band's avowed raison d'être is firstly to root themselves firmly in the tradition of the hugely popular Oberkrainer sound pioneered by Slovenian Slavko Avsenik in the 1950s, but then to do nothing short of elevate it to the status of a 'serious world music genre', while simultaneously preserving its familiar quirky, whimsical facets. They have further ambitiously resolved to demonstrate that the genre is versatile enough to extend its scope to any song, from any musical tradition in the world - hence the 'global' part of the name. To this end, they have already set about giving their distinctive Alpine treatment to tracks as improbable as Madonna's "Like a Virgin".
[edit] Style and classification
The music of Global Kryner cannot be truly classified as Schlager or Volksmusik as the arrangements and compositions are much too sophisticated to comfortably fit into this genre (jazz harmonies, changing rhythms and tempos) but neither can it be classified as pop music due to the dominating jazz/soul style, traditional Oberkrainer instrumentation, improvisation, and lack of percussion - the beat or "drive" of the songs comes from the bass trombone, guitar and accordion.
[edit] CDs
- Global Kryner, April 2004: Something Stupid / Lady Marmalade / Honesty / Like a Virgin / Private Dancer / Over the Rainbow / Sex Bomb / Night & Day / Funky Town / Stardust / That’s How the Yodel was Born / Hey Jude
- Krynology, May 2005: Something Beautiful / Hot Stuff / I Can’t Stand the Rain / I’ll Be the One / Rock Me Amadeus / Stop / Oops, I Did It Again / Y Así / First Day of My Life / Shut Up / Dreaming / Eye of the Tiger / Toxic / My Foolish Heart / Krynology
The band's self-titled first album, launched in April 2004 in Vienna's most important jazz club Porgy & Bess, was a large critical and commercial success in Germany and Austria, garnering widespread praise in newspapers and in the music press. After a successful year touring with the band, singer Anne-Marie Höller left for pastures new, and the then 22-year-old Sabine Stieger from Linz joined the band in December 2004. The band's second album "Krynology" (now with Stieger as vocalist) was released in June 2005 and went to number 2 in the Austrian album charts, also entering the German album charts. The band continued to tour extensively in 2005.
The band's third album, provisionally titled "Musica Alpina", is scheduled to come out in Europe in the second half of 2006, and is set to contain almost entirely original compositions.
[edit] Tours and appearances
Global Kryner tour extensively in Europe, mainly in Germany, Austrian, Slovenia, the Netherlands (e.g.Zomerparkfeest 14 august 2005) and Switzerland. They have appeared regularly on German and Austrian television and radio, in programmes such as Musikantenstadl, the ZDF Fernsehgarten, "Willkommen Österreich", "Winter Starnacht", "Silvesterstadl", "Willkommen bei Carmen Nebel", "Treffpunkt Kultur", SWR "Ring Frei!", "Merci Jury", "Achims Hitparade", "Wir in Bayern", "Starnacht am Wörthersee", "DAS!", "Fröhlicher Weinberg", "NDR Beat Club", "Ottis Schlachthof" and "Strasse der Lieder". They have also performed in various comedy galas such as the WDR5 comedy gala "Voll auf die Ohren" with Dieter Nuhr, and the Prix Pantheon 2006, in which they won the jury prize in the category "Frühreif und verdorben". They have also recently toured in Latin America, and tours in North America are planned.
During the 2006 World Cup, Global Kryner performed live at several open air fan festivals around Germany.
[edit] 2005 Eurovision Song Contest
In early 2005, the band were one of five competing acts in song.null.fünf, Austria's national pre-selection for the Eurovision Song Contest, which was a curious affair in that each act was required to put forward two songs. Global Kryner’s offerings were "Y Así" and "Dreaming". The competition's unusual format gave rise to the unsettling possibility that, by putting in a strong performance of both songs, an act could effectively rob themselves of victory by splitting their own potential vote. One of Global Kryner's rivals, Austria's 2003 Eurovision representative Alf Poier, attempted to reap the benefits of the situation by stating that if his song "Hotel, Hotel" won, he would refuse to travel to Kyiv, thus giving his supporters a less-than-subtle steer towards the song he thought had the better chance. The event duly crystallised into a titanic battle between "Y Asi" and Poier's favoured entry, the bizarre and controversial "Good Old Europe is Dying". Poier's song actually recorded a greater number of raw votes, but the regional points system used translated those votes into a narrow victory for "Y Asi", which therefore went forward to represent Austria in Kyiv.
Global Kryner were the first band to perform in the semi-final of the 2005 Eurovision Song Contest, opening the show, but did not receive enough televotes to progress to the final, coming 21st out of 24 countries. Due to this poor result for the band, who are extremely popular and highly-regarded in Austria amongst the general public as well as in intellectual circles, the Austrian national broadcaster ORF announced its withdrawal from the Eurovision Song Contest, releasing a statement describing it as "an absurd competition in which Austrian musical tradition means nothing". Austria has confirmed that, in spite of poor results, they will return to the contest in 2007.
