Andreas Paolo Perger
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Andreas Paolo Perger (*1970 Munich, Germany) is an Austrian/ German/ Italian guitarist, improvisor, and composer. His work, autobiographical in nature and drawing from a variety of major traditional and contemporary musical influences, is not easily categorized into a traditional genre.
Perger's music, a contemporary pluralistic position, balances narrative and abstract moments with their relationships to the composed and/ or improvised overall texture. Some works are made of, or include, interactive and/ or room-related elements (Cinema Series, Orchestra Series).
His playing style is adapted from classical guitar, using right hand technique to express complex harmonic structures and quick jazz-inspired melodic lines while sustaining impulsive strumming in the manner of the Spanish rasgueado, a typical colour in flamenco, and enhanced with playing techniques between tone and noise. He also uses hand symbols.
His music ranges from solo pieces for classical guitar and electric guitar, concert pieces for guitar and cello or string quartet, compositions for jazz-rock trio and quartet, to room-related interactive group improvisations and room-related compositions for video, electronics and guitar, based on lo-fi electronic sounds and found footage material, reflecting the guitar in a contemporary new media context. His composing technique emphasizes improvisation. As part of a more comprehensively notated composition, or even as central source for real-time composing of any extent. He also works with modular playing, improvising, and composing concepts (Concert for 5.1 surround guitar).
[edit] 5.1 surround guitar
Perger's instrument, an electric concert guitar, is the result of several years of development in cooperation with Stevens Custom Guitars and Huber Amps. Though similar in size to a classical concert guitar, it is made to sound like a warm electric guitar, but with a broader spectrum of harmonics at higher frequencies. It also offers an ambient sound option, which makes it possible to create a 5.1 surround sound-like effect.
The 5.1 surround guitar is a hybrid between classical concert guitar and electric guitar. It follows the idea of combining subjectively appreciated aspects of the guitar, and offers various musical possibilities. It makes it possible to send each string of its six strings to one separate channel of an amplifier, and further, to six separate loudspeakers in a room. It is played with finger technique on medium steel strings and sounds like an electric guitar. The instrument was developed by contemporary guitarist, improviser, and composer Andreas Paolo Perger, and built by Stevens Custom Guitars in 1998. The instrument was presented at the Frankfurt music fair in 1999. The first radio live transmission (surround > stereo), and the first surround live concert took place in Munich 2002. After several more years of technical and musical development, the Huber preamplification was added in 2007. Concerts in Vienna 2007 and Prague 2008 followed.
