Ulrike Haage

Ulrike Haage
Haage performing in Erlangen in 2009
Background information
Born	1957
Origin	Kassel, Germany
Years active	1980s - present
Associated acts	Vladimir Estragon, Rainbirds, Stein
Website	u-version.com

Ulrike Haage (born in Kassel, lives in Berlin) is a German pianist and composer. She is also a producer for radio plays, for which she does the dramaturgy and the music composition. Last but not least, she is a sound artist.

Biography

The jazz years

Ulrike Haage spent her childhood in Ruhr. She grew up listening to the big jazz discs collection of her parents.^[1] and she trained to play piano listening to masters as Bill Evans and Thelonious Monk: she used to improvise on the discs. Teenager she sang and played guitar in a garage-band.

To study music and music therapy, she goes to Hamburg. From 1985 to 1989, she teaches in Musikhochschule of Hamburg improvisation and orchestra direction. During this time she begins to compose and build the first German Jazz-band: Reichlich Weiblich.^[2] Thanks to her work with Peter Zadek on the theatre play Andi, she meets FM Einheit. With him, Alfred 23 Harth and Phil Minton, she founded the group Vladimir Estragon. She begins to use the electronic music. A year later, because of the departure of Alfred Harth the quartet become a trio GOTO, with the vocal acrobaties of Phil Minton.

Pop and theatre years

From 1989, she rejoins Katharina Franck in the pop group Rainbirds, which is already facing recognition amongst its pairs (their first album was gold disc). She then records the following albums along with the group, of which Two faces and In A Different Light. Anton Corbijn produces the clip of the song Two Faces. Between tours and recordings for Rainbirds and the theatre music group (Theatermusikgruppe) Stein, made up of Katharina Franck, FM Einheit and Ulrike Haage, she works with famous theatre directors like Uwe Eric Laufenberg (in Zurich), Kazuko Watanabe.^[3] In 1999, she begins an intensive work with the actress Meret Becker. She works as music director of the concert’s program Nachtmahr and records the CD Fragiles. With the translator and publisher Pociao, she founded Sans Soleil, radio plays publishing house (sound books). Till today they published nine CDs and seven books.

German jazz award: Alfred Mangelsdorff Preis

In year 2003, Ulrike Haage is the first woman (and the youngest "jazzman") to win the German Jazz Award.^[4] Markus Müller, giving her the prize, pays tribute "to her outstanding and truely versatile life-work that permanently reinvents itself ». He has also emphasized her artistic way through pop, art and avant-garde.^[5]

The solo period, not so solo

In year 2004, her first instrumental solo album comes out; Sélavy. The next two years, the Goethe Institut of Moscow organizes two tours with her, in the following cities of the Wolga and in Siberia in order to introduce her ^[6] and make her teach in some workshops. In year 2006, she records her second solo album, Weißes Land. Since 2006, she participated to the Ring project with the choreographer Felix Ruckert and the musician Christian Meyer. She plays simultaneously with a choreography happening in front of her eyes, playing in interaction with the dancers. She was also, since 2008, artist-in-residence of the Hartung-Bergman foundation.^[7] She is composing as in dialoging with the paintings of Anna-Eva Bergman, a music piece for chamber vibraphone, marimbaphone and electronics, Nunatak. In May 2009, took place the production of Alles aber Anders, radio play for the Bavarian Radio, Bayerischer Rundfunk,^[8] from the diary of the plastic artist, Eva Hesse. She also gave some performances after her radio play Der Kreis ist rot, from the diary of Oskar Schlemmer for celebration of the 90th Birthday of the Bauhaus. Between concerts and conferences she composes her third album. At the same time she composes an opera-radioplay with the collaboration of Stephan Krass, to be produced in 2010, as the music for the sound-book Heimsuchung, from the novel of Jenny Erpenbeck, .

Influences

When you listen to her music, you can go to the quest for the different musics which have had a strong influence on her style. Of course, there is the jazz – since her debuts with the discs of her parents, up to her first jazz-band. Her compositions, even today leave a big part to improvisation. Oft one could find on her partitions ^[9] only an indication of chord on which she will improvise during the concert. Her very thorough and classic training of music brings an instrumental acuteness and sharpness to her music. Each break is controlled, each period has its sens. She puts her music together using repetitions of more or less long terms, according to the tradition of the ostinato. Music is not her sole inspiration, she is also an artist with words. She works with them as she works with musical subjects. A lot of these play-on-words have an artist´s words for inspiration. Alles aber Anders, from Eva Hesse´s journal, is a particularly interesting example; she repeats certain words according to a particular rhythm, replaced by a sound, until exhaustion. Just like these visual artists (Eva Hesse, Louise Bourgeois), whose words she puts into music, we can hear breaks, "flat areas", as if she were drawing musical landscapes with big streaks of colors.

Ulrike Haage herself is an influence to new artists such as Nepomuk, who remixed "Magic Waters".^[10]

Defining the "genre"

How could her music, taking inspiration in the whole music history, be defined? electro-jazz? nu-jazz? film soundtrack? theatre music? and what about the piano? and the more classic parts? Ulrike Haage is constantly redefining her music and her way of composing and creating. She flees in order to invent a new writing each time. An adjective stands out: eclectic. Then, others come to mind; still, light, crystalline. Maybe the time has come, as Frédéric Derval said it, to forget about the encompassing "genres" and names in order to find a new way to express music.^[11]

Discography

Reichlich Weiblich

• Live in Moers (1987)

Vladimir Estragon

• Three Quarks for Muster Mark (1989)

Goto

• Phil Minton, FM Einheit, Haage (1995)

Rainbirds

• Two faces (1991)
• In a different light (1993)
• Making Memory (1996)
• Forever (1997)
• 3000.live (1999)

Stein

• Stein (1990)
• Steinzeit (1992)
• König Zucker (1994)

Radio plays

Radio plays on CD^[12]

• Apokalypse live (Bayerischer Rundfunk, 1994), Ammer, Einheit, Haage (Preis der Kriegsblinden,^[13] Prix Italia^[13]), published by FM 4.5.1, ISBN :3934847528 .
• Odysseus 7 (Bayerischer Rundfunk, 1998), Ammer, Einheit, Haage; published by FM 4.5.1, ISBN :3934847536 .
• 7 Dances Of The Holy Ghost (Bayerischer Rundfunk, 1998), Ammer, Haage (named for the Futura Award by ARD, Arbeitsgemeinschaft der öffentlich-rechtlichen Rundfunkanstalten der Bundesrepublik Deutschland), published by Sans Soleil, ISBN :3880300348 .
• Bei Unserer Lebensweise ist es sehr angenehm, lange im voraus zu einer Party eingeladen zu werden (BR, 1999), Jane Bowles, Katharina Franck, Ulrike Haage (Radio play of the month,^[14] septembre 1999, Wikipedia allemand : Hörspiel des Monats ), published by Sans Soleil, ISBN :3880300364 .
• Die Wüste Lop Nor (Bayerischer Rundfunk,^[15] ARD^[16] 2000), Raoul Schrott, Music by Ulrike Haage (Radio play of the Month,^[17] Août 2000], Wikipedia allemand : Hörspiel des Monats), published by HÖR Verlag, 2000, ISBN :978-3895848407.
• Reise, Toter (Bayerischer Rundfunk, 2001) Durs Grünbein, Ulrike Haage, published by Sans Soleil, ISBN :3880300372 .
• Last Words : Qui Vivre Verra (Bayerischer Rundfunk, 2001), W. S. Burroughs, Ulrike Haage, Barbara Schäfer (Radio play of the Month,^[18] Septembre 2001, Wikipedia allemand : Hörspiel des Monats), published by Sans Soleil, ISBN :3880300399 .
• Bombsong (2002), Thea Dorn, Ulrike Haage (Auftragswerk der Frankfurter Positionen), published by Sans Soleil, ISBN :3880300402 .
• Ding fest machen (Bayerischer Rundfunk,^[19] 2003), from the texts ofLouise Bourgeois, published by Sans Soleil, ISBN :3880300410 .
• Exakte Vision (WDR3^[20] 2004), Ulrike Vosswinkel, Ulrike Haage, published by Sans Soleil, ISBN :9783880300422 .
• Die Stille hinter den Worten (Bayerischer Rundfunk, 2008), Ulrike Haage, broadcast 24 February 2008, published by Sans Soleil, ISBN :9783880300439 .
• Der Wind in der Weiden (Deutschlandradio Kultur,^[21] broadcast in four parts in April 2009), d'après le texte de Kenneth Grahme.
• Alles aber anders (Bayerischer Rundfunk,^[8] 2009), from the Eva Hesse’s diary, broadcast 7 May 2009 (il devrait sortir à la rentrée en éditon limitée), published by Sans Soleil, septembre 2009, ISBN :9783880300446 .

Not published radio plays

• Pikdame. Pamphlets and letters of Nancy Cunard (Bayerischer Rundfunk, 2006).
• Amnesie der Ozeane (SWR2,^[22] 2009).

Other projects

• Schlachtplatte, 1998 with the Stein group, German operette from the Ring, produced by the Marstall Theater München.^[23]
• Imaginary Landscapes, musical command of podcasts, listenable on the internet site cklab.

Collaborations

• Fragiles (2001), Meret Becker, Buddy Sacher, Ulrike Haage
• Music for the bonus of the DVD of Requiem de Hans-Christian Schmid, 2007

Solo

• Sélavy (2004), (named in the furth list of the best albums in year 2004 of the price of disc’s German Critic,^[24] catégorie Frontière)
• Pianoscope (2005), piano score, published by Ricordi
• Weißes Land (2006), played with Eric Schaefer (Ingénieur du son : Ricky Ojijo)
• Le Pianoscope (2007) Klavierkompositionen für Film (piano composition for films), Universal Publishing Production Music, numeric publishing for the public the 2nd octobre 2009.

Sources

This article is based on translation of article on the German Wikipedia and the French one Ulrike Haage, as from her internet site myspace.

The biography extracted from Creative Europe^[25] was consulted also this one hardscore.de.

Further reading

• Ulrike Haage, « Klanggefüttert im Dunkeln nach Hause », in Räumungen – Von der Unverschämtheit, Theater für ein Medium der Zukunft zu halten, Acte du colloque dirigé par Ralph Hammerthaler et Elisabeth Schweeger, p. 104-107, Berlin, Alexander, 2000. ISBN 3-89581-048-7
• Ulrike Haage, « Meine Sehnsucht nach Musik im Theater », in TheaterPeripherien, p. 221-227, Tübingen, Konkursbuchverlag Claudia Gehrke, 2001. ISBN 3-88769-235-7

References

External links

• Official Site
• Ulrike Haage on Myspace
• Edition Sans Soleil
• Rainbirds Official Site