UMS'nJIP
are a Swiss contemporary music duo
based in Münster
(Valais/Switzerland)
at the foot of the Finsteraarhorn and the Rhone
Glacier, consisting of Ulrike Mayer-Spohn (UMS) on recorders
& electronics and Javier Hagen (JIP), voice &
electronics.
One of the most experienced and distinguished contemporary
music laboratories of our times, they work as composers,
performers and organizers within a
global network
of composers, visual artists, stage directors,
researchers, universities and festivals. Their special interest in long term
collaboration, with its exchange of knowledge and
awareness, brings context to new creations and results
in an outstanding increase of artistic content. In this
manner, UMS'nJIP explore new settings for voice,
recorders and electronics, ranging from live to digital
performance in concert, scenic or installative formats
and often integrate European as well as non-European
music.
UMS'nJIP have been invited to perform at prestigious contemporary
music festivals around the world including Zürich,
Lucerne, Donaueschingen, Stuttgart, Berlin, Paris, Venice,
Barcelona, Athens, Istanbul, Cairo, Moscow, Shanghai, Hong
Kong, Seoul, Tongyeong, Tokyo, Buenos Aires, Mexico City,
and New York. They have premiered hundreds of works,
collaborating with both world famous and aspiring young
composers such as Heiner Goebbels, Wolfgang Rihm, Mauricio
Kagel, Jennifer Walshe, Wolfgang Mitterer, Erik Oña, Luis
Codera Puzo, Chikashi Miyama, Du Yun, Huang Ruo and Guo
Wenjing. They can look back on more than
1400 concerts since their debut in 2007 and are one of
the most active contemporary music ensembles worldwide,
bringing both young and established works not only to famous
venues but also to audiences who do not have easy access to
live performances of top quality contemporary music.
Both individually and as a duo UMS and JIP have received
numerous commissions
and awards and have been invited to
share their knowledge in renowned universities in
Europe, America and Asia. JIP is also the director of the
Swiss Contemporary Music Festival Forum Wallis, served ISCM Switzerland's
board (2012-24, president 2014-24) as well as the boards of
the European Conference of Promoters of New Music ECPNM
(2014-18), the Swiss Music Edition, and of the UNESCO
Commission for the Inventory of Intangible Cultural
Heritage in the Canton of Valais (2009-18). Since 2013
UMS has been pioneering two research projects: Recorder Map
and Recorderology,
and the duo has been invited to act as experts in the
European Union's FP7 i-Treasures project.
A high performance
small scale contemporary music laboratory and
global network
Although UMS’nJIP do handle an impressive workload, their
aim is not to premiere as much as possible but to perform
new works as often as possible – since works basically
grow by being performed.
At a time in which it is increasingly difficult to defend
reflective, not primarily commercially-oriented music,
UMS’nJIP maximize artistic adventurousness by reducing
economic risk to a minimum: Strict adherence to a small
cast, supported by exceptional and internationally
recognized experience, expertise, versatility, agility and
unique ness means that UMS’nJIP can call themselves one of
the most active contemporary music ensembles worldwide,
alongside Ensemble Modern, Intercontemporain and Kronos
Quartet. The large number of performances implies a
remarkably high performance rate of new works (up to 100
performances per work, well above the global average for
classical contemporary music < 5), and, more important,
this deeply benefits the performance quality and emotional
impact of the performed works.
Thanks to the consistently small scale of their projects,
UMS’nJIP can achieve their projects with both great
flexibility and irregular financing, especially in
countries where new music is in a politically and
financially difficult position and the featuring of high
quality new music is particularly important in concerts
and teaching. Fully aware that creativity cannot only be
brought to society by performances but also by active
participation in cultural politics, UMS’nJIP are also
involved in different local, national and international
structures. Within these structures, they have initiated
more than 500 further projects and commissions since 2006.
UMS
Extraordinary
diversity describes the composer and multi-instrumentalist Ulrike
Mayer-Spohn who plays the recorder (with a focus
on contemporary music), as well as historical string
instruments (fiddle and baroque violin). She studied
composition and audio design with Erik Oña at the Studio of
Electronic Music, Academy of Music, Basel, beginning to
compose in 2007, and receiving commissions from the festival
Forum Valais and the international New Music Days, Shanghai.
Her work has been
performed by the Stuttgarter Vokalsolisten, Klangforum Wien,
Ensemble Phoenix Basel, Vertigo, DissonArt, L'Arsenale, cool
a cappella (1st Prize world choir games 2008) and her own
ensemble UMS'nJIP in Switzerland, France, Greece, Italy,
Russia, Australia, the USA and China, premiered under the
baton of Beat Furrer, Mark Foster, Tsung Yeh, Jürg
Henneberger and Filippo Perocco and broadcast by the Swiss
radio.
She was awarded
the 1st Prize in the Walter Ferrato composition contest in
Savona 2017, the 1st Prize in the Weimarer Frühjahrstage für
Zeitgenössische Musik composition contest 2017, the 1st
Prize in the London Ear Festival composition contest 2016,
the 2nd Prize in the composition competition Culturescapes
2010, 2nd Prize in the composition competition at the Bern
music festival 2011, the Scholarship Award for 2011 at the
Music Village Mount Pelion in Greece and the Call for Scores
Award L'Arsenale Treviso, Italy 2011.
In the ensemble
UMS'nJIP she has undertaken research in the field of musical
theater (chamber operas One, Two, Three, Four, Five), live
electronic music and sound spacialization. She studied
recorder with Ulrike Mauerhofer at the Musikhochschule
Karlsruhe, with Conrad Steinmann and Corina Marti at the
Schola Cantorum Basel before specializing in contemporary
music and studying with Dorothea Winter at the Royal
Conservatory in The Hague. From 2009-11 she studied for a
specialized master's degree in contemporary performance at
the HSM in Basel supervised by Jürg Henneberger, Marcus
Weiss and Mike Svoboda and has taken masterclasses with
Marion Verbruggen, Peter van Heyghen, Sebastien Marq and
Gerd Lünenbürger. She studied baroque violin and viola with
Martina Graulich and David Plantier and fiddle with Randal
Cook in Basel.
Ulrike Mayer-Spohn
works with internationally leading composers and annually
plays more than 20 world premieres dedicated to her, which
she has recorded for the radio as well as VDE Gallo and col
legno on CD.
Together with the
Swiss composer and singer Javier Hagen, she established the
experimental new music duo UMS'nJIP for voice, recorder and
electronics, which, alongside the Ensemble Modern,
Intercontemporain and Kronos is one of the most active
ensembles worldwide and in 2011 won the prestigious
MusiquePro scholarship. Since 1999, Ulrike Mayer-Spohn has
also performed as a recorder player, violinist, violist and
fiddle player in specialized early music ensembles such as
the Amsterdam Barok Compagnie, Freitagsakademie, Collegium
Musicum Stuttgart, La Chapelle Ancienne, Musica Poetica,
Muscadin and La Morra and has performed in Germany, China,
the Netherlands, France, Spain, Italy and Switzerland. ulrikems.info
JIP
Javier Hagen
is one of the most astonishing classical singers of his
generation: new music, performance art and Swiss folk music
rank equally in his repertoire alongside opera and early
music.
Hagen was born as
Javier-Ignacio Palau-Ribes (JIP) in 1971 in Barcelona and
raised between 6 languages on the Mediterranean and in the
Valais Alps. He studied classical singing (both tenor and
countertenor) in Germany, Italy and Switzerland with Roland
Hermann, Alain Billard and Nicolai Gedda, and composition
with Heiner Goebbels and Wolfgang Rihm. He studied Lied with
Irwin Gage, Hartmut Höll and Ernst Haefliger and early music
with Karel van Steenhoven and Kees Boeke. He has a
four-octave vocal range.
Hagen has worked
with world-class composers such as Reimann, Kagel, Rosenmann
and Eötvös and leading artists from the worlds of concrete
poetry and constructive art such as Eugen Gomringer, Uecker
and Rolf Schroeter. Guest appearances have taken him to the
modern music festivals in Donaueschingen, Zurich, Geneva,
Lucerne, Karlsruhe, Amsterdam, Strasbourg, Bologna, Milan,
Prague, New York, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Moscow, St.
Petersburg, Adelaide, Riga, Avignon and Berlin.
Alongside operatic
roles such as Handel's Giulio Cesare, Zsupan (Kalman),
Dardanus (Rameau), Stanislaus (Zeller), Bruno (Roesler),
Toni (Kalman) and Pappacoda (Strauss), Javier Hagen has
premiered more than 300 works, including operas air à l'en
verre by Daniel Mouthon, eismeer by Christoph Schiller, poem
ohne held by Regina Irman, esther de racine by Boris Yoffe,
The Madman's Diary by Guo Wenjing, Marienglas by Beat Gysin,
Les Musiciens de Brème by Wen Deqing, Keyner nit by Mathias
Steinauer, Ushba et Tetnuld by Nicolas Vérin and almost all
vocal works by Maria Porten.
He has made more
than 50 recordings and broadcasts for Swiss, German, French,
Czech, Chinese, Russian, Mongolian, Spanish, Egyptian,
Italian and Latvian radio and television. He won prizes at
international contemporary music and composition
competitions in 2001, 2004 and 2008 in Basel, Lausanne and
Dusseldorf. In 2003, his distorted folk song arrangements
s´sch mr alles 1 Ding were released on CD on the Swiss label
musiques suisses.
His compositions,
in particular the vocal works, are performed throughout
Europe, Israel, China, Korea, Russia, Australia, North and
Central America, by ensembles and conductors including Titus
Engel, Fabian Panisello, Jose-Luis Castillo, Oliver Rudin,
Erick Lichte, Raphael Immoos, Philip Bride, Ensemble
Phoenix, dissonArt, Klangforum Wien, zafraan Berlin,
CeproMusic, Schweizer Jugendchor, Basler Madrigalisten, Männerstimmen
Basel, Eliana Burki, Amar Quartet. In 2012, a selection of
his graphic scores was shown at the prestigious Museum of
Modern Art haus konstruktiv in Zurich. At the European Youth
Choir Festival 2012, Javier Hagen represented
German-speaking Switzerland in the context of Swiss
Composers meet Europe.
With Ulrike
Mayer-Spohn, Hagen formed the experimental new music duo
UMS'nJIP, which, with over 100 concerts annually is one of
the most active and prolific contemporary music ensembles
around the world and winner of the prestigious scholarship
MusiquePro.
Javier Hagen also
directs the international contemporary music festival Forum
Wallis, hosting Stockhausen's Helicopter String Quartet with
André Richard and the Arditti String Quartet in 2015.
He is called as an
expert on experimental music theater for the University of
Arts in Bern, he is the President of IGNM-VS, of the Swiss Section of the
International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM
Switzerland, 2014-24) and serves the boards of the European
Conference of Promoters of New Music ECPNM (2015-2018), of
the Swiss Music Edition (2016-), Score Follower (2020-) and
Swissfestivals (2013-2019). He presents guest lectures at
universities in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Seoul, Taipei, Tokyo,
Moscow, Istanbul, Cairo, Buenos Aires, Adelaide, New York,
Thessaloniki, Barcelona, Riga and is member of the academic
board of the Contemporary Opera Academy at the Festival de
Nueva Opera de Buenos Aires (FNOBA) related to the Teatro
Colon. He is a jury member at national and international
composition and new music competitions (a.o. ISCM World
Music Days Young Composers Award, Bohol Philippines Int.
Choir Competition) and a member of various committees on
behalf of the canton of Valais as well as for the inventory
of the cultural heritage on behalf of UNESCO (2009-2018).
In 2007 he was nominated for "Walliser of the Year." In 2013 he was awarded the Prix Culturel de l'Etat du Valais. In 2021 he was appointed by the Inamori Foundation to nominate candidates for the renowned Kyoto Music Prize. javierhagen.ch