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quidni 1 (c) Mirko Ludwig.jpeg

Building Bridges

From Medieval to Traditional Music

Pere Olivé, percussion

Baptiste Romain, fiddle, bagpipe

Silke Gwendolyn Schulze, shawm, douçaine, double recorder, pipe & string drum

Building Bridges: Service
Building Bridges: Video

From the Middle Ages to the present and back! Traveling 800 years in one concert is not a contradiction for the three musicians of the ensemble quidni. They rather see and look for the things in common between these two poles of music history, the Medieval Ages and the traditional music. Following the latin translation of the ensemble name ("why not?") the ensemble moves in a free and curious way and builds bridges between these two styles: they discover similar melodic motives, appose comparable harmonies, immerse in the same modi and use alike rhythms. The three musicians play on a multitude of different percussion, wind and string instruments, some of which disappeared after the Medieval Ages and only survived in traditional music, or which reconstructions have been inspired by traditional instruments. Together they come up with new arrangements for their many and partly rather unknown instruments and let their enthusiasm for improvisation and experimenting infect each other.

Music from Spain, Occitania, Mallorca, from the Manuscrit du Roi, Colin Muset, Alfonso el Sabio et al.

Building Bridges: Text
Building Bridges: Video

QUIDNI ist the name for projects directed by Silke Gwendolyn Schulze. Following the latin translation of the ensemble name - "why not?" - the ensemble moves in a free and curious way albeit with a precise sense of style over 600 years of Early Music: from medieval repertoire of the minstrels to repertoire of the renaissance town waits to baroque chamber music of the 17th and 18th century.
For the program BUILDING BRIDGES Silke meets her two friends Baptiste Romain, a medieval fiddle and bagpipe player from France, and the Catalan percussionist Pere Olivé from Barcelona. Together they explore the richness and variety of medieval instruments and sounds, combined with the freshness of traditional nowadays music. The three musicians combine these two styles of music which are originally separated by many centuries and manage to merge them in a way that sometimes it is not possible to tell them apart - up to the point when the question "which is which?" becomes unimportant.

Building Bridges: Text
Building Bridges: Video
Building Bridges: Video

Vom Mittelalter in die Gegenwart und zurück! 800 Jahre mehrmals innerhalb eines Konzerts zurückzulegen ist kein Widerspruch für die drei Musiker des Ensembles quidni. Vielmehr sehen und suchen sie die Gemeinsamkeiten zwischen diesen beiden Polen der Musikgeschichte, dem Mittelalter und der traditionellen Musik. Gemäss ihrem Ensemblenamen (quidni: lateinisch „warum nicht?“) bewegen sie sich frei und neugierig durch die Jahrhunderte und bauen Brücken zwischen den beiden Stilen: sie entdecken ähnliche melodische Motive, stellen vergleichbare Harmonien nebeneinander, tauchen in gleiche Modi ein und bedienen sich derselben Rhythmen. Die drei Musiker spielen auf einer Vielzahl verschiedener Perkussions-, Blas- und Streichinstrumente, von denen einige nach dem Mittelalter ausgestorben sind und manche nur in der traditionellen Musik überlebt haben, oder deren Rekonstruktionen von traditionellen Instrumenten inspiriert wurden. Gemeinsam erfinden sie für ihr umfangreiches, teils eher unbekanntes Instrumentarium neue Arrangements über die Jahrhunderte hinweg und lassen sich von ihrer Spiel- und Improvisationsfreude gegenseitig anstecken.

Musik aus Spanien, Okzitanien, Mallorca, aus dem Manuscrit du Roi, von Colin Muset, Alfonso el Sabio u.a.

Building Bridges: Text
Building Bridges: Pro Gallery
quidni 2 (c) Mirko Ludwig.jpeg
Building Bridges: Bild
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