European Bridges Ensemble - Repertoire

Repertoire

The ensemble plays pieces mostly written by the members of the group itself, but music by outside composers is played occasionally as well.

The first music written for EBE was Bridges, a work of five movements composed by Kai Niggemann, Marlon Schumacher, Johannes Kretz, Andrea Szigetvári and Ivana Ognjanović in 2005. Each movement was composed by a different musician, and every movement reflects somehow on the city where the actual musician lives (in other words, there is a movement about Münster, Stuttgart, Vienna, Budapest and Belgrade). It was first performed on the Internet with live broadcast in Münster, Stuttgart and Vienna on 17 June 2005.

A similar piece is Quintessence, also with five movements, each one about one of the five elements. The composers are Kai Niggemann (Earth), Marlon Schumacher (Fire), Johannes Kretz (Quintessence), Andrea Szigetvári (Air) and Ivana Ognjanović (Water). It was composed in 2007 and first played during the Music in the Global Village conference on 6 September 2007.

Ivresse '84 (composed by Ensemble leader Georg Hajdu in 2007) is the first piece for the group where only four laptop players are needed as the fifth player is replaced by a violinist. The piece reflects on the riot that happened during the premiere of the first two books of John Cage's Freeman Etudes in Ivrea (Turin), in 1984. It was first performed during the Music in the Global Village conference on 6 September 2007 by János Négyesy, the same violinist who played the Etudes on the original premiere.

The first piece having also text spoken was Keep Calm and Carry On. The text is a dialogue written by Maria Popara and Kai Niggemann using the typical slang of chat. The music was composed by Kai Niggemann in 2007, and the piece was also first performed during the Music in the Global Village conference on 6 September 2007.

Anne La Berge, a composer and flutist composed Brokenheart for LOOS Ensemble and EBE in 2007, where the goal was to write a piece where the laptop ensemble plays together with an acoustic ensemble (including flute, piano and percussion). It was first played during the Music in the Global Village conference on 6 September 2007.

In 2007 the Ensemble was invited to play at a concert of Projekt Bipolar in Berlin on 13 October 2007. There was a young composers' competition "Hommage à György Ligeti" among the activities of Projekt Bipolar, and the prizes were given to the winners also during this concert. For this event, EBE commissioned a piece from Sascha Lino Lemke. Netze spinnen # Spinnennetze is a work where the five players are split in space. The material used by Lemke relates in several ways to Ligeti's music, including the use of metronomes and other polyrhythmical solutions.

Ensemble member Ádám Siska wrote his piece 185 in 2008 (first performed during the Hamburger Klangwerktage 2008 Festival on 26 November 2008). This was the first piece in the repertoire not using sampling techniques at all.

The Ensemble created also transcriptions of two pieces of John Cage. One was Five (composed in 1988, EBE version first performed on 27 April 2006), the other was Radio Music (composed in 1956, transcribed by Georg Hajdu in 2008, EBE version first performed on 26 November 2008).

In 2010 EBE was invited to perform a concert in collaboration with Marek Chołoniewski as part of the European Capital of Culture program taking place in Pécs, Hungary that year.