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Michael Mantler (born August 10, 1943) is an Austrian avant-garde jazz trumpeter and composer of contemporary music.
Career: United States
Mantler was born in Vienna, Austria. In the early 1960s, he was a student at the Academy of Music and Vienna University, concentrating on trumpet and musicology. He continued his studies at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. In 1964, he moved to New York City and joined the Jazz Composers Guild with Roswell Rudd, Archie Shepp, and Cecil Taylor. He founded the Jazz Realities quintet with Carla Bley and toured in Europe with Steve Lacy. After the Guild broke up, he established the Jazz Composer's Orchestra Association (JCOA). Its purpose was to provide an outlet for new orchestral jazz compositions. For its first record release he produced a double album of his music during 1968, entitled The Jazz Composer's Orchestra, with soloists Cecil Taylor, Don Cherry, Roswell Rudd, Pharoah Sanders, Larry Coryell, and Gato Barbieri. Some of this music was also performed during the "Long Concerts" at the Electric Circus in New York in 1969.
The problems of independently distributing the orchestra's record label led him to form the New Music Distribution Service (as a division of JCOA) in 1972, an organization which was to serve many independent labels for almost twenty years. Mantler and Bley started their own company, WATT, which was a record label, recording studio, and music publisher. By the mid 1970s both orchestra and distributor discontinued their activities.
Mantler recorded many solo albums with varying instrumentation and personnel, emphasizing his work as a composer rather than as a band leader. Appearing live infrequently, he concentrated on composing and recording. He recorded Something There with the string section of the London Symphony Orchestra and several albums using the words of writers Samuel Beckett (No Answer), Harold Pinter (Silence), and Edward Gorey (The Hapless Child).
Commissions and performances with European orchestras followed, at the Danish Radio, the Swedish Radio, the North and West German Radio, and the Lille Opera. His 1987 album Many Have No Speech contained songs in English, German, and French that were based on the poetry of Samuel Beckett, Ernst Meister, and Philippe Soupault, with vocals by rock musicians Jack Bruce, Marianne Faithfull, and Robert Wyatt.
From 1977 until 1985 he was also a member of the Carla Bley Band, touring extensively throughout Europe, the USA, and Japan, as well as appearing on all of the Band's recordings. Mantler and Bley were married from 1965 –1991 and had one daughter, Karen Mantler, who became a musician.
Career: Europe
In 1991 he left the United States and moved to Europe, dividing his time between Copenhagen, Denmark and the South of France.
A new orchestral piece was commissioned by the Austrian Donau Festival, and was premièred near Vienna in June 1991 by the Nö.Tonkünstlerorchester, conducted by Michael Gibbs, with Andy Sheppard as soloist. New compositions were also commissioned by the Danish Radio Big Band and the North German Radio Big Band in Hamburg.
During 1992 Mantler recorded a new album, titled Folly Seeing All This, released by ECM Records in March 1993, which features the Balanescu Quartet plus other instrumentalists. The album includes instrumental compositions and one song, music set to Samuel Beckett's last work written shortly before his death in 1989, the poem "What Is the Word" featuring the voice of Jack Bruce.
In 1993 he formed the Chamber Music and Songs ensemble, featuring his trumpet plus Mona Larsen (voice), Bjarne Roupé (guitar), Kim Kristensen (keyboards), and a string quartet consisting of Marianne Sørensen (violin), Mette Winther (viola), Gunnar Lychou (viola), and Helle Sørensen (cello). Its premiere took place at the Copenhagen Jazzhouse in September, followed by a studio production at Denmark Radio.
Cerco un Paese Innocente, a "Suite of Songs and Interludes for Voice, Untypical Big Band, and Chamber Ensemble", with words by the Italian poet Giuseppe Ungaretti, had its premiere in concert at Denmark Radio in January 1994. Featured were the voice of Mona Larsen, Mantler's ensemble, and the Danish Radio Big Band, conducted by Ole Kock Hansen. The work was subsequently recorded in the studio and released by ECM Records in 1995.
The School of Understanding ("sort-of-an-opera") had its première in August 1996 at Arken, the new Museum of Modern Art in Copenhagen. Participants included singers Jack Bruce, Mona Larsen, Susi Hyldgaard, John Greaves, Don Preston, Karen Mantler, Per Jørgensen, and Robert Wyatt. The recording was released as a double-CD by ECM in November 1997, followed by a new live production at the Hebbel Theater in Berlin.
His One Symphony, commissioned by the broadcaster Hessischer Rundfunk, was premiered in November 1998 by the Radio Symphony Orchestra Frankfurt, conducted by Peter Rundel. The recording of the work was released in February 2000, together with previously recorded material featuring Mona Larsen and the Chamber Music and Songs ensemble interpreting songs set to texts by Ernst Meister.
Hide and Seek, an album of songs with words by Paul Auster (from his play by the same name) for chamber orchestra and the voices of Robert Wyatt and Susi Hyldgaard, was released in March 2001. Theatrical productions of the work, conceived by Rolf Heim (who has previously worked with Mantler on the School of Understanding performances), were produced in the Spring of 2002 in Copenhagen (Kanonhallen, February) and Berlin (Hebbel Theater, March).
His Concerto for Marimba and Vibraphone (commissioned by Portuguese percussionist Pedro Carneiro in 2001) premiered at the Hessischer Rundfunk in March 2005 with the Radio Symphony Orchestra Frankfurt conducted by Pascal Rophé.
During September 2006 Porgy & Bess in Vienna presented a series of retrospective portrait concerts with his Chamber Music and Songs ensemble
In recognition of his life's work he received several Austrian awards: the State Prize for Improvised Music, the Prandtauer Prize of the City of St. Pölten, where he spent his early youth, and the Music Prize of the City of Vienna.
The anthology Review (recordings 1968 – 2000), released by ECM in 2006, traced his musical path during more than 30 years of recordings for JCOA, WATT, and ECM.
He appeared at the JazzFest Berlin in November 2007 with his Concertos project, featuring the Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin under the direction of Roland Kluttig. A studio recording of the concertos with soloists Bjarne Roupé (guitar), Bob Rockwell (tenor saxophone), Roswell Rudd (trombone), Pedro Carneiro (marimba and vibraphone), Majella Stockhausen (piano), Nick Mason (percussion), and Mantler on trumpet, was released by ECM during November 2008.
His next CD (For Two), a series of duets for guitar (Bjarne Roupé) and piano (Per Salo), was released by ECM during June 2011.
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