Bach meets Sampling
Ilze Grudule
Concept, Baroque cello, voice, electronics Cellist, conductor, project manager, and music educator Ilze Grudule was born in Latvia. She has lived and worked in Switzerland since 1998, first in Geneva and then in Basel. In 2004, Ilze Grudule founded the "Kesselberg Ensemble" (www.kesselbergensemble.com) in Basel, whose goal, among other things, is to bring more Swiss and Latvian Baroque composers back to concert halls. Ilze Grudule is the author and producer of a series of audiovisual productions that combine Baroque and contemporary music with modern stage equipment. Recordings for Deutschlandfunk, Musiques Suisses, Chandos Records, cpo, Symphonia, Philips Record, and Naxos document her work. From 2005 to 2016, she directed the "Baroque Music Days Rezekne" (Latvia), and from 2008 to 2012, she taught as a guest teacher at the Early Music Department of the Latvian Academy of Music in Riga. In 2018, Ilze Grudule was nominated for the Latvian Music Prize, the highest award in her home country. Since 2018, she has also worked as a conductor in Basel and the Canton of Solothurn, and since 2020, she has been the director of the Prima Vista Orchestra Course at the Basel Music School. She was also the first cellist of the "Capriccio Baroque Orchestra" for 20 years. She is regularly invited to perform with various baroque ensembles and orchestras throughout Europe. She is currently working on a comprehensive project: the complete edition of Johann Gottfried Müthel's instrumental concertos on CD and as a New Urtext Edition with the publisher "Musica Baltica." Since 2019, she has been working on a large-scale project: a Christmas oratorio with contemporary Swiss composers Hans-Martin Linde, Lukas Huber, Helena Winkelmann, and Isabel Klaus, as a canticle for the famous work by Johann Sebastian Bach. Her latest project is "WO-Basel sing and play along," launched three years ago in St. Peter's Church in Basel, where professionals and amateurs, children, parents, and grandparents come together on one stage, where classical music meets contemporary compositions. www.wo-basel.com
Vincent Flückiger
Live Sampling, Electronics Multi-artist, lute player, and guitarist (electric and baroque guitar) Vincent Flückiger was born in Freiburg and has lived in Basel for over 15 years. He studied at the Centre musique ancienne in Geneva with Jonatan Rubin and at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis with Hopkinson Smith. In addition to his work in baroque ensembles and orchestras such as I Gemelli, the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Les Ombres, Camerata Bern, the baroque pop fusion trio with Aurore Bucher and Elodie Peudepiece, the jazz fusion duo Heima (Basel), and the duo Blue Devided by Blue (Freiburg), he also works as a sampler artist. In 2014, his sampling composition "Padumoj" for choir, baroque orchestra, baroque bassoon solo, and sampler from the musical pastiche "A Home for Müthel" was nominated for two Latvian cultural awards. In 2015, the "Musical Summer in Eisenberg" festival commissioned him to compose "Broadwood" for fortepiano, string quartet, and sampler for pianist Alena Honigova and the "Eisenberg Quartet." In 2016, he presented his three sampling compositions in the musical pastiche "Re:Fritz" with the "Kesselberg Ensemble" and tango dancers Lionel Wirz & Lia Jeker in Rezekne, Riga, and Basel. In 2018, he was the musical director of the performance "Flow My Tears – The Last Feast" with music by the English Renaissance composer John Dowland at the Lucerne Opera. Since 2020, Vincent Flückiger has been creating his live sampling compositions as part of the music project “Magnetic Bach”.
Jocelyn Raphanel
Bells, Electronics, Sound He has been working as a sound engineer for live performances for 20 years. While studying sound design in Lyon, he encountered electroacoustic music. Since then, he has refined his compositions and musical ideas through his creations or technical and sonic accompaniment for various projects. At the same time, the realization of sound installations allows him to reach different audiences and expand his expressive spectrum. In 2018, an internship in composition for immersive music at the Brussels Conservatory allowed him to work with renowned figures from the world of multiphony, such as Robert Normandeau (Montreal), Annette Vande Gorne (Brussels), and Elisabeth Anderson (London). In 2019, he earned a CAS in Cultural Management from the Haute École de Musique de Neuchâtel, with a thesis on the production of immersive musical and artistic installations. He has been the initiator of the Immersive Sound Festival in Fribourg since 2019, and since 2025, Jocelyn Raphanel has been the director of the association MIAM, Immersive and Artist Music in Movement in Fribourg. The association aims to promote the creation and dissemination of immersive music, support innovative media productions, and promote artists who seek to inspire diverse audiences.
Gäste:
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The FULL Story
"Magnetic Bach" is an experience for the ears. Classical music magnetically attracts electronic sounds. J.S. Bach meets sampling. Modernity merges with tradition. Composition inspires improvisation.
ABOUT THE GROUP
MAGNETIC BACH is a music project where score and improvisation, acoustic origins and synthetic sounds collide. The original project "Magnetic Bach" brought together three Swiss musicians in 2019 – cellist Ilze Grudule and sample artist Vincent Flückiger, as well as Moog synthesizer and electronic artist Fred Chappuis. Latvian soprano Aija Veismane has been part of the group since 2022, and sound artist Jocelyn Raphanel from Fribourg has replaced Fred Chappuis, and video artist Nico Berger has joined the team since 2023. Other musicians, such as multi-instrumentalist Uģis Prauliņš, have been invited for individual projects.
MAGNETIC BACH is an experience for the ear. The acoustics of the concert hall and classical music, along with electronic, often improvised music, combine magnetically, something only possible in an unconventional concert performance. Sounds from diverse sources are combined, blending the modern with the traditional. The concert programs alternate between compositions and electroacoustic improvisations. The simple, clear lines and sound fields unite the musical elements into a cohesive whole.
BACKGROUND
Several programs have already emerged from this fusion of compositions and improvisations of acoustic and electronic music. In 2014, the musical pastiche "Ein Zuhause für Müthel" (A Home for Müthel) about the life of the Riga Baroque composer Johann Gottfried Müttel, and in 2016, "Re:Fritz" (Re: Fritz) commemorating the 300th birthday of the Geneva composer and violin virtuoso Gaspar Fritz. Both programs were performed in Latvia and Switzerland. The last project also involved the Basel vocal artist and composer Christian Zehnder and the dancers Lionel Wirz
and Lia Jeker from the Tango School Basel. In 2018, the Lucerne Opera House performed "Flow My Tears - The Last Feast"
with the music of the English Renaissance composer John Dowland in a modern production. Here, Vincent Flückiger served as musical director, and Fred Chappuis performed in his distinctive role as a sound artist.
In 2021, there were several online concerts in Riga and Basel with the "Magnetic Bach" trio program "Waves" – featuring Ilze Grudule, Vincent Flückiger, and Fred Chappuis – based on the cello solo suites of Johann Sebastian Bach. Video artists Lionel Wirz from Switzerland and Mön Bourdeau from France also participated in the project. In 2022-23, the group toured Switzerland, Latvia, and Lithuania with the program "UNEXPECTED."
