Creativity is not about inventing new things. Creativity is the art of making something new with the elements which are already given

 

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April 26, 2020

Time is standing still during this global Corona-virus crisis. I was able to participate to this great project, which is a fund raising to help out people in difficulty. Lots of musicians and bands made this possible. Check it out here:

https://www.projekt-wilde-flamme.com/

PREVIOUS NEWS

Jan 1st, 2020

First off, I wish everyone a happy new year! My 2019 couldn't have had a better end. The Frei.Wild album "Still 2" which I co-produced and on which I played keyboards and arranged brass and strings was released on Nov. 29 and went straight to #1 of the German chart. i'd like to thank all the fans out there, you are amazing! In December we have been touring through Germany and it has been simply a blast. Again, fantastic audience, awesome band, amazing light show, kick-ass sound...beside the four usual suspects of Frei.Wild two great friends joined us on guitar: Warthy and Mattia Mariotti. It has been a pleasure to play along. I'd like to thank all the tour crew, everyone was exceptional!!!! Below, some pictures.

It has been a while, I had quiet a rough year. Let's try to summarize. Finally the EP of Philipp Trojer has been released in the Spring. Check it out on Spotify! On the film side, I wrote the soundtrack for a documentary film produced by famous climber Reinhold Messner and Markus Frings.

I habe also been again on tour with Thomas Hochkofler with our new cabaret. Pretty much everywhere sold-out, we thank all fans out there! On the classical side, I did record bach's Goldberg Variations on the harpsichord. I am working on a video of the performance and I hope to release the CD in early 2020.

CongraItulations to Frei.Wild for the two gold-awards and three platinum-awards! Thanks to the guys for sharing them with me!!!!

May 5, 2018

The new show with Thomas Hochkofler is ready! Our debut is on May 11 at the Puccini Theater, Meran. A very demanding cabaret for both of us. We got a lot of help from Gabi Rothmüller (director) and Alex Liegl (Author).

March 16, 2018: The new Frei.Wild Album RIVALEN UND REBELLEN is released today. It's probably the most round recording of the band. Killer songs and a fantastic production. I played piano on one track. Check it out!

October 4, 2017: Playing piano in the new comedy "Meran leuchtet" in Theater in der Altstadt-Meran with lots of old friends under the direction of Rudi Ladurner: Thomas Hochkofler, Lukas Lobis, Patrizia Pfeifer, Theo Hendrich, Sabine Ladurner, Johanna Porcheddu, Reinhardt Winter. The play was written for this occasion by Klemens Renolder. We play until October 20. Don't miss it!

I'm also producing the new recording of the Italian singer-songwriter Johnny Ponta together with Mattia Mariotti and Paul Umbach (Nashville). it sounds terrific! More soon.

Also writing and producing a new EP of Philipp Trojer. We have brand new kick-ass tunes, which I'm convinced will rock everyone out there! We plan to release it in December.

Ensemble of "Meran leuchtet", written by Klemens Renolder

March 16,2017: Three Tracks of mine will be heard in the movie "Moda mia", directed by Marco Pollini. Release date March 23. I can't wait!!!

Nov. 27, 2016: The singer/songwriter Waira release her first EP two weeks ago. I produced the album together with Mattia Mariotti. It received already very enthusistics feedbacks, especially this review. Check her out, she's got talent.

The  Frei.Wild DVD of the venue in Berlin will be released on Dec. 23. I can't wait!

Aug 1, 2016: I just came back from Berlin, where I played on Saturday a huge concert with Frei.Wild in occasion of their 15th anniversary. It has been memorable! Wuhlheide with 18.000 screaming fans!!!

In May I did the last tour of our Fockelotti cabaret. 9 venues in our area, almost all of them sold-out! Thank you Thomas Hochkofler for being such a great actor and friend!

Now it's official: the new Ska relaease of  Frei.Wild will be released on July 30 2016 in limited edition. I co-produced the tracks with the band and with Warthy, a well-know guitar player and producer. Fans who will come to the big 15-years concert in Berlin will receive a free copy. This is something unique for the band and it was fun to play on it. Check it out! BTW, I will be on stage in Berlin as guest musician.

I am working right now the soundtrack of a new documentary-film. This is about the life of Oswald von Wolkenstein, a poet, musician, politician of the XIV/XV century. His poetries and songs are of high value. I will be also playing a small role in the fiction which is part of the documentary. The film is produced by Klaus Romen and Gerd Staffler. Recently another film with a soundtrack of mine has been presented. The documentary is about the "Riegler brothers" climbing the Nanga-Parbat. We had already a good feedback from the audience. Director of the film is Markus Frings.

Feb 25, 2016: A couple of nice updates. I produced with my pal Mattia Mariotti the first single of a young and very talented artist, Philipp Trojer. He is a 19 years old very gifted and extremely nice guy. Please check out his music. Here is the video with the song "Do it now". I am also happy to announce that I have a new publisher for my film and tv tracks. It's the UK-based library Cinephonix. They rock!

Jan 6, 2016: First off, I wish everybody a great and marvellous 2016! A quick look-back at 2015: 3 Gold-awards with  Frei.Wild, a very succesful original theater piece with Thomas Hochkofler, scores for many documentary films (one of them presented in various film festival around the globe, another one on the exeptional athlete Armin Zoeggeler), a brand new recording of Nikolaus Bruhns' Cantatas to be released in 2016. I would like to thank all artists I had the privilege to work with in the last year!!!

On the film side, I am working on two big documentary films. One is about the life of Oswald von Wolkenstein (musician, composer, politician of the Medieval Times), the second one is about two climbers, the "Riegler brothers". And of course my Early Music festival ANTIQUA in August with many fantastic musicians and groups from around the globe.

2015

Sept. 28 What is better than a Gold-award? Three of them!!! I  just came back from the "Frei.Wild Gold award party" which took place a couple of days ago in Hamburg. It has been a memorable evening: it took place on a ship with a great concert of the band and the price ceremony with lots of musicians and industry people. I am very thankful to the band Frei.Wild for having me as a guest-musicians on those records and sharing with me the awards ("Feinde deiner Feinde", "Opposition" and the DVD "Live in Frankfurt"). I congratulate them and the whole artistic and tech staff for the phenomenal achievement!

My Early Music festival ANTIQUA ended on Sept. 5.  We  had great artists such as Red Priest, Venice Baroque Orchestra, Jos van Immerseel, and the Ensemble Trifolium. I played with this last group with the great soprano Mar Codina and with the phenomenal dancer Isabel Sanchez. We had a great time. Watch some picture on my FB page here.

I played the show "Fockelotti" with Thomas Hochkofler a very last time on Sept. 5th in Algund for the last time - at least before the next!-. We had the pleasure to have nearly 1000 people in the audience. nice!

Aug 12, 2015:A track of mine has been used by the National Geographic Channel for the series "Taboo". Nice! Thank you Mike Baiardi @ Soundfile Publishing for this placement.

May 18, 2015: Right now I'm recording all Nikolaus Bruhns (1665-1697) cantatas with Claudio Astronio and the Ensemble Harmonices Mundi. This is breath-taking music. JS Bach loved Bruhns, and so do I. We performed two concerts in Bolzano and Trento. The instrumental and vocal cast is exceptional with such singers like Christian Hilz (bariton), Marina Bartoli (Soprano) and two great young tenors (Richard Resch, Johannes Weiss).

On the "rock" side, I'm proud to annouce thet the new Frei.Wild album "Opposition" reached #1 of the German Chart and stayed there for 3 weeks. I did play keyboards on a couple of tracks.

I did an update on my "Music" page. Everything is now on Soundcloud, and the streaming is faster. I did upload more recent tracks and will now update more often.

Jan 2015: Looking back at 2014, I have to say it has been a fantastic  year! The Gold-award with Frei.Wild for the STILL album; two sold-out tour with the cabaret-show “Fockelotti" with my pal Thomas Hochkofler; several interesting soundtracks for documentary films for RAI (World War I, The climbing of the “Grosse Zinne” by Christoph Hainz, The Man of the Ice, among others). All this is giving me energy for my next projects.
Let’s see what’shaking in the next future: definitely something new with Thomas Hochkofler. This time, not a live show, but probably an audio-book. Then I’m going to pimp-up my studio and do a bit more work as arranger and producer. I’m teaming up with Mattia Mariotti, a fantastic guitar player, for some new productions.
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I’m also working on improving my Music page. I’m putting everything on Soundcloud. This will make browsing the track much easier and faster. Please be patient. Thanks for stopping by!

2014

I am happy to announce, that the Frei.Wild "STILL" album received Gold-status for the 100.000 copies sold. Since I took part in the production with piano, strings and brass arrangements, I also got the Gold-Award! It is such an unbelievable achievement, I really did not expect it! I'd like to thank the band, Alex Lysjakow, Jörg "Warhty" Warthmann, Stefan Harder, Kai Michaelmann, everyone of the live-crew and the staff at SPV and Rookies & Kings. This is AWESOME!!!! Btw, I am probably the one and only harpsichordist in the world who received this award.

The two Frei.Wild dvd "Still - tour" and "The Frankfurt show" reached #2 and #5 of the German chart only one week after the release! I'm glad I could take part to that tour and to the unforgettable performances in Frankfurt.
I have been so busy in November and December, that I could hardly update this page. After the successful local Tour with the new cabaret (Fockelotti with Thomas Hochkofler), I left for rehearsals and tour with Frei.Wild's latest show "Still". What a wonderful time!!! Awesome venues in Germany and Austria, ending with the two huge concerts at the Frankfurt Halle (more than 30,000 people in two days). The recording, on which I played piano and arranged strings and brass together with the band and with guitar-hero Warthy, was released on Nov. 22nd. One week later it reached # 1 of the German album chart. Amazing!!!! Watch some pics of the Frankfurt show here!

The new year has started with a lot of songwriting sessions. One nice song I wrote with Schlagersänger "Graziano" and Bernd Meinunger (incredible famous German writer) is going to be on Graziano's next album.

My Fall quote is: "sold-out!" In fact, the shows in which I am currently involved are sold-out. The first one is the new cabaret-program "Fockelotti" with Thomas Hochkofler. This is really our baby, please watch our FB page. Our Fall tour is packed, and we are enjoying it a lot. Tom is a real blast on stage, and the songs rock!

The next big thing is the new Frei-wild recording and tour. The CD "Still" has been recorded in the Summer and will be issued on Nov. 22nd. I played piano and did some strings arrangements. It is an acustic album, but much more than simply unplugged. There are orchestral ballads, high-energy rock'n'roll and punk tunes, fun songs with brass section. Go to the Frei-wild homepage and read more about it. I will be on tour with them from Nov. 21, and of course all venues are...SOLD-OUT!!!!!!

My new CD with Manuel Randi DANGEROUS ENCOUNTERS is now available on Amazon, iTunes and other digital distributors. In our town Bolzano it is available at the Cd-store Disco-New. We played music by Bull, Morley, Farnaby, Mudarra, Kerll, Handel, Scarlatti. It's an experimental program with transcriptions and improvisations, definitely something new for the Early Music scene. On this website you'll find information and soundbites!

New release by Harmonices Mundi of the Handel's duet just appeared by Brilliant Classic. Susanne Ryden and Gemma Bertagnolli, soprano, Claudio Astronio, director, and the usual suspect Pietro Prosser, Alessandro Palmeri and myself as continuo group. Check it out here!

I played in a brand new single of the band Frei-Wild. This is an awesome occasion, because all revenues will be given to an association devoted to a charity project for children. Lots of special guests on this one. Watch the trailer here.

On the film side, I just wrote the music for two more films of the series "History of South-Tyrol", directed and produced by Klaus Romen for RAI.

I have two great new publishers: Black Toast Music and Hoolywoodtrax. Things are getting more exciting....I'm also writing new songs with my co-writers Manuel Randi and Stefano Pisetta. It's awesome to work with such phenomenal musicians. Tracks available soon.

After a fantastic gig with vocalist Doris Warasin, I invited her to my studio for a session. You can hear the result of our improvisation here. If you are a true Elvis fan, you may find it outrageous...

If you are a rock music fan, check out these guys: OCTOBER RAGE. Pretty amazing...

I uploaded new tracks and a new trailer. Check them out in the Music and Video section! For local friends: a long interview with me will be issued by the magazine "IN-Suedtirol" on Nov. 3rd. At that time I shall be in Los Angeles for a big music convention. I will be also in Boston, visiting old friends.

One track of mine received a Nomination (July 2011) for the Hollywood Music in Media Awards! This is one of the biggest events in the Hollywood scene when it comes to music used in the media industry. Check out the website here and the nominees here.

I'm working with two new boutique music libraries: Mutliversesound and Musicblender. Other tracks of mine have been included in two releases of the exclusive high end music catalogue Twisted Jukebox. All tracks on their catalogue are very impressive. My cues are in following releases: THE STORY and TWISTED TOOLS.

The Complete harpsichord concertos of Wilhelm Friedeman Bach has just been released by Brilliant. I am playing on the two double harpischord concertos, my friend Claudio Astronio played all solo ones. It's incredible music, and still pretty unknown. Check out here the first movement of the Concerto in F maj for two harpsichords.