Michael
Mantler was born in 1943 in Vienna, Austria, where he studied trumpet
and musicology at the Academy of Music and Vienna University. In 1962
he went to the USA to continue his studies at the Berklee School of Music
in Boston.
He
moved to New York in 1964 and started playing trumpet with Cecil Taylor
and others. During that period he was also involved in the formation of
the Jazz Composer's Guild, a collective of musicians and composers, struggling
for better working conditions and opportunities to present their new music
without compromise. Together with Carla Bley he formed a large jazz orchestra
to perform new compositions, resulting in their first recording Communication.
After the Guild discontinued its activities, he toured Europe twice
during 1965/66 with the Jazz
Realities Quintet, featuring Steve Lacy and Carla Bley.
He then established the Jazz Composer's Orchestra Association, a non-profit
organization to commission, perform, and record new compositions for jazz
orchestra.
He recorded a double album of his music during 1968 with the Jazz
Composer's Orchestra and 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 1969.
He appeared as trumpet player on Carla Bley's A
Genuine Tong Funeral, recorded by Gary Burton, and also
on Charlie Haden's Liberation
Music Orchestra album (1969).
He co-ordinated and participated in the Jazz Composer's Orchestra's next
recording project, Carla Bley's Escalator
Over The Hill (1968-71).
The problems of independently distributing the orchestra's record label
led him to form the New Music Distribution Service in 1972, an organization
which was to serve many independent labels for almost 20 years.
In 1973 he started WATT WORKS, a new record label devoted to the presentation
of his and Carla Bley's music exclusively. He recorded No
Answer, featuring Jack Bruce, for which he wrote music
to the words of Samuel
Beckett.
The following year he built a recording studio near Woodstock, N.Y.
to escape the pressures of commercial recording studios. He received composition
grants from the Creative Artists Program Service and the National Endowment
for the Arts, and with the aid of a Ford Foundation grant he was able
to undertake the recording of his 13 for two orchestras and piano (1975).
He wrote and recorded several more albums for WATT: The
Hapless Child, with words by Edward Gorey, featuring
Robert Wyatt (1976), Silence,
based on the Harold Pinter play, again with Robert Wyatt (1976), Movies,
with Larry Coryell and Tony Williams (1977), and More
Movies, with Philippe Catherine (1980). During that
period he also appeared on albums by John Greaves (Kew
Rhone) and Nick Mason (Fictitious
Sports), and then toured briefly with his own small
group.
In 1982 he recorded Something
There with Mike Stern, Nick Mason, and the strings of
the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Michael Gibbs. Later that
year he participated in a European tour and a recording (Ballad Of The Fallen) with a
new edition of Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra.
Several newly commissioned compositions were performed in Cologne by
the Orchestra of the West German Radio (WDR)
in 1984, and the following year he composed and recorded Alien,
featuring Don Preston.
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.
His orchestral suite Slow
Orchestra Pieces was premiered by the Orchestra of the
Opera de Lille in France during March 1986, and the Danish Radio Concert
Orchestra commissioned a new work from him for a radio production in May
1987 in Copenhagen.
He was asked to participate in the International Art-Rock
Festival
in Frankfurt during February 1987, for which he formed a group with Nick
Mason, Jack Bruce, Rick Fenn, Don Preston, and John Greaves. Material
from this concert was later released on his Live
album. The following summer he briefly toured Europe with a similar band
featuring Jack Bruce and Anton Fier.
Most of 1987 was spent working on an album of songs in English, German,
and French, based on the poetry of Samuel Beckett, Ernst Meister and Philippe
Soupault, with Jack Bruce, Marianne Faithfull, Robert Wyatt, and the Danish
Radio Concert Orchestra (Many Have No Speech). Music from this album
was also performed at a concert produced by the West German Radio in Bielefeld
during April 1989.
At the beginning of 1991 he left the United States, discontinuing his
work with WATT, and moved back to Europe, where he now lives and works,
dividing his time between Denmark and France.
A new orchestral piece was commissioned by the Austrian Donau
Festival,
and was premiered 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.
His album Folly
Seeing All This was recorded during June 1992 in London,
and released by ECM Records in 1993. It features the Balanescu String
Quartet plus other instrumentalists, and it includes new instrumental
music and a setting of Samuel Beckett's last poem, written shortly before
his death (What
Is The Word), featuring the voice of Jack Bruce.
In 1993 he formed the ensemble "Chamber Music and Songs",
featuring his trumpet plus Mona Larsen (voice), Bjarne Roupé (guitar),
Kim Kristensen (keyboards), and a string quartet. Its premiere took place
at the Copenhagen Jazzhouse in September, followed by a studio production
at Danmarks Radio. Some of this material was eventually to appear on the
Songs
and One Symphony album.
His
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 the Danish Radio
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. Another performance of the work took place in Palermo,
Sicily, during April 1996.
His
"sort-of-an-opera" The School of Languages, had its
premiere 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. Its recording was released as
a double-CD by ECM Records in the Fall of 1997 under its new title The
School of Understanding. The work was again presented
during November 1997 at the Hebbel
Theater
in Berlin.
A large orchestral piece, One
Symphony, commissioned by the Hessischer Rundfunk, was
premiered November 1998 by the Radio Symphony Orchestra Frankfurt, conducted
by Peter Rundel. Its recording was released by ECM in early 2000 together
with previously recorded material featuring Mona Larsen and the "Chamber
Music and Songs" Ensemble (Songs
and One Symphony) 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, has been released by ECM Records March 2001.
Theatrical productions
of the work, in collaboration with Rolf Heim (who has previously worked
with Mantler on The School of Understanding performances), were
created in the Spring of 2002 in Copenhagen and Berlin.
His Concerto for Marimba and Vibraphone (originally commissioned
by Portuguese percussionist Pedro Carneiro in 2001), was 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.
Released November 2006, the anthology Review
(recordings 1968 - 2000), traced his unique 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 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.
New
works were commissioned and performed by the Max Brand Ensemble, conducted
by Christoph Cech
(Chamber
Music Eight, Tage
der Neuen Musik, Krems, Austria, 2012) and by the Chaos Orchestra, conducted
by Arnaud Petit
(Oiseaux
de Guerre,
featuring singer Himiko Paganotti, Forum Blanc-Mesnil, France, 2014).
During
September 2013 Porgy & Bess in Vienna presented his
Jazz
Composer's Orchestra Update project,
featuring the Nouvelle Cuisine Big Band, conducted by Christoph Cech,
with soloists Michael Mantler (trumpet), Harry Sokal and Wolfgang Puschnig
(saxophones), Bjarne Roupé (guitar), David Helbock (piano) and
the radio.string.quartet.vienna. The program included a complete re-working
of all the pieces from the original 1968 album, as well as of even older
material from as early as 1963, never before performed or recorded. A
selection of
recordings
from
these performances was released by ECM Records during November 2014.
The complete Jazz Composer's Orchestra Update project was performed
live several times during 2015/16: at the Moers Festival and at the North
Sea Jazz Festival in Rotterdam (with the Nouvelle Cuisine Big Band) and
at the German Jazzfestival Frankfurt (with the hr-Bigband), as well as
in Portugal at the Lisbon Jazz em Agosto Festival (with the Orquestra
Jazz de Matosinhos)
Comment
c'est, a song cycle for voice and chamber orchestra, featuring
the French singer Himiko
Paganotti and the Max Brand Ensemble, conducted by Christoph Cech,
was premiered in Vienna with two concerts
at Porgy & Bess in September 2016. Its recording was released by ECM
Records during November 2017.
He subsequently continued working on further orchestral reinterpretations
of older works, very selectively choosing material for more "updates"
of different musics that were particularly dear to him and that he thought
should have a new (and different) life. The result was a series of suites
(HideSeek, Alien, Cerco, Folly, TwoThirteen) for a larger orchestra,
conducted by Christoph Cech, presented with three concerts
during September 2019, again at Vienna's Porgy & Bess. Its recording,
CODA - Orchestra Suites,
was released in July 2021 by ECM Records.
The compositions from his Concertos
album were performed September 2021 in Vienna
and again in Graz at the Big Band Bang Festival in 2022, with the Janus
Ensemble and soloists, conducted by Christoph Cech.
Songs for bass clarinet (Gareth Davis) and trumpet soloists, vocal
and brass ensembles and percussion, with texts by Samuel Beckett, Ernst
Meister, Giuseppe Ungaretti and Michael Mantler, were premiered October
2022 at the Jazz Goes to Town festival at Hradec Králové
in the Czech Republic, followed by a repeat performance at Porgy &
Bess in Vienna.
The New Songs Ensemble featuring John Greaves (voice), Annie Barbazza
(voice), Michael Mantler (trumpet), Gareth Davis (bass clarinet), Bjarne
Roupé (guitar), David Helbock (piano) and the radio.string.quartet
- Bernie Mallinger (violin), Igmar Jenner (violin), Cynthia Liao (viola),
Sophie Abraham (cello) - performed new versions of the same songs at Porgy
& Bess in Vienna during September 2023. At that occasion Mantler was
awarded the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art, First Class.
A recording of this concert was released on CD (Sempre Notte - Live Songs)
by Dark Companion Records in September 2024.
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