An acclaimed trombonist, pianist, composer, and conductor, Christian Muthspiel is a busy, internationally recognized, musician working in both of jazz/improvised music and contemporary classical music. He receives numerous invitations to perform, produce, and conduct in many important musical centers around the world and his been commissioned many by renowned orchestras, ensembles and soloists to write for a wide range of projects, ample proof of both the innovative and versatile qualities of his work. Born in Judenburg, Austria, in 1962; he began studying the piano at age 6, and took up the trombone aged 11. While he began serious musical studies at the Musikhochschule Graz (focusing on classical and jazz for trombone), he decided to take a break from music between 1987/88 and instead took a scholarship at the School of Fine Arts in Banff/Canada. 

Muthspiel's main focus for some time now has been the intriguing area in music between composition and improvisation, where the composed section ends and the improvised one begins. It’s an area more and more contemporary musicians are exploring, each employing their own means, and musical devices, with which to blur the transition between them. As a versatile musician and one who spans both improvised and composed music forms, his music works just as well for small jazz combos as it does for symphony orchestras, and even into new multi-media territory where opera meets electronica.

Now on his latest CD Muthspiel explores the...

An acclaimed trombonist, pianist, composer, and conductor, Christian Muthspiel is a busy, internationally recognized, musician working in both of jazz/improvised music and contemporary classical music. He receives numerous invitations to perform, produce, and conduct in many important musical centers around the world and his been commissioned many by renowned orchestras, ensembles and soloists to write for a wide range of projects, ample proof of both the innovative and versatile qualities of his work. Born in Judenburg, Austria, in 1962; he began studying the piano at age 6, and took up the trombone aged 11. While he began serious musical studies at the Musikhochschule Graz (focusing on classical and jazz for trombone), he decided to take a break from music between 1987/88 and instead took a scholarship at the School of Fine Arts in Banff/Canada. 

Muthspiel's main focus for some time now has been the intriguing area in music between composition and improvisation, where the composed section ends and the improvised one begins. It’s an area more and more contemporary musicians are exploring, each employing their own means, and musical devices, with which to blur the transition between them. As a versatile musician and one who spans both improvised and composed music forms, his music works just as well for small jazz combos as it does for symphony orchestras, and even into new multi-media territory where opera meets electronica.

Now on his latest CD Muthspiel explores the work of fellow Austrian musicians Werner Pirchner and Harry Pepl; the brilliant vibraphone and guitar duo called "Jazz-Zwio". Appearing on stages of Europe's jazz festivals from 1978-1985 their musical partnership was one of untamed, energetic wildness; a sound that, time and again, would also soften and sink into lyrical intimacy; packed with emotion, it crept right in under your skin. The three LPs produced during their active days entitled Gegenwind, Live, Montreux '81, Pepl/Pirchner/DeJohnette, have long been out-of-print. In the past few years, tragically early, Werner Pirchner and Harry Pepl also left us. Their music, however, has had an impact that refuses to fade away. In Vienna's JazzWerkstatt, in the same way they once honored Hans Koller, young improvisers are focusing on Harry Pepl and elevating him to the status of father figure of the Austrian scene. So now Muthspiel is building on a concept developed while working on a joint project with his guitarist brother Wolfgang for the Lower Austria 2002 "glatt & verkehrt" festival. He is likewise taking a fresh look at the work of both musicians, with the balance tipping towards his composer and instrumentalist colleague, Werner Pirchner, with whom he formed a friendship during many late night recording sessions on everything from Oliver Nelson to Anton Bruckner.

More than just a token of appreciation or a nostalgic retrospective, Muthspiel's current album is meant, quite naturally, as a tribute. In a refreshingly self-evident way, Muthspiel has adopted these compositions as his theme for the new chapter in his career, launched with the trio he formed in 2005. After having devoted the last years to composing major works for full orchestras (such as a trombone concert in memory of Albert Mangelsdoff and "Eine Art Requiem" for his deceased father), as well as conducting and providing program concepts for other renowned classical ensembles (such as the Salzburg Camerata and Munich Chamber Orchestra), Muthspiel's skill as an instrumentalist and jazzman are once again intentionally brought to the fore in this ensemble.

This also follows his 2004 departure from the Vienna Art Orchestra, of which he was a member for 10 years, and an extended time-out, which gave him space to share a creative phase with his brother Wolfgang Muthspiel and permitted intensive interaction with two other well-known former companions in the VAO, who have long since become international names in their own right. His trio consists of pianist Franck Tortiller, the current director of the Orchestre National de Jazz, and Georg Breinschmid, the "renegade" bassist of the Vienna Philharmonic, who has also proven his virtuosic artistry as a member of the quartet "Pago Libre". Under the direction of Christian Muthspiel, the three have now come together in clever choreographies and vibrant chamber-jazz scenarios that, with their unorthodox instrumentals and lucid, airy sound textures, display astounding character and originality.

In other words, this CD does not just pay reverence to two great Austrian, and in turn European, jazz masters. It’s also a thoughtful exploration of many qualities of physical sound production, with full consciousness of the need for spontaneous expression, which is the essence of jazz. Instead of treating the Pirchner and Pepl classics like dusty old archive material, Christian Muthspiel uses their offerings in the best sense of the word, as the basis for contemporary, cutting-edge music. Incisive and sharply profiled yet lending themselves to free interpretation, they are ideal springboards into newly-developed sound fantasies. This is music standing in the middle of life - is a more beautiful compliment imaginable?

(Shrink Biography)