released February 23, 2024

Jürg Frey was born in Aarau in 1953. After finishing his studies at the Conservatoire de Musique de Genève, he began a career as a clarinettist. Until the age of 40, his work as composer remained mostly private, behind his activities as a clarinettist, family man, festival organizer and clarinet teacher for children. In the early 1990's he became a member of the wandelweiser composer collective, an experience of inspiration, challenge and long lasting friendships.

In this time also begins his international activities. He developed his own language as a composer and sound artist with the creation of wide, quiet sound spaces. His work is marked by an elementary non-extravagance of sound, a sensibility for the qualities of the material, and precision of compositional approach. Sometimes his compositions bypass instrumentation and duration altogether and touch on aspects of sound art.

Jürg Frey has particularly often been the guest of small, creative concert organizers such as Klangraum Düsseldorf, music we' d like to hear (London), Ny Musik Boras (Sweden), The Dog Star Orchestra (Los Angeles), heim.art Neufelden (Austria) The Miniaturist Ensemble (New York), Klang im Turm (Munich), a.pe.ri.od.ic (Chicago), Louth Contemporary Music Society (Ireland), the wulf (Los Angeles), and Ordinary Affects (Boston).

He has also received invitations from renowned institutions such as MaerzMusik (Berlin), Interpretations (New York), the Centre Culturel Suisse (Paris), Constellations (Chicago), Time:Spans (New York) and Donaueschingen Musiktage (Germany), November Music (Holland) and café oto (London)

His recordings are published by Edition Wandelweiser Records (Germany),b-boim records, (Austria), L'innomable records (Slovenia), Irritable Hedgehog (US),Cathnor (UK), Grammont (Switzerland) Erstwhile Records (US) New Focus Redcordings (US) ftarri (JAP), Another Timbre (UK) and elsewhere (US).

In 2010 he was the guest composer at the Other Minds Festival of New Music in San Francisco. In 2015 he was the Composer in Residence at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (UK)

"mémoire, horizon" (2013/2014) is for 4 saxophones and lasts about 30 minutes. It begins with long, floating notes, the quartet acting like an extended chord, the pulses quavering both in the individual sound of the reeds as well as in the massed effect. As is so often the case in his works, the tonalities Frey chooses are not so unusual; in fact, they're usually very warm and familiar, but their placement, dynamic, depth and more are so precisely and perfectly done as to render the music consistently new and surprising. These long notes very slowly peel off from each other, settling into a dreamy kind of chorale, maybe even with a nod toward Renaissance voicings. The baritone assumes a melancholic lead, the higher saxophones acting as a chorus behind, very moving. The parts coalesce into discreet, three-second, cloudy chords with a short silence between, almost processional, eventually arriving at a two-chord, calm back and forth.

(Brian Olewnick)