St. Gallen lends André Meier a helping hand
The City of St.Gallen is awarding six grants of CHF 10,000 each in 2016. 33 applications from all disciplines were assessed in total. In music, the trumpeter and composer André Meier will receive the grant.
André Meier, born in 1974, studied trumpet, composition and improvisation at the Basel Academy of Music. He completed various further training courses in computer-aided composition. In addition to his work as a music teacher at the Winterthur Conservatory, he mainly devotes himself to new and improvised music. He plays in the duo Thand with the music electronics engineer Thomas Peter, and also performs as a freelance musician, both as a soloist and in chamber music.
Meier will be exploring computer-aided composition in depth in a research/composition project and developing instrumental music whose musical text/grammar is generated using algorithms. So-called non-trivial bots, which he either adapts or programs himself, serve as the starting point. In the new work, these decisions are intended to generate new sonic realities. What the listener ultimately perceives is not an originally composed piece, but the result of the bots' musical decisions.
In addition to Meier, the following artists will receive work grants: Photographer Michael Bodenmann, visual artist Annina Thomann, Rotes Velo Tanzkompanie/Hella Immler under the direction of Exequiel Barreras and filmmaker Ninian Green.
