Martin Grubinger & Friends

Fasten your seatbelts: Martin Grubinger!
Fasten your seatbelts: multi-percussionist Martin Grubinger takes his audience on a fascinating journey through the continents. Intoxicating, exhilarating, raw or subtle rhythm - let's face it: what is music without rhythm?

Reich's Drumming vs. Xenakis' Okho
Martin Grubinger and his colleagues treat themselves to a diverse repertoire: from Reich to Xenakis, from Iceland to Africa and Asia. For example, French-Greek Iannis Xenakis wrote Okho for three djembés and African bass drum, marking the bicentennial of the French Revolution in 1989. With France as a former colonial power in mind, would he have chosen the sounds of the African continent by chance? Minute shifts in subtle rhythmic patterns characterize Steve Reich's almost hypnotic classic Drumming, written after an introduction to music from Ghana.

Rhythm and rite
In Sieidi, Kalevi Aho evokes a shamanic act, without referring directly to the ancient rites of the Sami from the Finnish north - China, India and Arabia are also close by. The archaic-looking Basque Txalaparta is the basis for a 2019 piece by Daníel Bjarnason. Only after the premiere did the Icelander decide what his work should be called: Inferno. Closing piece is a composition by Martin Grubinger's father, also Martin Grubinger: Number of Fate. About the number 7 - how mythical, mystical, defining is that number?