The Beat Scientists

German percussionists Florian Schiertz and Wolfram Winkel script a new musical language

February 25, 2015 05:28 pm | Updated 05:28 pm IST - Kochi

German musicians Wolfram Winkel (left)  and Florian Schiertz. Photo: H. Vibhu

German musicians Wolfram Winkel (left) and Florian Schiertz. Photo: H. Vibhu

Florian Schiertz and Wolfram Winkel, two German musicians, looked East and West till they found unexpected points of convergence which has made a huge difference in their journey so far.

Florian, a tablist, and Wolfram, an independent western classical percussionist, have formed a project that is a coming together of two diverse styles, varied music cultures. The duo, along with young violinist Swetha Sivan, performed in the city as part of the inauguration of the Goethe-Zentrum branch.

The first time the two musicians got together was at the tabla festival in Munich two years back. They called it the Tabla & Drums Project. Florian had performed at this festival earlier and when the focus of the 2013 edition was on an East-West dialogue, he looked for someone who could understand and speak this musical language. That’s how he zoomed in on Wolfram.

“We decided it would be the tabla solo accompanied by Wolfran’s drums. The piece we decided to play was Pancham Sawari taal, a traditional percussion theme perceived in 15 beats. While I play this, Wolfran grouped the beats, created a Western rhythm pattern that synchronised with the tabla movement. At the festival we played a 30 minute piece. It was a new turn to the East-West dialogue, was so successful that it was broadcast by the Bavarian Radio in full length. Since then we have been playing together,” says Florian, who has a Masters in tabla from the Rotterdam Conservatoire, trained under various tabla maestros and spent a lot of time in India.

Florian’s shift from piano and drums to tabla happened after he listened to a live tabla solo by Trilok Gurtu, the well-known percussionist. “I must have been hardly 14 or 15 at that time.

I, along with my parents, went to listen to a fusion concert where Trilok Gurtu played the tabla. The tabla fascinated me. At the end of the show I sat with the others who were engaged in an animated conversation on music. Trilok Gurtu notated a composition, wrote it down on a piece of paper and gave it to me. This was the first experience of the sound world and playing technique of the tabla. I began listening to more of Indian music, especially the tabla. Since, I was from a small town near Konstance on the south-west corner of Germany, it was not easy to find a tabla teacher. But I was determined to learn.”

He found his first teacher, Peter Vonessen, in Freiburg, a nearby town. Many other teachers shaped Florian’s career such as Jatinder Thakur and his first ‘real guru’ Udai Mazumdar. “With Udai Mazumdar it was learning through the guru-shishya system, travelling with him to Delhi, Allahabad, staying with his family. I had my first guru-shishya relation with him. I then met my main guru, Pandit Sumantra Guha in Kolkata. He has been my guru since then. Even this time I’ll be travelling to Kolkata to meet him.”

Wolfram, a contemporary-classical percussionist, has this penchant for experimenting on any percussive instrument. He works independently, collaborating with noted orchestras and ensembles apart from a kaleidoscopic range of solo percussion. But always Wolfram’s music is reflective of the vast scope of his interests as a contemporary percussionist.

“I have learned the basics of the tabla from Shankar Lal in my hometown of Munich. This helped when I had to play the tabla in the Indian part of Marco Polo , an opera by the renowned Chinese composer-conductor Tan Dun (he scored the music for films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and also for Beijing Olympics),” explains Wolfram.

Hailing from a family of musicians Wolfram is at home with a whole lot of musical instruments. The cute, compact drums set that he lugs along for long journeys like this one to Kochi, is tuned to perfection to interpret the theka in 15 beats of the tabla. More than the thunder of the drums, Wolfram gives it a fluidity to match the tabla’s beat science. It was perhaps the experience that gave Wolfram this confidence, the experience of having played solo parts with several European radio orchestras or as a guest musician of the Ensemble Modern where he has been performing with Steve Reich since 2004 regularly on concert tours and at festivals. “Playing for Steve Reich in his Music For 18 Musicians , has perhaps been the biggest thing to have happened in my career.”

Besides teaching at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Munich, Wolfram gives rhythm courses at the International Ensemble Modern Academy, Frankfurt. Wolfram’s textbook, Die Rhythmik der Neuen Musik , the English version is titled Five Over Three , discusses a method for the practical realisation of complex rhythmic structures, odd meters, for advanced drum players.

Florian has toured extensively with his tabla as a soloist and accompanist. He has played with reputed musicians like Pandit Budhaditya Mukherjee (sitar), Ken Zuckerman and Kalyan Mukherjee (sarod), and Surendran Reddy (piano). He has performed tabla concerts with his guru Sumantra Guha and played with Grammy Award winner Sukhvinder Singh Namdhari. Tabla is his life and Florian finds time to conduct workshops, has authored a treatise for drum-kit, and composed a tabla piece in modern music notation.

Florian is quite used to the customs and traditions of this country. For Wolfram everything is new.

He knows that this short visit of one performance will only be a beginning for a lasting bond.

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