Josep-Maria Balanyà, piano

Pelayo F. Arrizabalaga, giradiscs, clarinet baix, saxo alt

Música contra les guerres, un compromís. L'estètica acústica i l'analògica, dos llenguatges diferents, dues maneres d'enfrontar-se a la improvisació ia la creació. On es podria imaginar una col·lisió, sorgeix una trobada, una comunió i una interacció màgica entre el fort pianisme de Balanyà i la pulcritud d'Arrizabalaga als giradiscs.

Durada del concert: 60 min. aprox.

CD “Aguas internacionales”, enregistrat en viu al Festival Periferias, Osca, Espanya, el 30 d’octubre de 2005.

Hazard Records 2005

Josep-Maria Balanyà, piano

Pelayo F. Arrizabalaga, giradiscos, clarinete bajo, saxo alto


Música contra las guerras, un compromiso. La estética acústica y la analógica, dos lenguajes diferentes, dos formas de enfrentarse a la improvisación y a la creación. Donde uno podría imaginar una colisión, surge un encuentro, una comunión y una interacción mágica entre el fuerte pianismo de Balanyà y la pulcritud de Arrizabalaga en los giradiscos.

Duración del concierto: 60 min. aprox.

CD “Aguas internacionales”, grabado en vivo en el Festival Periferias, Huesca, España, el 30 de octubre de 2005.

Hazard Records 2005

The career of the Catalan pianist Josep-Maria Balanyà, born in Barcelona, with more than 40 years on stage, 27 albums recorded and more than 140 works, has taken him from classical music and jazz to his specialisation into the field of improvisation and new contemporary music, experimental music and performance. Internationally recognised, Balanyà is also composer, conductor of improvising orchestras, sound artist, painter and photographer.

Josep-Maria Balanyà explores the limits of music in his compositions and performances. He is particularly interested in the combination of different arts and the transfer of art into music. In order to expand and deepen his preoccupation with the fine arts and also with the craft material, he attended courses in painting and etching at the European Academy of Fine Arts in Trier (Europäische Kunstakademie Trier) / Germany.

Under the auspices and organization of the head of the Academy, Dr. Gabriele Lohberg, Balanyà performed for many years a series of interactive concert-performances in the Kunsthalle of the Academy, where fine arts were combined with music and performance. Here he experimented with the interaction between the sounds that arise when working on copper etching plates and the artistic result. He worked with the metal workshop that made or provided sculptures for musical performances. The works are now in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in Tarragona. In a teaching assignment for the students of the European Art Academy, he devoted himself to the music images of contemporary compositions and suggested using them as a basis for further musically interpretable drawings. In performative concerts, he not only made musical instruments sound, but - with electronic amplification and alienation - sculptures (Pierre Wéber), paintings (class Joe Allen), bodies (models from the art academy) and objets trouvés as well.

As part of these projects, Balanyà even gave a concert of bells in the cathedral of Trier.

Mainly, his own art production focuses on abstract paintings in which he uses mixed media, but especially acrylic on canvas. His work can be seen in his private gallery in Brussels and in buyers' homes. In addition, he has studied photography and practiced this art since adolescence. His work has followed a process ranging from pictorialism, to direct photography, street photography, macro technique and the study of the human body. He is currently preparing several exhibitions in which he presents a series of impressionist-style photos with movement; this technique gives an abstract pictorial result.

As for his main field, music, Balanyà studied in Barcelona and Switzerland (Swiss Jazz School and Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Bern), he attended composition workshops, led by Helmut Lachenmann, Walter Zimmermann and Ivan Fedele, and improvisation workshops by Borah Bergman in New York. He carried out intensive research into the sounds of nature in Mexico, working with oceanographers and biologists, including mammalogist Bernardo Villa.

Most of his works have a significant amount of improvisation. His work as a solo pianist combines the pure sound of the instrument with prepared or manipulated piano techniques. He has presented various multimedia projects for piano, voice, live electronics, video, Butoh dance, as well as percussion pieces on sculptures, sound objects and fine arts tools. He has created sculptures and sound installations that can be played by the public. He has developed his most imaginative actions at the boundary between music and performance, such as a recital in complete darkness at the Sendesaal of Bremen (Germany).

He has played with first-rate musicians including Claudio Pontiggia, Hans Koch, Joachim Kühn, Franz Hautzinger, Carlos Zingaro, Michiel Borstlap, Walter Quintus, Ksenija Lukic, Hannah Marshall, Das Neue Ensemble Hannover, Americo Rodrigues, Ramón López, Paul Rogers, Mark Sanders, Hannah Ma (dance), Mimi Barthélemy, among others.

Balanyà has played in festivals and radio programs in many countries in Europe and America. He has received several grants in Germany (Worpswede, Eckernförde, Düsseldorf) and Switzerland (Fondazione Arp). He is currently based in Brussels and in Barcelona.

The concerts by Balanyà are powerful ​rituals –​ it could be said that he plays the piano with his whole body – during which ​we can perceive the presence of music change into matter.

Laredo, 1949, graduated in Fine Arts from the University of Madrid. He studied composition and electronic music with Thomas Kessler at the Musik Akademie in Basel. He was part of important pioneering groups of the Spanish musical avant-garde such as Orgon, Clónicos and Fmol Trio. Selected for the CD New Swiss Electroacoustic Music AMEG, Geneva 2009. Selected by the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona MACBA for the project Avant-Recerca, Barcelona 2010. Artist in Residence in 2012 in Berlin with a grant from the Swiss government. The CD Corrientes alternas with his trio FronTTon, published by Unit Records (Switzerland) receives an honourable mention from the New York City Jazz Record 2014. Presentation of an interactive graphic score at the Institute of Music and Technology of the University of Zurich 2014, Los Angeles and San Francisco 2015. Invited by the ArteSantander Fair and La Casa Encendida in Madrid presenting his work Desiertos Europeos 2015. Performs at the Bone 17 Performance Art Festival, Bern and Der längste Tag, Zürich. Concerts "Ver sonidos-oír colores" and premiere of "Transbordo espacial", score to be walked, both activities performed by the Ensemble instrumental de Cantabria, Santander 2016 at the Fundación Botin (Santander), at TPK Art i Pensament Contemporani (Barcelona) by the quartet "Malaclipse" and at "Imaxinasons", Casa das Artes (Vigo) by the Ensemble "Vertixe sonora". Publication of a selection of his work in the international avant-garde website ubu.com He has played with Llorenç Barber, Josep-Maria Balanyà, Hans Hassler, Jasch, Co Streiff, Hildegard Kleeb.

He has performed at the New Jazz Festival in Moers (Germany) and at the Guinness Jazz Festival in Cork (Ireland). Exhibitions and performances at the Museo de Santander, ARCO 85, Circulo de Bellas Artes (Madrid) and Audio Art Festival (Krakow). He has received composition commissions, including one from Swiss Radio for countertenor music (Bolero for Luiz Alves da Silva) and another for the Municipal Band of Barcelona (Piece for Symphonic Band and turntable).