ONE-MAN-BAND

ONE-MAN-BAND is a project initiated by Brice Catherin. It exists in a solo version with Catherin as the only performer, and in various duet versions with different other musicians.

The principle of ONE-MAN-BAND is to commission and premiere works for one to two multi-instrumental performers: each musician, on top of his usual instrument, has to play a few other instruments, thus inventing new polyphonies and unheard orchestrations.

Since 2006 as an improviser, and since 2010 as a composer, Brice Catherin has been focusing on music for multi-instrumental musicians. His performers and himself sometimes played as many as 35 instruments (an die Musik, for a one-cellist-band and free ensemble) during a single concert. Today Brice Catherin wishes to establish a repertoire for multi-instrumental musicians (solo and duets) and has therefore decided to commission pieces to a few outstanding composers of all generations, nationalities and styles. These composers are asked to write a 5 to 30 minutes piece, using the instruments owned by the performers and/or the composer himself.

Brice Catherin's only requirement is the transmissibility of the pieces. He wants that the scores are playable by any musician willing to do so, just like any other piece of the repertoire.

History:
2014, Lausanne (EJMA) and Geneva (Galpon). Brice Catherin and Christophe Schweizer premiered works by Patricia Bosshard, Baudoin de Jaer, Christian Rosset and Ludovic Thirvaudey.
2015, Luzern (Forum für Neue Musik), Lausanne (EJMA), Nantes (Musée des Beaux-Arts) and Nicosie (Université Européenne): Brice Catherin premiered works by Roland Moser, Evis Sammoutis, and Abby Swindler and performed older works by Brice Catherin and Kasper T. Toeplitz.
2016, Lausanne (EJMA), Geneva (@ptt) and Saint-Genis Pouilly (médiathèque), Brice Catherin, Xina Hawkins, Laurent Estoppey and Dror Feiler premiered works by Dror Feiler, Arash Yazdani and Jacques Demierre.

In the near Future, ONE-MAN-BAND will commission new pieces to composers from Switzerland, the USA, Italy, Israel, Austria, Poland and France.