A fascinating, innovative and highly entertaining kaleidoscope of Viennese music - in forms of jazz, Balkan music, waltzes, Viennese songs - written and performed by Georg Breinschmid (double bass&vocals) and some of the worlds best musicians

15 MP3 Songs
WORLD: Balkan, CLASSICAL: Waltz

Details:
"Wien bleibt Krk" - I started this project in the beginning of 2007, simply by wanting to do a new cd; the concept and everything else was not clear at this point, but pretty soon it became obvious to me that there is a strong connection that holds together many of my compositions, the key word being "Vienna". The city where i have been living for 30 years now has had a great impact on me musically, in many different ways: classically trained, I was an orchestra musician for many years, and also a member of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra - a job I quit (in 1998) in favor of playing jazz and being more free. But the musical legacy of Vienna has influenced me in many ways, in one way through the traditional and famous waltzes by Johann Strauss, Lanner and many others; in another way by the beloved traditional Viennese songs (Wienerlieder), which I only got to really know and appreciate a couple of years ago. In yet another way, I always felt comfortable in my Viennese/Central European surrounding, as it has itself many influences from the Balkan regions, such as Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Serbia, the whole Danube Region, of course also Gipsy Music, and others. Now as well as in earlier times (or more), Vienna through its geographical position has been a melting pot, with many different cultures mixing, and of course with fascinating results. Unconsciously, i picked up on this rich legacy. For a very long time, I did not write music at all; actually I only started with this at the age of 30. But when i finally did start writing, it didnt take long before I saw many Viennese things coming out in my writing - songs, waltzes, polkas, and much more.
In the booklet to the CD, I wrote a little description of the background of each song, how and under which circumstances it was inspired and written. The music altogether was written within a period of 3-4 years, so theoretically it´s more of a collection of pieces from different stages of my life, but in fact I was surprised myself how well everything fitted together, when I was producing and sequencing the CD. Apart from many lucky moments, in which some nice melodies and/or words somehow came flying to me, Im also more than happy with the musicianship on this record, which represents at least a couple of musicians who sit at the absolute worlds top of their respective instruments. (Actually, Id like to include myself on that one as well. :-)) Beni Schmid is a world-renowned classical violinist, performing with orchestras like the Vienna Philharmonic and many others; but he is definitely the only guy in the world who does this at the same time as playing and improvising jazz on an equally great level. Stian Carstensen, accordionist from Norway, for my money tops everything what I have ever heard on this instrument, plus he is a great expert in Bulgarian music, unsquare rhythms, and so on.. The trumpet player Thomas Gansch, well-known through "Mnozil Brass", is like the aforementioned guys an incredible instrumentalist, and like me and the others also classically educated. We have been friends for quite some years now, playing together in the Vienna Art Orchestra for several years, as well as in other projects; and our humour also is kind of similar...:-) (just listen to track 6 and 13). And several more great musicians are to discover here - the violinists Aleksey Igudesman and Sebastian Gürtler, the singer Agnes Heginger (our duo-album "Tanzen" is also available here on cdbaby), and last but not least Willi Resetarits, Viennas famous rock-singer, who I could win for performing my song "For the lost daughters and sons of Vienna", a song about jewish women who had to flee their native Vienna in 1938, when Austria was annexed by Hitler; this topic was also very important for me to include on my recording, as it is an important and never to be forgotten part of this city..

What more can I say? Listen, enjoy.. and buy! :-))

People who are interested in Goran BregoviÄ Johann Strauss II Spike Jones should consider this download.