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UniMuta:
You
will be performing twice at the Zappanale Festival: The ensemble will do
the opening concert in Hamburg (August 10, 2010), and you will be
playing at the festival in Bad Doberan on Friday (August 13, 2010). What
should we expect? Will you be playing the material from "The Zappa
Album"? Other material?
Olli
Virtaperko / Ensemble Ambrosius: We'll
have a program that consists both Zappa and my own compositions. Most of
the Zappa pieces will be from The Zappa Album, but re-arranged, as we
have some new instruments, such as a Finnish folk music instrument
kantele, whish blends very nicely with broque instruments.
However, we also plan to play some new Zappa pieces as well. And
Napoleon Murphy Brock will be joining us in both Hamburg and Bad Doberan,
so that brings an extra flavour to the events with some potentially
surprising new repertoire.
UniMuta:
Having
recorded an album with Zappa material, I can imagine that you're into
the music of Frank Zappa. Will you be staying the three days of the
Zappanale festival & are their bands that you want to see?
Olli
Virtaperko / Ensemble Ambrosius: I
have not have had time to study the program properly, but the little
that I've seen looks very promising. Some major Zappa musicians are
partisipating the festival, so I'd imagine it will be both interesting
and fun.
UniMuta:
The
Ensemble Ambrosius has released a second album, "Metrix", with
pieces that were written by you and by Jonte Knif. Is this the new
direction that the Ensemble will be taking? Will you be performing
material from "Metrix" as well?
Olli
Virtaperko / Ensemble Ambrosius: I
would imagine some material of "Metrix" will be played, but as
far as our own music is concerned I think we'll concentrate on more
recent material. We will be performing 'GACH' and 'Questa storia del
mago non mi convince'. Both are written by me. Stylistically those two
pieces lie in the category of "modal, jazz-rock-influenced music
that utilize some classical compositional approaches", but we'll
also play a couple of purely "conteporay classical" pieces of
mine. As far as stylistical diversity of our program is concerned I'd
like to say that I like to mix things and styles within a concert
program, but in individual compositions I prefere to make clear
stylistical choises and stick in them - in that sense I'm a
conservative-sort-of-a-personality with little interest in
"cross-over" as such. My main job and passion is composing
music. But I also understand that the concept of Ambrosius is built on
Zappa, so it will stay as the core of our doings also in future - which
is nice, by the way: it's wonderful music and great fun to play. I'm
lucky enough to have lots of other compositional commissions so that I
don't have to overload Ambrosius with my own music to fullfill my
personal musical ambitions. I think the balance that we now have between
Zappa and our own material (50-50) is fine.
UniMuta:
Thank
you very much Olli. These concerts are something I don't want to miss.
The
dates to remember are August 10 for the St.Katharinen-concert in
Hamburg, and August 13 for the Zappanale concert in Bad Doberan.
I was fortunate to hear both the 'GACH' and the 'Questa
storia del mago non mi convince' pieces, and these sound great. I hope
that both of these compositions will make the program as they would fit
in very nice with the Zappa material.
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