Tilo Wachter: Solo for handpan & voice
‘Handpan’ is an evolution of the Caribbean steeldrum (oil drum) and was developed in Bern in 2000.
This UFO-shaped metal instrument is the first idiophone to combine melody, chords and percussion in a single material. A first in the history of musical instruments the world over!
Its spherical, overtone-rich sound is so new that it triggers no memory in us of our own biography. We fall, as if by magic, into the here and now. And yet the sound is both archaic and familiar. Tilo Wachter has been exploring this balance for 22 years, combining this brand new hang music with musicians from a variety of ancient musical traditions.
His solo programme ‘Innenwelten’ (inner worlds) is a resonance of all these encounters. As a result, his pieces always seem to come from other cultures - distant yet very familiar.
Tilo Wachter has made an international name for himself as a virtuoso. On four hangs, he blends polyphonic melodies with powerful vocals to create his unique style: it sounds like harps and tablas at the same time - shamans and muezzins.
In his powerful songs, he uses the ‘Gromolo’ technique, a language made up of invented syllables, allowing each listener to fill in these syllables by association with completely personal content.Tilo Wachter studied Latin percussion in Rotterdam and works as a musical director for international theatre, film and dance projects. Since 2002, he has been touring internationally with his compositions for four handpans. He has performed with Gentleman on MTV unplugged, Basel Sinfonietta, Orchestra della Svizzera italiana, Mariana Sadovska, Mike Schweizer and many others. He composes for film and theatre. In his seminars, he combines music pedagogy and music therapy with a new ‘integral awareness’ of resonance.
Comments from the press: ‘Intuition, a composer's touch and first-rate craftsmanship form a unique and unprecedented blend. Melodies blossom in which the knowledge of the whole of humanity is poured into spellbindingly beautiful formulas’. (Badische Zeitung Freiburg 2017)
Website: www.hang-in-concert.de
