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Werner Durand

Composer, instrument builder and performer based in Berlin. His interest encompasses many musical traditions: he performs his own music for saxophones, iranian ney, and self-made wind instruments since the late seventies. He studied with Ariel Kalma in Paris, La Monte Young in New York, Indian classical music in India and Berlin (with Kamalesh Maitra) and Iranian ney with Ali Reza Asgharia. His personal, mininalist style is characterized by the rich layers, textures and rhythmic effects he achieves using digital delays.

Composer, instrument builder and performer based in Berlin. His interest encompasses many musical traditions: he performs his own music for saxophones, iranian ney, and self-made wind instruments since the late seventies. He studied with Ariel Kalma in Paris, La Monte Young in New York, Indian classical music in India and Berlin (with Kamalesh Maitra) and Iranian ney with Ali Reza Asgharia. His personal, mininalist style is characterized by the rich layers, textures and rhythmic effects he achieves using digital delays.

Clearing
In addition to the unique musical proposals and the large body of work that they have developed separately, Amelia Cuni and Werner Durand have been performing together as a duo as well as in collaborations (Tonaliens, Born of Six) for more than 20 years. Fusing her Indian Raga singing in the Dhrupad style with his minimalist and experimental approach, they have expanded the reach of their soundworlds as well as proposed new paths for contemporary music.In this occasion, Uli Hohmann joins them in…
Resolve
Following several releases over the past decade of archival Arnold Dreyblatt & The Orchestra of Excited Strings material and collaborations with other ensembles, on labels including Black Truffle, Choice Records, Megafaun and Superior Viaduct, Drag City is excited as well to be able to introduce Resolve, the first release of new Excited Strings music from Arnold Dreyblatt since 2002. Resolve acts in dialogue with the minimalist inspirations of the first Arnold Dreyblatt & The Orchestra of Excite…
Propellers In Love
Arnold Dreyblatt has been called "the most rock 'n' roll of all the composers to emerge from New York's downtown scene in the 1970s." Arnold Dreyblatt founded the Orchestra Of Excited Strings in 1979, harnessing unusual tuning intervals to an exuberant performance style. Propellers In Love, the Orchestra's second album – originally released in 1986 on the Stasch imprint, in conjunction with the contemporary art space Künstlerhaus Bethanien – develops Dreyblatt's rhythmically exacting exploration…
ViewFinder / Hide & Seek (LP)
Black Truffle is thrilled to announce ViewFinder / Hide & Seek, a new release from acclaimed American experimental composer David Behrman, presenting recordings made in collaboration with Jon Gibson and Werner Durand between 1989 and 2020. Last heard from on Black Truffle as part of the collaborative art song/live electronics madness of She’s More Wild, these recordings find Behrman continuing the pioneering work in interactive electronics that have established him as one of the major living exp…
Schwingende Luftsäulen 3
Here the third and final chapter of “Schwingende Luftsäulen” the series dedicated by Werner Durand to the Pan-Ney, the wind instrument of his own invention. In confront with the first two volumes this one represent a sort of flashback. In fact the five pieces on the CD present “early” works, mainly created in the first half of the 90s. “Still Another Ocean” was composed in June /July1991 in Ile de la Réunion, in the wonderful house of Frédéric Borne.
“M-Ocean” was composed in the summer of 1994 …
Processions
*Reduced price. Last copies* Besom Presse is pleased to announce the July 2019 release of Processions, a double LP by composer, performer, and instrument-maker Werner Durand, with Amelia Cuni and Victor Meertens. Recorded and mixed in his home studio in Berlin from 2012-16, Durand offers four just-intoned drone works distilling global influence into compositions of singular beauty. Performed on an unlikely array of instruments including various self-made wind and reed instruments, sarod, mirlito…
Schwingende Luftsäulen 2
Werner Durand Schwingende Luftsäulen 2, the second chapter dedicated to Durand's music applied to the Pan-Ney, the wind instrument of his own invention. With gorgeous artworks by Karlheinz Bux and extensive liner notes by Adelio Fusé. "Schwingende Luftsäulen 2 is the second chapter of a trilogy featuring the Pan-Ney with its tubes or columns of vibrating air (Schwingende Luftsäulen, in fact). This second chapter, in which the Pan-Ney is flanked by the tenor sax, reconnects where the first one en…
I'd Rather Be Lucky Than Good
I’d Rather Be Lucky Than Good is a new recording collaboration of Sam Ashley and Werner Durand. Sam Ashley’s mystic parables imbued with benevolent humor are drawn from a lifelong pursuit of a present-day shamanism. Werner Durand’s wind work on invented and traditional instruments stems from the minimalist tradition, routed through his unique study of obscure world musics. The two artists first met in Berlin in 1984 while Sam was touring Atalanta with Robert Ashley’s opera company, with whom he …
Inside
The saxophone is most often associated with jazz, a lead instrument that’s strong on melody and a potent vehicle for improvisation. Urban Sax puts all those ideas to bed. For those unfamiliar, Urban Sax is the creative outlet of composer Gilbert Artman, who started the group back in the mid-70s, and composes and arranges all of the group’s material. The “group” in this case is over 75 performers, consisting mostly of saxophones (the entire family from sopranino to bass), but also including clari…
Tonaliens
Tonaliens is a Berlin-based group investigating the inner dimensions and outer limits of Just Intonation. It was formed in 2014 by Amelia Cuni (voice), Werner Durand (invented wind instruments), Robin Hayward (microtonal tuba), Hilary Jeffery (trombone), and Ralf Meinz (live sound, electronics). The group came together shortly after the release of the software version of the Hayward Tuning Vine, an interface for exploring microtonal tuning that allows for direct and intuitive interaction with th…
Schwingende Luftsäulen
At Soundohm, we’ve dedicated our lives to music which defies category and constraint - which ventures into unknown territories, risking everything to stand on its own. There are few better cases than Werner Durand - a true maverick of experimental practice. Since the early 1980s, the composer and instrument builder has been  sculpting a singular landscape in sound, bridging countless compositional spectrums, while resting comfortably in none. Rising to the stunning singularity for which he has b…
Diasporagas
Amelia Cuni was born in Milan and has lived in India for more than 10 years where she studied dhrupad singing with various renowned masters. Werner Durand has been performing his own music for saxophones, Iranian ney and self-made wind instruments since the late 70s. He started building his own wind instruments from plexi-glass, PVC and metal tubes in the early 80s and has performed in various groups including The Thirteenth Tribe and Armchair Traveller. For more than 20 years, Cuni and Durand h…
Fraction Sur Le Temps
At last, in stock now!! Urban Sax's third LP was recorded in 1982 & 1985, and released in 1985 on Celluloid, and it is an absolute diamond - sharing Julian Cope words "Everything starts with this massive (and I mean it...we're basically talking about something the size of an orchestra here) wash of sound, like something dropped wholesale out of the trippier parts of Ligeti's material in the "2001" soundtrack. Then we get swept into the primal repetition of a simple motif...very Magma-like, save …
Spiral
At last, in stock now!! 1991's Spiral makes its first ever appearance on vinyl format here. Previously it had only been available on a impossible to find CD, consisting of eight short to mid-length pieces, the major change being the prominence of the twenty-two piece choir, which shares the spotlight equally with the saxes, and three vibraphones, all which results in a far more ethereal and majestic sound than its predecessors. Urban Sax was created in 1973. Gilbert Artman, the mastermind behind…
Urban Sax 2
At last, in stock now!! Urban Sax's second LP, issued in 1978 on Cobra, is the continuation of their debut work. Actually it features parts 2 and 3 of the pieces contained on 1, again similarities with works by La Monte Young, Phil Niblock, Glenn Branca, Steve Reich, Terry Riley, a.o. are present, and it's the perfect companion to 1 as it is, basically, part two of that first album. a spiral malax of surreal, undulating soundscapes. Urban Sax was created in 1973. Gilbert Artman, the mastermind b…
Urban Sax 1
Much-needed reissue of these incredible LPs. Urban Sax's debut LP was issued in 1977 on Cobra, recalling the best Terry Riley, stunningly psychedelic, it’s the perfect combination of hazy, fluttering psychedelia and tough, tactile reed work. Urban Sax was created in 1973. Gilbert Artman, the mastermind behind Lard Free -who has also participated in dozens of recordings by other artists of the French experimental scene that included Delired Chameleon Family, Clear Light, Komintern, etc.- develope…
Live In Pori 1984
In July 1984, the otherworldly entourage of over fifty musicians of Urban Sax swarmed across the coastal town of Pori, Finland, to perform a historic concert at the Pori Jazz Festival. The masked musicians, veiled in space suits and fencing masks, arrived at the scene of the concert in the Central Pori Church by fire engines, forklifts and water buses from all over the town, followed by an ecstatic and bewildered crowd of festival-goers and amazed locals alike. For those present, the explosively…
Hemispheres
Going back to his early musical inspirations in the early seventies, Werner Durand was fascinated with the multiple saxophone sounds coming from Terry Riley's Poppy Nogood and Happy Ending, Dickie Landry's Fifteen Saxophones and Ariel Kalma's Reternelle. His particpation in the Parisian saxophone ensemble Urban Sax in 1976/77 became a starting point for his own musical endeavours. The 2 saxophone pieces presented here were composed and recorded roughly 10 years apart and document his move from f…
Hornbread
The collaboration between Victor Meertens & Werner Durand dates back to the mid 90s, when they started performing together in art circles in Germany. At the time their performances consisted of Victor's Actions, which included bread making processes with text recitals in combination with werner's musical performances on his invented wind instruments and his playing of Victor's home baked Bread Instruments with inserted pipes.In 2003/4 Werner was artist in residence in the Worpswede artists…
Svapiti
Born of Six, featuring Amelia Cuni, Catherine Christer Hennix, and Werner Durand, create exemplary drone compositions rooted in the traditions of Dhrupad, early minimalism and just intonation. Composed by Durand, Cuni, Hennix, Svapiti is one long composition measuring 55 minutes in length. 'A solid foundation is the best basis for the fundamental.' Narada´s exposition of the seven notes begins as follows: because Sadja (the tonic) arises from the combination of nose, throat, chest, palate, tongu…
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