Special guests: Lara Morciano, Josè Miguel Fernandez (composers from IRCAM Paris); Hae Sun Kang, violin

The PRIME Recorder Ensemble was founded in 2008 by Antonio Politano, with the aim of creating new works for large recorder ensemble, with an emphasis on developing repertoire for Paetzold recorders and live electronics. The ensemble has a history of working closely with composers and composition students in order to realize their goal; and the players themselves come from all over Europe.

The recorder, instrument par excellence of the Renaissance and Baroque period, fell into complete disuse in the 19th century, following an important change in musical aesthetics. It was not before the 20th century that it was rediscovered: within the scope of the historic Auffuehrungspraxis on the one hand, and within the scope of the contemporary music on the other hand. This was the situation when the German recorder-builder Joachim Paetzold, inspired by organs which combine square and cylindrical pipes, had the idea, at the end of the 1950s, to build a square recorder.
The Paetzold square recorder has an extremely rich palette of sounds, which makes it a very interesting instrument for contemporary music. Up to now, its acoustic characteristics have hardly been explored and what’s more, never documented.
Convinced of the importance of an enlargement of the contemporary recorder repertoire, Antonio Politano, who is recorder professor at Conservatoire de Lausanne, has been active for years to give rise to the composition of new, interesting pieces for Paetzold recorders and live electronics.
Many of the pieces composed up to now for Paetzold recorders are dedicated to him. Unfortunately, these ìmade-to-measureî compositions are often too difficult for other recorder players. Besides, Antonio Politano finds it regrettable that so few contemporary composers know the Paetzold square recorder, that its rich sound palette is so seldom well-displayed and that the possibilities of live electronics (interaction between instrumentalist and computer) are so little exploited.
This is the context in which the research project PRIME of the Conservatoire de Lausanne has to be seen.

with: Marion Baur, Dario Benigno, Gabriele Drab, Eva Gemeinhardt, Anja Kaufmann, Lorenzo Lio, Marco Magalhaes, Ute Metzkes, Serena Occhiuzzi, Francesca Thompson, Simone Schmid, Thibault Viviani: recorders and Paetzold recorders
solo recorder and direction: Antonio Politano
sound direction and live electronics: MartLab – Simone Conforti
produced by Conservatoire de Lausanne / MartLab / Conservatorio Luigi Cherubini Firenze
artistic coordination: Marco Ligabue