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Anja Lechner
Anja Lechner bridges the gap between traditional and contemporary music, arranged and improvised performances, playing as soloist, as chamber musician, and as creative force in diverse projects between the genres.
Concert tours and festival appearances have taken her through Europe, Latin America, the US and many other countries. She has premiered countless works that were also dedicated to her, by composers including Arvo Pärt, Valentin Silvestrov, Tigran Mansurian, Tõnu Kõrvits and Dino Saluzzi.
She has made numerous recordings for ECM, alongside the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra under the conductor Tõnu Kaljuste, with the violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja, the Rosamunde quartet, the Argentine bandoneon master Dino Saluzzi, guitarist Pablo Márquez, the Tarkovsky Quartet and with François Couturier, among many others.
Her most recent (2024) and highly acclaimed recording captured the cellist in solo performances of works by Bach, Abel and Hume.
In 2025 she started touring as a member of the new Anouar Brahem Quartet, presenting the programme captured on his latest record After The Last Sky. Anja Lechner lives and teaches in Munich.
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Nils Petter Molvaer: Be Quiet
by Neil Duggan
For over three decades, Norwegian trumpeter and composer Nils Petter Molvaer has stood as one of the most influential figures in European jazz. On Be Quiet, he continues to push the boundaries of his already remarkable body of work, collaborating with a different artist in a different location on each of the nine tracks Molvær is no stranger to bold concepts. Since first attracting attention through his work with Arild Andersen in Masqualero, his brand of Nordic restraint ...
Continue Reading...Anouar Brahem: After the Last Sky
by Scott Gudell
Although ECM Records has released straight-ahead jazz, free form and more, many of their recordings sweep over listeners with mysterious, ethereal and hypnotic sounds creating alluring siren calls. When those sessions are taking place with an ECM release on the horizon, it is easy to imagine the artists are thinking about 'where's the mystery?'--which is what Anouar Brahem seemed to focus on this time around. Brahem, a revered Tunisian-born master of the oud (the fretless stringed instrument with ...
Continue Reading...Anouar Brahem: After the Last Sky
by Mario Calvitti
Fin dal suo esordio la musica del suonatore di oud tunisino Anouar Brahem ha oscillato tra i tre poli della musica tradizionale classica araba, l'improvvisazione jazzistica e la musica classica europea di stampo cameristico, generalmente adattando le quantità di ogni singolo componente ai musicisti scelti per interpretarla. Dopo i primi due album nei quali aveva proposto essenzialmente la propria versione della musica classica araba, accompagnato da musicisti e strumenti di quella tradizione, Brahem si è via via spostato ...
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Anja Lechner e François Couturier al Teatro Sala Fontana di Milano
by Paolo Peviani
Anja Lechner--François Couturier Ah-Um Meets Europe Milano Teatro Sala Fontana 14.01.2017 Viviamo un periodo storico in cui l'idea di Europa sta attraversando una fase delicata, per non dire di vera e propria crisi. Ad infonderci un minimo di speranza c'è chi -fortunatamente -crede invece che il vecchio continente abbia ancora molto da dire, soprattutto sul piano culturale. Tra questi, troviamo sicuramente Antonio Ribatti, che con la sua associazione C-Jam e con ...
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Anja Lechner all'Auditorium di Settimo Milanese
by Paolo Peviani
Auditorium Settimo Milanese (MI) 21.10.2015 Salutiamo sempre con piacere la nascita di nuove iniziative musicali. In questo caso, Dancing on the Strings, rassegna dedicata agli strumenti a corda ideata da Antonio Ribatti (che organizza anche il festival Ah-Um Milano) e Gianni Barone (patron della Nau Records). Il cartellone di questa prima edizione prevedeva tre concerti, tutti tenuti all'Auditorium di Settimo Milanese, che hanno costruito un percorso musicale assai variegato. Per usare le parole ...
Continue Reading...Anja Lechner / François Couturier: Moderato cantabile
by Hrayr Attarian
On Moderato Cantabile cellist Anja Lechner and pianist Francois Couturier interpret music that is simultaneously spiritual and folklore-ish with supple eloquence and sophisticated vibrancy. Intermixed with works from Greco-Russian guru George Gurdjieff, Armenian musicologist Komitas and Spanish composer Federico Mompou are Couturier's own jazz inflected pieces that maintain the overall mystical theme of the release. Gurdjieff was not a formerly trained musician. Most of his oeuvre, therefore, consists of central Asian folk melodies infused with his own ethereal ...
Continue Reading...Anja Lechner / François Couturier: Moderato cantabile
by John Kelman
ECM Records has long divided its discography in two: the regular series, representing music of a more improvisational bent; and its New Series, featuring largely classical music ranging from the contemporary to the archaic, but more truly defined in its through-composed nature. Still, the line between the two has, however, often been a porous one, where artists perhaps most associated with one side of the fence are able to make the occasional excursion to the other side. Perhaps the artist ...
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After The Last Sky
From: After the Last SkyBy Anja Lechner
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