Peter A. Schmid

Musically active for over twenty years in various groups blurring the boundaries between jazz, improvised music and modern classic music.

In (almost) every formation, own compositions and concepts with plenty of room for structured or free improvisation are used. A melting and fusing of composed and improvised parts is a central concern.

Over the past few years, duos ��" beside wind ensembles - have become more and more my favorite form. They allow a very direct and personal communication between two independent musicians, and furthermore, it usually means regular collaboration poses no organizational problem… Since 2003, I play regular duo concerts at my homeplace in Uster, Switzerland, with both musicians with whom I play duets for years as well as with “new” musicians, who meet for spontaneous improvised concerts. CD trilogy with woodwind duos: September Duos with Evan Parker, Birdology with Vinny Golia and en passant with Ned Rothenberg.

An important field is music in special architectonical and acoustic buildings. Concerts and recordings in an empty water cistern in Zürich (with Vollmond, September Winds and in duo with Evan Parker and Matthias Ziegler). 2002 and 2004 concerts with September Winds in the thermes of Vals and in churches and museums. 2003 duo concert with Evan Parker at the Yerebatan cisterns in Istanbul.

I am very fascinated be the very deep wind instruments. Beside bass clarinet, baritone saxophone, bassax and bass flute I play often contrabass clarinet and tubax in Eb and Bb (newly designed contrabass and subcontrabass saxophones ��" built by German B.Eppelsheim www.eppelsheim.com). The Taragot (or Taragato) has also become an important instument for me: a woodwind instrument in Bb with a conical form similar to soprano saxophone. The instrument probably originated in Turkey, and was played with a double reed. Around 1890, the instrument maker Schunda of Budapest invented the Taragot in its present-day form ��" now with a clarinet-like mouthpiece and a key mechanism with characteristics of the oboe and the German clarinet . In contrast to the clarinet, the Taragot overblows to the octave (like the oboe and the saxophone). Today, the taragot is mainly used in Hungarian and Rumanian traditional music. My instrument was newly built by Stephen Fox www.sfoxclarinets.com.

Most of these instruments appear on my solo CD Windscapes as well as on a master class CD for the Saxophone Journal (october 2005), including compositions that where recorded with overdubs.

I live with my wife Salomé Courvoisier and our two children Ursina and Silvio in Uster, Switzerland.