Midnight Story Orchestra – Wikipedia

The Midnight Story Orchestra in the Kulturforum Fürth 2012

The Nuremberg Ensemble Midnight Story Orchestra (MSO) was founded in 2008 by guitarist and composer Andreas Wiersich and established a new performance format with his “radio play concerts”.

The action of the “radio play concerts” is performed in a scenic manner by a narrator and accompanied by five to six musicians. The narrator leaves the stage at suitable points of the action and the ensemble takes up what has just been said in concert passages. In the compositions, the characters, places and moods are shown in the manner of “program music”. The equivalence of narrative and concert music is expressed in the term “radio play concert”. The performances are supported by a designed scene lighting and the occasional recording of sounds and noises.

The stylistic orientation of the Midnight Story Orchestra depends on the respective action. The influences range from classical music to rock and jazz to church music, medieval music, folklore as well as electronic and new music. However, the basic features of the occupation can be assigned to rock jazz, which also forms a focus. The instrumentation with three harmony instruments gives the ensemble the ability to sound orchestral.

Since its foundation, the MSO has been active with numerous guest performances in German -speaking countries. The ensemble has three full -length productions, three short programs and special productions for special performance locations (e.g. the Nuremberg rock passages). To date, the MSO has published two double CD albums.

• Narrator (Jasper Paulus)
• E-Guitar (Andreas Siersich)
• Vibraphon / Marimbaphon (Florian Off)
• Synthesizer/Keyboard (Toni Hinterholzinger)
• Domit/e-bass (Alexander Bayer or Tobias Kalisch)
• Drums (Stephan Ebn)

In some program versions there is a violin or a wooden wind player, as well as guest artists such as the Fürth drummer Stephan Seegel, Munich Geiger Joerg Widmoser, the Weiden saxophonist Johannes Geiss, the Canadian saxophonist Peter van Huffel, the Hanoverian saxophonist David Milzow, the Nuremberg bassists Markus Schieferdecker And Alexander Spengler and the Nuremberg actor Frank Strobelt.

The meeting of Andreas Wiersich with the artists, who still form the firm line -up of the MSO today, was decisive for the development of the ensemble. The Hanoverian Punch, Vibra and Marimbaphonist Florian Bührich and the drummer Stephan Ebn from Bavarian Abensberg have long played together in various projects.

EBN and Wiersich already knew each other from joint sessions as part of the regional musician scene in the Greater Munich and Regensburg area. Florian Bührich then met the two while studying together at the University of Music in Nuremberg in 1997. Many common and stylistically different musical projects and appearances followed.

Another step in the history of the MSO was the encounter and the frequent music making of the three musicians together with the pianist, sound designer and music producer Toni Hinterholzinger. At the time, this also studied at the University of Music in Nuremberg. To this day, it has given all the top carriers of the MSO their characteristic sound, and since 2009 he has also been a member of the festival line -up during the stage appearances.

In 1999 Andreas Wiersich met the actor, universal scholar and studied material engineer Jasper Paul in the course of various improtheater appearances, where he accompanied him as a stage musician. When Wiersich designed his first musical readings in 2000, he asked the Paul as a narrator.

2000 to 2005 (Andreas Wiersich and Band) [ Edit | Edit the source text ]

Wiersich designed the theme cycles “Der Graf” in 2000 and 2001 (inspired by Bram Stoker’s Roman Dracula ) and “mountains and alpine” (a musical mixture of Bavarian folkloric influences, modern jazz and rock). The ensemble at the time was called “Andreas Wiersich & Band”. Both cycles combined in the “Mountains and Vampires”, which was a good 90-minute concert program. In the first part (“Der Graf”), Jasper Paulus already recited a few short passages of the Dracula novel in front of the individual pieces of music, while “mountains and alpine” was laid out. A few years later, the radio play concert of the same name was to be created from the approximately 45 -minute musical reading “Der Graf” with over 2 hours.

In addition to the participants mentioned above, bass player Andre Schulz and the drummer Stefan Seegel, who played for two years instead of Stephan EBN, were in this ensemble. These two musicians also studied at the University of Music in Nuremberg. Stephan EBN left the ensemble at that time due to numerous international engagements.

“Andreas Wiersich & Band” played “Mountains and Vampire” for almost two years within Germany, including at the “Jazz and Joy” festival in Worms, in the Rosenkeller Jena, for the culture surcharge e. V. Görlitz, at the Nuremberg summer night film festival, in the Nuremberg hole prisons and at several other venues. In addition, the ensemble played a tour abroad to Biella (Italy). With the “Mountains and Vampire” program, the ensemble received a scholarship from the “Live Music Now” foundation from Yehudi Menuhin.

The project paused for the time being. During this time, Wiersich composed various pieces in the field of jazz rock and ethno jazz, including designed and composed a musical reading according to E. A. Poe short story The fall of the house Usher . This program brought him back with Stephan Ebn and Jasper Paulus for a short time. With the Berlin bassist Daniela Petry, who contributed a second part of the program with his own compositions, and the American vibraphonist Bill Molenhof performed this program twice.

In 2005 Wiersich returned to Nuremberg from Berlin, played there in various formations and projects and with his own jazz rock formation. This group (Wiersich, Bührich, Ebn, the Munich violinist Jörg Widmoser and the Herzogenaurach bassist Alexander Bayer) repeatedly played pieces from the old repertoire of “Andreas Wiersich & Band”.

Since 2006: from the “Gothic Jazz Orchestra” to the “Midnight Story Orchestra” [ Edit | Edit the source text ]

Radio play concert “The Graf” [ Edit | Edit the source text ]

In 2006 Andreas Wiersich decided to expand the musical readings from previous years into full -length radio play concerts. In the end there was a two -hour radio play concert entitled “Der Graf”. The program was recorded in the Orm Studios (Prague) by Toni Hinterholzinger within a week. After that, the recording of Hinterholzinger received an elaborate sound design.

In 2008 the premiere of the radio play concert “Der Graf” for the finissage of the special exhibition “Dracula – Woiwode and Vampire” took place at Ambras Castle in Innsbruck. Participants were: Jasper Paulus (narrator), Joerg Widmoser (violin), Andreas Wiersich (guitar), Florian Bührich (vibraphone, marimbaphone), Toni Hinterholzinger (synthesizer, special effects), Alexander Bayer (e-bass and double bass) and Stephan EBN ( Drums).

The ensemble first entered the public under the name “The Gothic Jazz Orchestra” (GJO), which Andreas Wiersich had chosen because of the then musical proximity to the jazz and the content of “Gothic Novel”. Again and again this name was misunderstood by assigning the project on the one hand to the Gothic scene and on the other hand only to jazz music, the determining influence of which increasingly and more gave way to a much wider stylistic complex. In addition, the name did not impart the importance of an underlying action for the radio play concerts of the GJO. In 2011 Andreas Wiersich renamed the ensemble in “Midnight Story Orchestra”.

The Midnight Story Orchestra (MSO) has been present with guest performances in the German -speaking area since 2008 and also emphasized with its new radio play concerts in the cultural editorial offices of publishing houses. The fifty follow -up reports were published for the performances of the MSO.

Among other things, the MSO played in the following venues and festivals: Dachau Theater Days, Ambras Castle, Konzert-Theater Coesfeld, Literature Days Albstadt, Kulturnacht Gotha, Lessing-Theater Wolfenbüttel, Parktheater Göggingen, Theater in the Fischereihafen Bremerhaven, Hörkunst Festival Erlangen, Leipzig radio play summer, Theater Kleine Haus in Delmenhorst, city culture night Potsdam, Theater Hameln, literary autumn Hamm, Tübingen jazz and classic days, historical rocks Nuremberg, Landestrost Hannover Castle, Winterbühne Pfaffenhofen a. d. Ilm, Achberg Castle, Stadtschloss Lichtenstein, city theater Itzehoe, Stadttheater Amberg, BM Cultura Bergheim, Red Saal Braunschweig, University concerts Wuppertal, November Nebel Abensberg, Kulturnacht Neumarkt i. d. OPF., Culture Forum Fürth, Hubertussaal Nuremberg, Kulturhaus Schömberg, Ranis, Culture Night Göppingen, Greiz City Library, Stadttheater Neumünster.

Radio play concert “The House Usher” [ Edit | Edit the source text ]

From 2009 to 2010, Andreas Wiersich expanded the second musical reading from the Berlin period to a two -hour radio play concert, which was premiered on January 23, 2010 in the Fürth cultural forum. Production received the name “Das Haus Usher” (a radio play concert after Edgar Allan Poes The fall of the house Usher und Ray Bradburys  Usher II – April 2036 ). The musical topics were largely composed by Andreas Wiersich, but in the second part, Toni Hinterholzinger and Alexander Bayer also contributed musical parts.

Radio play concert “The Devil’s Elixirs” [ Edit | Edit the source text ]

Andreas Wiersich studied almost fifty fairy tales, short stories and novels in 2012 before finally to E.T.A. Hoffmann’s novel The devil’s elixirs the processing. In 2013 and 2014 Wiersich worked on the text and also on the story of the new program. Andreas Wiersich composed the music of the radio play concert in autumn 2014. The premiere took place on November 8, 2014.