Dieter Amman, who was born in 1962 in Aarau, is the “composer-in-residence” for LUCERNE FESTIVAL in Summer. A musician who began his career in jazz before he took up the study of composition, Ammann will be represented at the Festival by ensemble works, orchestral pieces, and string quartets, and he will also appear as an improvising musician. 

“Turn” is the name of your new orchestral work, which will receive its world premiere at LUCERNE FESTIVAL on August 25. Indeed, turning points play an important role in the score. Do you also find your experience as composer-in-residence of this Festival represents a turning point in your career?
Not at all! Otherwise it would all be downhill from here! But joking aside: the Festival is of course a wonderful platform for presenting my music to a wide public, in high-level performances.

You were originally a jazz musician. Do you find it’s possible to detect this background in your “notated” compositions?
I myself don’t think so – I have absolutely nothing to do with so-called crossover. But I once read in a program note: “It’s astonishing how Ammann, without any stylistic crossover, manages to transfer the feeling of energy you get from one field to the other and to write works that touch on funk style without in the slightest abandoning the idiom of advanced contemporary (chamber) music.”

We will be hearing examples of your work covering more than a decade. The selections span “Violation,” which was written in 1999 to the “Distanzenquartett” of 2009 and the aforementioned world premiere of “Turn.” What has changed in your aesthetic position and musical language during this time?
As a composer, standing still would indeed feel to me like a step backwards. With every new work, I set out anew to strike out on paths yet unknown to me. My artistic calling urgently requires this. But I search in one place, which is to say my search is deep rather than wide. This place is what I would call my personal style.

What arguments would you use to persuade a listener who has had little experience with new music—and who is perhaps anxious when it comes to unusual sounds—to come to your concerts?
If they’re anxious, I can’t help them, since I’m no therapist. On the other hand, having little listening experience is not a bad thing; contemporary music doesn’t need to be “understood” in order to be heard. You can simply let it work its effect on you—perhaps like looking at a natural spectacle.  Most of us don’t understand such phenomena in detail. All that’s needed is a bit of curiosity and readiness not to constantly compare what is being listened to with what you already know. My music is rich in dramatic shape and sometimes has great activity, is sensual and at the same time spare and precise in design: It is thus surely not boring.

Which concert or which performance at the Festival most fascinates you?
Without wishing to detract from any of the other events, I’m very excited about the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ACADEMY Orchestra and Pierre Boulez!