SCHMID RIVA OSHIMA

The trumpeter Silvan Schmid and the recorder player Alex Riva, both from Zurich, have been performing together as a duo since 2018. Through regular rehearsals, in which they experiment with both improvisational and compositional concepts, they have developed an open repertoire adaptable to various performance contexts. The Riva/Schmid duo has performed in Switzerland, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, and England. In the summer of 2020, they released one of these concepts, entitled Montre-moi ce que tu n’as pas, on the Paris-based label Remote Resonator.

After exchanging their ideas and compositional materials for a long time, Riva and Schmid now wish to engage with new perspectives in a trio format. Drummer Yuko Oshima, based in Strasbourg, enriches their collaboration with her extensive experience as a percussionist and improviser, bringing completely new impulses and visions.

From the trio, one can expect refined sound textures, a vivid musical imagination, dizzying interactions—in short, one can expect much of the unexpected.

https://silvanschmid.ch

Yuko Oshima began her musical journey in Japan at the age of 18. She discovered free-noise-rock and became a member of the band Gakusei-Jikken-Shitsu, with which she quickly made a name for herself in the Japanese avant-garde scene. She has collaborated with contemporary Butō dancers such as Atsushi Takenouchi and Rey, with theatre companies (including Soshin Kikan), and with improvising musicians such as Ryoko Ono. In 2000 she moved to France to study improvisation and contemporary music at the École des Percussions de Strasbourg and at the Conservatoire de Strasbourg. Since then, she has worked with musicians from the jazz and improvisation scenes and composes music for theatre, film, and the performing arts.

Alex Riva works as an improviser and conceptual musician on various recorders, from the standard recorder to the garklein. He draws strong inspiration from experimental music, free jazz, new music, and independent musical practices as they are carried out more or less traditionally around the world. From January to March 2019, A.R. exchanged ideas with local musicians and performed solo during a residency in Varanasi, northern India, supported by Popkredit Zürich. In 2021 his album Solos and More was released on WideEarRecords. Since 2013, A.R. has played with Dominik Blum (analog synthesizer) in the duo Irlumb, which expanded into the Trio Kilirlumb in 2016 with bassoonist and composer Marc Kilchenmann. With the trio ZGB (already admired at Spazio Panelle), which interprets improvisation in a radical way, A.R. has appeared on international stages around seventy times. For A.R., making music means translating the movements of organic and inorganic bodies into sound. His musical practice is oriented less toward harmony than toward the exciting and the unexpected, through which diverse moving materials enter into relation, alone or in interaction. A.R. can be heard with Ilia Belorukov, Marina Mello Andrade, Silvan Schmid, Bindhumalini, Purpura, Pablo Lienhard, and in the duo Vava Maudit with drummer Gabriel Valtchev, among others.

Silvan Schmid, trumpeter, living between Zurich and Maastricht, can be heard live and in the studio in: Solo, Gamut Kollektiv, Mraolia with Timothée Quost, with Tom Wheatley, Eddie Prévost, Alex Riva, TOSCA with Fabian Saul. In 2017 he released his debut album Spartituren with the Silvan Schmid Trio. In 2018 the album Silvan Schmid Quintett – At Gamut was released on Hat Hut Records, where his solo album Augmented Space was also released in 2021. He is a member of the Gamut Collective. Gamut stands for research, inquiry, and movement; it is a forge of ideas, experiments, and processes. In addition to the Gamut Festival, they run the label Edition Gamut and organise several concert series in Zurich. In 2023 they released their latest project LABYRINTH, a virtual platform for artistic creation. In the same year he served as curator-in-residence at the Taktlos Festival Zurich.

https://alexriva.bandcamp.com