OLE MATHISEN / SOFIA LABROPOULOU / KENJI HERBERT
concert
Thu. 17. December, 20:30
OLE MATHISEN Saxophone / SOFIA LABROPOULOU Kanun / KENJI HERBERT Electric Guitar
This trio brings together three distinctive voices from the international creative music scene. Saxophonist Ole Mathisen, guitarist Kenji Herbert, and kanun player Sofia Labropoulou meet in a constellation where jazz, improvisation, modal traditions, and contemporary sonic exploration converge.
Together, the trio explores a space of deep listening and spontaneous dialogue, where contrasting musical worlds meet and unfold in real time.
Location: Porgy & Bess (Riemergasse 11, 1010 Wien)
Accessibility: The venue is wheelchair accessible. Wheelchair spaces are limited and should be reserved in advance.
workshop
Workshop venue and date: TBA soon
OLE MATHISEN The importance of etude practice to develop technical and harmonic fluidity
Why Etudes?
The great saxophone pedagogue Joseph Viola introduced Ole Mathisen to the wonderful world of exercise books. He worked diligently through many exquisite volumes, which aided his maturation of phrasing, intonation, and technical capabilities, and in turn exposed him to harmonic and melodic languages outside the jazz vernacular he was already familiar with.
Plan of Attack
What are some of the most immediate concerns when approaching an exercise?
- Rhythm
Find an appropriate tempo
Read through as much as possible
Go to trouble spots and untangle challenges: play the passage forward and backwards, use different articulations, play at various tempos
- Intervals/Range
Work out fingerings slowly
Stay relaxed
Establish a uniform sound throughout the instrument
Use a tuner to check intonation
- Articulation/Dynamics
At first, ignore details and play with phrasing that comes naturally
Gradually incorporate phrase markings, articulation, and dynamics, thereby slowly acclimating the ears to what’s on the page and internalizing the music.
Goals
Reorienting and expanding the mind and body to increase the musical flow of harmonic ideas, broaden technical endurance, magnify daring expression, and bolster rhythmic propulsion beyond the 8th note, 16th note, and triplets most improvisersuse.
About the artists
Ole Mathisen
Saxophonist, composer and teacher
“Ole Mathisen is carving out his own incredibly unique vision by taking the harmonic road less traveled for an approach that is vibrant, fresh and most importantly expansive both in presentation and composition.” Brent Black – Bop-N-Jazz
Ole Mathisen is a saxophonist, composer and teacher, with a strong background in jazz. He earned a Master’s Degree from the Manhattan School of Music, where he studied arranging with Maria Schneider, composition with Ed Green, and saxophone with Bob Mintzer, and he holds a Bachelor’s Degree from Berklee College of Music. Ole is the Director of the Louis Armstrong Jazz Performance Program at Columbia University, where he also has been teaching saxophone and directing ensembles since 2005.
In 2020 Norsk Musikforlag published his etude collection “Book of Mirrors – 18 Rhythmic and Intervallic Studies for Saxophone.”
On April 24 of 2013, Ole had his composition “Tone Poem: The Mind’s Eye Inverted,” read by the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra through a program by The Jazz Composers Orchestra Institute and Earshot. The composition explores the outward communication of ideas that are instinctual, visceral, and intuitive, through lyrical musical gestures. The composition employs in parts what Ole calls tonal fields, which are subsets of available tonal pitches that vary in each octave.
In 2010 Ole received a composer grant from Komponistenes Vederlags Fond of Norway and wrote the microtonal chamber orchestra piece “The Other Side of Night,” loosely inspired by Stephen Hawking’s book “The Grand Design.”
In 2009 he was awarded Chamber Music America’s New Jazz Works Grant, which resulted in Mirage, a multi-movement chamber jazz piece based on illusive rhythmic layers. Mirage premiered at Miller Theatre in New York City. It was recorded live by NPR and featured on the radio shows JazzSet with Dee Dee Bridgewater and Jazzklubben with Erling Wicklund. Other awards include the ASCAP Plus Awards (2004, 2005, 2007, 2008, and 2009), The DANY Arts Grant (2006) from the Danish Government, the Tono Work Stipend (1999, 2014) from the Norwegian Composers Rights Organization, Artist Educational Stipend (1993) from the Norwegian Government, Faculty Association Award (1987) from Berklee College of Music, Phil Woods Incentive Award (1984) from Berklee College of Music.
Ole has worked on over 100 CD releases and has composed several television scores.
His recordings as a leader or co-leader are: Floating Points, 2018, 7 Seconds to Sundown, 2015, Trapezoid, 2013 (Alessa); Mirage, 2012 (Jazzheads); Elastics, 2011 (Losen); Periodic Table, 2010 (Jazzheads); Chinese Horoscope, 2007 (Jazzheads)
Sofia Labropoulou
Kanun player, composer, improviser and artistic director of Unbounded Sounds
“Her composing, playing and selection of featured artists show that she masters her instrument, but does not put it in front. Her compositions give space for the story to develop and for others to shine.” Bojan Djordjevic – WMCE
Sofia Labropoulou is a kanun player, composer, and improviser who has developed a distinct sound by masterfully blending the worlds of East Mediterranean folk, classical Ottoman, Western Medieval, experimental, and contemporary music.
Classically trained in piano and classical percussion from the age of eight, she fell instantly in love with the kanun almost a decade later. After earning her diploma in Byzantine music, she moved to Istanbul in 2003 to pursue her passion for the kanun and study Ottoman music.
As a soloist, she collaborates with renowned composers, musicians, and orchestras from around the world, composes music, and leads kanun and Greek folk music masterclasses internationally.
Her first personal album, Sisyphus (Odradek Records), was released in December 2020, and she is currently completing her first solo kanun album, Spiral.
She is based in Vienna, and she is the founder and artistic director of the Unbounded Sounds music series.
Kenji Herbert
Guitarist, composer, and improviser
“Meandering between rock and jazz, Herbert blends traditions to create an extraordinary sonic portrait of the present.” Jazzthing
Kenji Herbert is a Vienna-based guitarist, composer, and improvising musician. Raised in Osaka and Kobe, Japan, and shaped by a decade in Brooklyn’s creative music scene, his work invites spontaneous dialogues between seemingly disparate musical and aesthetic worlds, resulting in a sound that resists easy categorization, yet feels at home in a wide range of contexts.
He received his formal education at the Music Academy in Basel, Switzerland (2006-2008) where he studied with Wolfgang Muthspiel and graduated from Berklee College of Music (2009-2011), where he was mentored by Mick Goodrick and David Tronzo. He was an inaugural member of the Berklee Global Jazz Institute under the artistic direction of Danilo Perez.
He leads a trio with Vinicius Cajado and Lukas König, whose debut album A Million Forests of the Fall (Unit Records, 2024) received the Austrian Jazz Prize for Album of the Year. The project weaves a compelling narrative that draws on influences from indie rock to ambient soundscapes, brought to life through the trio’s dynamic interplay. His previous releases include As If For Now (Urchin Records, 2021) and The Way the Light Falls (Inner Circle Music, 2016).
Herbert co-leads The Scruffy Herberts with Peter Herbert, as well as a trio with Jordina Milla and Sofia Labropoulou. He is a member of Andras Dés Quartet, Matthew Halpin Group, and Georgia Weber’s Sleeved Hearts, and contributed to Grammy Award–winning artist Arooj Aftab’s breakthrough album Vulture Prince (New Amsterdam, 2021). Along with Keisuke Matsuno, he was featured in Misaki Matsui’s 2017 documentary “mit Kenji & Keisuke – Brooklyn, New York.”