48nord
Founded in 1998, Munich-based 48nord has an international standing for its experimental electro acoustic music. Siegfried Roessert (electric and double bass, live-electronics, composition) and Ulrich Mueller (guitar, live-electronics, composition) explore the boundaries of improvised and composed music, composing experimental radio plays as well as music for theatre and dance.
48nord have played among others at the Mouvement Festival – Music of the 21st Century/Saarbruecken, at the Spielart-Festival/Munich, the Munich Biennale for Contemporary Music Theatre and as “Guest of Goethe” at the Goethe-Institute/New York. In 2005, 48nord appeared as a trio together with Tortoise-guitar player Jeff Parker at the Festival open system/Herne, the London underground radio station resonance.fm and at the Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow.
A long term partnership connects 48nord with the American trombone player and composer George Lewis. Together they have performed at the Sounds Like Now Festival (New York/La MaMa ETC theatre) and at the Controindicazioni-Festival in Rome, and composed the radio play Terminus for Deutschlandradio Kultur/Berlin. They are also part of the George Lewis Octet (together with Miya Masaoka, Kaffe Matthews, DJ Mutamassik, Jeff Parker and Guillermo Brown).
48nord compose music for the works of the Italian choreographer Jacopo Godani, and in 2011 their work was introduced to Sydney Dance Company’s audiences when Godanichoreographed Raw Models for the Company. This critically acclaimed work was brought to the stage again in 2014 for the Company’s season of Interplay.
They have also composed for Bavarian State Ballet, Semperoper Dresden, Staatsballett Mainz, the Nederlands Dans Theater, the Koninklijk Ballet van Vlaanderen and the opera of Toulouse and for theatre productions (among others for Ruth Geiersberger and Alexander Gerner). The collaboration with the Dutch dance company Leine & Roebana 172 Suggestions to a Body toured in 2010 in the Netherlands.
Ulrich and Siegfried received the Scholarship for Music and New Media and the Scholarship for Music in Public Space (both awarded by the city of Munich) for their work with 48nord. In lectures, 48nord have presented its work at the International Symposium for Improvised Music in Munich, the Art Institute of Chicago and Columbia University in New York.