Christian Weber
doublebass, composition, electric bass, electronics


Charles Mingus' bass playing, bursting with energy, and his music, burning with urgency, were a revelation for Christian Weber. Shortly afterwards, he got his first double bass and began to explore the new world that was opening up to him.

Soon after, he moved to Graz (A), where he studied with Wayne Darling and Ewald Oberleitner at the University of Music and Performing Arts. Further studies with Adelhard Roidinger at the Bruckner Conservatory in Linz (A) led to a liberation from idioms and an intensive exploration of composed music from the second half of the 20th century and electronic music. Christian was also able to quench his thirst for knowledge with Ernst Weissensteiner in Vienna and Mark Dresser in New York.

Christian Weber is still a researcher who is equally interested in jazz, electro-acoustic improvised music (EAI), chamber music, pop and rock. This diversity does not stand for a juxtaposition or crossover; in Weber's music, these different sources are mutually dependent.

Christian Weber

Weber's collaboration with musicians such as Johannes Bauer, Han Bennink, Jeb Bishop, John Butcher, Lol Coxhill, Jacques Demierre, Robert Dick, Christy Doran, Gerd Dudek, Paul Dunmall, Ellery Eskelin, Peter Evans, Pierre Favre, Charles Gayle, Frank Gratkowski, Michael Griener, Gerry Hemingway, Jason Kahn, Vera Kappeler, Rob Kloet, Hans Koch, Peter Kowald, Joachim Kühn, Oliver Lake, Joke Lanz, Urs Leimgruber, Paul Lytton, Rudi Mahall, Norbert Möslang, Simon Nabatov, Lucas Niggli, Evan Parker, Christian Reiner, Wolfgang Reisinger, Olaf Rupp, Julian Sartorius, Alexander von Schlippenbach, Manfred Schoof, Irène Schweizer, Elliott Sharp, Martin Siewert, Aki Takase, Dieter Ulrich, Michel Wintsch, Stephan Wittwer, Nils Wogram, Christian Wolfarth, Michael Wollny, Nate Wooley, Otomo Yoshihide and many others is documented on over 100 releases.

«Christian Weber, the double bass player you have to hear to believe that the richness and fantasy of sound can be wrested from the bulky instrument by one man alone and without electricity. Weber creaks and growls, as if he were maltreating the strings with a rasp instead of a bow... Rough violin sounds far removed from euphony begin to shimmer with enormous appeal. The low frequencies boom bottomlessly, but at the top the left hand ruffles the hair standing on end.
The sound itself seems to split, becomes two-voiced, two-handed anyway, pizzicato with one, whipping and snapping with the other, then also twanging with long reverberation, twanggg, twonggg - the bass as a pure percussion instrument. Strong.» writes Rigobert Dittmann about Christian Weber's second solo release 'Walcheturm Solo'.

In 2003, Weber received the Culture Prize of the City of Zurich (Werkjahr) and a New York Scholarship in 2015. He is an artistic professor at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HSLU) and has taught as a guest lecturer at the universities in Basel, Bern and Lausanne. For many years he’s been teaching bass at the Kontrabasskaleidoskop Michaelstein.

download
german biography (.pdf)
english biography (.pdf)
Christian Weber format: JPG
resolution: 300 dpi
dimension: 28×18.5 cm
size: 2.3 MB

© Juan-Carlos Hernández
 
Christian Weber   format: JPG
resolution: 300 dpi
dimension: 29.7×19.8 cm
size: 2.1 MB

© Juan-Carlos Hernández
   
Christian Weber   format: JPG
resolution: 300 dpi
dimension:29.7×19.8 cm
size: 4.2 MB

© Juan-Carlos Hernández