Saxophonist Joel Diegert has found international success as a performer, known for both his work with experimental electronic music and as a founding member of the entertaining ensemble, Five Sax.
Joel has been invited to perform at major venues in over 25 countries around the world, including the Gasteig Munich, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, National Concert Hall Taipei, Konzerthaus and Musikverein in Vienna, as well as music festivals such as the Ludwigsburg Festival, Summerwinds Münsterland, and Allegro Vivo Chamber Music Festival. In addition to his work with Brainchild and Five Sax, he has performed with renowned ensembles, including Musikfabrik (Cologne) and Phace (Vienna).
2015 saw the release of Joel’s debut CD, Five Sax at the Movies, which received rave reviews. For example Clarinet & Saxophone magazine said, ‘Without a doubt this is the finest saxophone group recording I have ever heard.’ In 2018 the quintet released a DVD featuring their successful stage show, Sax Voyage.
Joel’s interest in contemporary music led him to pursue his doctoral research on the topic “Extending the Saxophone via Live Electronics”. He completed the doctoral program in 2018 with distinction and since then has developed his own method of performing with electronics that emphasizes integration with the saxophone.
In his younger years, Joel was successful at some of the most important international saxophone competitions. He was the winner of the 2005 NASA classical competition, prize-winner of the 2011 Jean-Marie Londeix Competition and prize-winner of 2011 Gaudeamus Interpreters Competition.
Joel is proud to be an endorsing artist for Selmer and D’Addario.
Jörg Ulrich Krah has established himself both as an internationally-renowned cellist and a highly sought-after composer.
As a soloist and chamber musician, Jörg performs regularly at major international festivals such as the Edinburgh Festival, the Styriarte, the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Wien Modern. His cello repertoire ranges from the earliest original music on historical instruments and the great works of Classical and Romantic music to contemporary music and crossover projects.
Jörg’s 2020 CD celebrating Beethoven’s 250 year anniversary received high praise in the international press. Le Monde called the interpretation “hypnotizing”, the Wiener Zeitung speaks of a “splendid new recording… from a single source”.
He has collaborated with internationally acclaimed artists, such as director Barrie Kosky, cellist Rudolf Leopold, authors Julya Rabinowitsch and Susanne Felicitas Wolf, and conductor Martin Haselböck.
Jörg’s compositional oeuvre includes works of almost all genres. Music theatre works, presented in houses like the Konzerthaus Wien, the Berliner Ensemble or the Sydney Opera House, are a special focus of his activities.
In addition to his artistic work, Jörg Ulrich Krah is a guest lecturer at various universities, including the HfMDK Frankfurt and the HMT Rostock. Since 2011 he has been the pedagogical-artistic director of the ATARAXIA Schwerin school of music and art, where he also runs the Academy for the Highly Gifted. He is also curator of the Tage Alter Musik Schwerin, and chairman of the Musikverein Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
Jörg completed his studies in cello and composition with unanimous distinction at music universities in Munich, Vienna and Graz. During his studies he had the opportunity to work with several important musicians, including cellist Anner Bylsma and composer Hans Werner Henze.
Adrián Artacho’s artistic work extends to a variety of areas including music theater, dance and multimedia. He has been artist in residence at the Institute for Computer Music and Sound Technology (Switzerland) and the Lux Festspiele (Germany), among numerous commissions by international ensembles such as Ictus (Belgium), Vivid Consort, Testore Quartett (Austria), Killian Quartett, (Germany), Noise Atelier (Spain) and Five Sax.
His interest in dance has led him to collaborate with companies such as tanz.labor.labyrinth (Falling Up 2012), Bewegte Interaktion (Found 2016), SyncLab (Found 2020) and PUC collective (2021), as well as his current artistic research project (Social d[ist]ancing) at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna.
Adrián is also an active performer of live electronics, present in international festivals such as xCoax, MoxSonic, Vienna SaxFest, North American Saxophone Alliance. Devoted to exploring the space between sound experimentation and live improvisation, his performances often include self-built instruments such as the SoDA system and the Laser Harp.
As an arts promoter Adrián organized the International composition competition Sounds of Matter on behalf of the University of Vienna, and participated as a curator in the MusikRaumGarage project sponsored by WiPark. For the last decade he has been director of the arts collective Neues Atelier and an instructor at the Peoples University of Vienna, where he teaches composition.
Adrián is currently conducting a PhD research project in “Augmented Performance” at the University of Music and Performing Arts of Vienna, where he completed a postgraduate degree in electroacoustic composition in 2016. He graduated with honors from the Music and Arts University of the City of Vienna with a Bachelor’s degree (2009) and a Master’s degree (2012) in Composition and Music Theory.