13. October 2022, 17:30
Wolfgang Puschnig became famous in the 1980s in Mathias Rüegg’s Vienna Art Orchestra. Since 1989, the native of Klagenfurt has been successful with his own, often quite consistent projects, in which he demonstrates openness in many directions: with musicians from Philadelphia around electric bassist Jamaaladeen Tacuma, with the Korean master drummers SamulNori, with the Amstettner Musikanten – and many others . The connecting element is Wolfgang Puschnig’s unmistakably lyrical, melancholic alto saxophone tone, which can be identified from the first note and is deeply rooted in the folk song tradition of his Carinthian homeland.
On the occasion of his 60th birthday, Wolfgang Puschnig was invited by the Wiener Konzerthaus in the 2015/16 season to create a four-concert cycle called “Sources” to mark important coordinates of his musical universe: He did this, among other things, at the invitation of his friends from Philadelphia and Seoul, the Austrian colleagues from the band Homegrown as well as the Carinthian male vocal quartet Schnittpunktvokal and the vocal trio Insingizi from Zimbabwe. In addition to these mostly long-term companions, Puschnig invited the Indian singer Asha Putli to a joint stage for the first time, and thus a desired musician he had admired for a long time.
Andreas Rathammer’s Viennese label Quinton Records recently released these four concerts as part of an opulent 4-CD box set called “World Embrace”. A birthday gift given later to the musical world hugger Wolfgang Puschnig.