SingleRelease date:
03.07.2020
Clemens Christian Poetzsch, Sven Helbig
Schlaflied
Sven “This piece I wrote for my daughter. It was always hard to get her to sleep and it often happened that I fell asleep before her. But sometimes, I could watch her sleep in the dark and this gave me a feeling that no other experience in life can provide. It is even impossible to find words for it. I can’t wait to hear what Clemens, who is not a father yet, will do with it. I am probably the most sensitive with this piece. But I won’t say anything.” Clemens “Schlaflied, one of my favorite pieces by Sven. I guess I understand what he means. It does not want to be heard at all. Rather it enriches the air, so that sleepers feel it rather than hear it. It reminds me a bit of the time when we played jazz at the Bluenote Dresden. I ́ll play it like it ́s a gentle, careful jazz ballad. But it should not stay in the tempo.”
Clemens Christian Poetzsch
During his childhood in Dresden, Poetzsch received his first piano lessons from his grandfather, an opera singer, and immediately immersed himself in the worlds of Bach, Schubert and Clementis. Then, at the age of ten, a birthday present from his brother: a music book with Frank Sinatra standards that opened his ears to more extensive musical possibilities. Poetzsch soon played in the bar of the neighbouring house, improvising and throwing song structures over and over again.
These were formative experiences that accompanied Poetzsch throughout his classical music education at the Hochschule für Musik in Dresden. During his piano and composition studies he spent his free time playing in jazz and free improvisation bands with friends and colleagues. He gave concerts, went on tour, discovered electronic music and absorbed all knowledge like a sponge. "I really like playing Bach and all the big ones," he says, "but from the beginning I just liked writing music myself and making my own songs. Playing in the orchestra or in big bands never really interested me".
And so what started as pure pleasure and the need to "find environments where I can surprise myself" became an ever-increasing influence on his music. "There never was a real plan," Poetzsch explains, "but I found that when I stepped away from all the sheet music and tried to find something for myself, it became my little language, and my voice and composition style really developed out of all of that."
Photo: Sandra LudewigMore releases
Sven Helbig
His debut "Pocket Symphonies" was released on the traditional Deutsche Grammophon label followed by his choral work "I Eat the Sun and Drink the Rain" on the Neue Meister label. Sven Helbig is a co-founder of the Dresden Symphony Orchestra, the first European orchestra devoted solely to the performance of contemporary music. Sven looks back on may years of creative collaboration with the Fauré Quartet, the opera singer René Pape, the conductor Kristjan Järvi, the Pet Shop Boys and the cult rock band Rammstein.
