Schiess Christophe

Christophe Schiess (born in 1974) lives in Biel/Bienne, Switzerland, at the foot of the Jura mountains. He studied musical pedagogy and choral conducting at the Hochschule für Musik Basel. He also studied music theory and composition with Roland Moser and Georg Friedrich Haas.

Christophe Schiess composes particularly for ensembles specializing in contemporary music (Ensemble Phoenix Basel, UMS 'N JIP, Camerata variabile). His music is characterized by structural links which are either precise or free associations with extra-musical phenomena that are often foreign to “high culture” (e.g. an action on a football pitch consisting of 26 passes that led to an Argentinian goal  in the 2006 World Cup / people falling down stairs in the 21st volume of The Adventures of Tintin: The Castafiore Emerald / the extreme slowing down of a marmot's vital organs in winter / the way a game of cards progresses / etc.). Sometimes the initial impetus stems from listening to an existing piece of music - from the emotional shock and the thoughts that derive from it.

Christophe Schiess is a teacher at the Gymnase français in Biel/Bienne and at the Hochschule für Musik Basel. He also conducts the Jubilate choir (Biel/Bienne).

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