Concept Store Quartet
Concept Store Quartet is an ensemble of saxophonist, violinist, percussionist and accordionist, who’s paths crossed because of the search for new challenging and fascinating music. They come from different cultural backgrounds, but have the same vision of sound and love for chamber music.
Although the group has been active only since September 2018, they have already established a significant position on the map of Swiss contemporary classical music. This was noticed and appreciated recently, in August 2019, at Nicati Competition, where their outstanding attributes were pointed out and awarded the 1st Prize and the Public Prize.
In the latest season they performed on Impuls Academy (Graz, February 2019), Happy New Ears Festival (Basel, January 2019), Attacca Festival (Basel, June 2019) and the concert of premieres in Musikerwohnhaus (Basel, January 2019), always receiving enthusiastic feedback.
The ensemble focuses on close work with young composers to perform pieces, which they can truly identify with. Moreover, due to unusual instrumentation, all the pieces are commissioned, written for and premiered by Concept Store Quartet. In the short but active history of the ensemble they have worked with Stylianos Dimou, Francisco Domínguez, Bethany Younge, Anda Kryeziu, Tobias Krebs and Yulan Yu. In the future the ensemble is planning collaboration with composer and artist Marta Śniady and Andreas Frank and developing an interactive piece for ensemble, electronics and video.
The ensemble members’ work in the field of contemporary music involves performing and premiering new pieces as well as being active as teachers and coaches of new music. As soloist and chamber musicians they are cooperating with Ensemble Modern, Synergein Project, Sigma Project, Ensemble Proton, Ensemble BCN 216, Ensemble Phoenix, Le NEC, Sinfonietta Basel and other.
ALICJA PILARCZYK
is a Polish violinist and interpreter of new music. She pursued her studies in Warsaw (UMFC), Bern (HKB), Frankfurt (IEMA) and, finally, Basel (FHNW) where she recently lives.
Her engagement in new music and collaboration with various ensembles has taken her to festivals such as Warsaw Autumn, Acht Brücken (Cologne), Gaudeamus (Utrecht), Manifeste (Paris), Ruhrtriennale, Barns (Philadelphia) or Lucerne Festival. As a soloist she has been involved in creative multi-disciplinary project with dance companies, choreographers and visual artists.
Beside being the founding member of Concept Store Quartet she performs as a guest musician with Ligeti Quartet (London), Ensemble Proton (Bern), Le Nouvel Ensemble Contemporain (Neuchatel), Ensemble Neuverband (Basel), Ensemble Modern Orchestra (Frankfurt am Main) and Sinfonietta Basel.
Alicja is also active as orchestra musician being a member of Zürcher Symphoniker and previously Berliner Symphoniker, Polish Orchestra Sinfonia Iuventus and Baltic Neopolis Orchestra, with which she has toured in Europe, South-East Asia and Japan.
Between 2015 and 2019 she was an assistant at Academy of Arts in Szczecin, where she taught the violin and contemporary chamber music.
PABLO GONZÁLEZ BALAGUER
is a saxophonist born in Spain. After finishing bachelor studies with distin ction and the special price for Extraordinary Thesis he moved to study in Bordeaux (France) with Marie-Bernardette Charrier and later, in 2015, to Basel where he began studies in Music Performance and later Specialised Performance in Contemporary Music with Marcus Weiss, Jürg Henneberger and Mike Svoboda.
Pablo has collaborated with Kammerorchester Basel, Orquestra del CSMV, Banda Federal, Orchestre du CRR Bordeaux, the Orchestre d’Harmonie de Bordeaux and ensemble “Proxima Centauri”.
He holds prizes from competitions such as Cox, Xàtiva, La Vall d’Uxò, Accesit in Xàtiva. Moreover. Moreover, he received a substantial support from foundations such as “CulturArts”, Hochschule Basel, DOMS y Haiku Stiftung among others.
NEJC GRM
belongs to the young Slovenian accordion generation. He has been working with composers, with whom he tries to explore and enrich accordion repertoire in different musical styles. Although he is a devoted new music performer, his repertoire includes Baroque and Classical pieces.
He has received numerous awards and first prizes at national and international competitions (in Sydney, in Pula, in Beltinci, Svirel etc). He is a scholarship holder of the Ministry of culture Slovenia.
After finishing his studies at the Ljubljana Conservatory of Music and Ballet he continued at Academy of Music in Ljubljana which he graduated with distinction. Between 2014 and 2015, he was the Erasmus exchange student in Sibelius Academy in Helsinki.
He is currently pursuing Master in Specialised Music Performance of Contemporary Music at the Hochschule für Musik in Basel and has graduated with highest prize the Maisterklasse at the Hochschule für Musik in Freiburg.
GUILLEM SERRANO
is a Spanish percussionist dedicated to contemporary music. He has worked with a large number of renowned soloists and composers such as Vinko Globokar, Pierre Jodlowski, José Luis Torá, Vicent Gómez, Pierluigi Billone, Voro García and other. His wish has always been to provide a personal contribution to the evolution of percussion.
He has performed in Spain and participated in the festivals ENSEMS and Mostra Sonora (Valencia), FMUC (Tenerife), BBVA Premio Fronteras del Conocimiento (Madrid), among others.
In 2017 Guillem won first prize in the "Juventudes Musicales de España" competition. He is currently pursuing master studies in Music Performance with Christian Dierstein at the Music Academy in Basel. Moreover he is the member of "Synergein Project", a fruitful collaboration with his big authority and his former teacher, Sisco Aparici: a project entirely dedicated to avant-garde music in all its facets: interpretation, pedagogy and research.
Repertoire
DIMOU Stylianos (Greece)
Sur les traces de la fissure (2019) 15’
DOMINGUEZ Francisco (Spain)
Layl (2018) 9’
KREBS Tobias (Switzerland)
Schiefer (2019) 15’
KRYEZIU Anda (Kosovo)
Strange Loop (2019) 15’
MENOUD John (Switzerland)
Ars Moriendi (2019) 10’
YANG Song (China)
Petrichor (2019) 13’
YOUNGE Bethany (USA)
Crisscrossed with corrections 2016/18 13’
YU Yulan (China)
Leap (2018) 6’
Contact
Concept Store Quartet | Alicja Pilarczyk
+41 786 29 00 98
+48 692 484 808
conceptstoreq@gmail.com
facebook.com/conceptstorequartet