Stephan Micus
b. 19 January 1953, Stuttgart, Germany. Micus made his first overseas trip to Morocco at the age of 16. Since then he has travelled all over the world, studying traditional wind and string instruments, including the Japanese shakuhachi and sho, the Indian sitar and dilruba, as well as a range of percussion instruments from China, Korea, Bali, Java, Tibet and Ireland. For EAST OF THE NIGHT he designed a new type of 10- and 14-string guitar with resonant strings like that of the sitar. He has given concerts in Europe (including one in Düsseldorf with Oregon), the USA, Japan, Taiwan, Israel and Afghanistan. In 1977, his ballet, Koan, received its premiere in Cologne. Further performances included London, Paris and New York. THE MUSIC OF STONES, his compositions for the resonating stone sculptures of Elmar Daucher, were recorded in the atmospheric ambience of Ulm Cathedral and proved to be among his most inspired work. In the recording studio he has preferred to work as a soloist, making sensitive use of multi-track playback techniques. His compositions, often based on improvisation and always difficult to classify, have been widely acclaimed for their meditative and spiritual qualities. His expressed intention is not to play traditional music, but to search for fresh possibilities by using traditional instruments in unconventional combinations. Of this, the jazz writer Joachim E. Berendt, has said: ‘He plays them with a profound internationalization of their tradition and spirituality, uniting their sounds in a musical river which makes the stream of inner consciousness audible’.