Andreas Schaerer, from Berne in Switzerland, is currently one of the most talked-about vocal artists on the international music scene, and with good reason. He was awarded the title of International Vocalist of the Year at the 2015 ECHO Jazz Awards (in the year immediately following Gregory Porter), but he is considerably more than just a singer - and to classify him under jazz doesn’t really do him justice either. Schaerer uses his voice in the manner of a juggler, a magician. He can not only make it sound forth in contrasting stylistic idioms and vocal registers, (switching at will from songster to crooner to scatter), he can also produce all kinds of sounds and imitate a whole range of instruments. He can do beatbox percussion, or he can stack up polyphonic vocal parts on top of each other in a way which seems unfeasible. In addition to all that, he is also a hugely impressive composer and improviser, skills which he can bring to bear on all kinds of musical projects, where his virtuosity can be the key ingredient, either providing melodic form or rhythmic impetus. And his skills don’t stop there. He has considerable on-stage charisma, and also brings a rare gift into the world of ‘serious’ music: humour, which is the stock-in-trade of his main band Hildegard Lernt Fliegen (meaning Hildegard learns to fly). It was therefore a logical step, when the Lucerne Festival, with its unparalleled renown in the world of classical music chose “humour” as its theme for 2015, that it should approach Schaerer and Hildegard Lernt Fliegen. The festival’s head of Contemporary Projects Mark Sattler asked Schaerer if he might combine a new composition for the Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra with a 20-minute appearance by Hildegard Lernt Fliegen. Schaerer didn’t just grab this opportunity, he really ran with it. What he composed was a six-movement orchestral work, with parts for 66 players. He put himself through the hard graft of composing and arranging, then through the intricacies of orchestrating and part-writing, followed by an intensive rehearsal process. as a result of which “The Big Wig” had its public premiere on 5th September 2015 in the magnificent Jean Nouvel-designed Culture and Convention Center in Lucerne. This work had the audience leaping from its seats. Even the Swiss press, normally known for its sangfroid, turned ecstatic. The cultural magazine KultUrteil concluded that only one adjective would suffice to describe the work: “gigantic.” While the Neue Luzerner Zeitung remarked: “what was crazy about this piece was how the complexity in the orchestral writing combined with grooves, something more or less unknown in contemporary music.” Fortunately, Swiss Radio (SRF) had arranged to made a recording of the premiere, and there was also a camera team on hand to film it.
