During one of my concerts in Taucha, Germany, last month, I asked the audience who knows the name Michael Vetter. Several people raised their hands. But as I expected, many people at the Ancient Trance Festival don’t know his name. Of course, quite a few more may have heard his music in the Age of Spotify: you listen but don’t know what album is playing, now that a physical relationship to the medium (as in the time of LPs, CDs) is outdated. Besides, Ancient Trance is not exactly overlapping with Vetter’s artistic direction. He was much more avant-garde, with musical influences from Baroque to Dada and Fluxus, and a host of visual influences, from mediaeval religious painting and Chinese calligraphy to comics.

In the next few weeks O TRIOM is looking back at the life and work of the instrumentalist, vocalist, painter, poet, pedagogue and ordained Zen master Michael Vetter (1943-2013). We will be showing how his legacy continues to inspire, inform and transform our performing today in several concerts, a lecture and workshops. Why? Certainly not because Vetter was such a fine overtone singer. There are and have been many fine overtone singers, and Vetter’s style of singing and performing was one of many – not ‘just’ one of many, but a very influential one, to be sure. In the 1980s, anyone wanting to do something with overtone singing went to Vetter’s workshops and bought his albums, at least in very active German-speaking areas (and The Netherlands too). Vetter set certain standards for overtone singing, for a certain period of time, and those standards hardly changed.

Michael Vetter making Indian ink drawings, Academia Caparaia, Italy, 2009. (Photograph Mark van Tongeren under protection of Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND)

The interest of O TRIOM in Vetter also started with overtone singing, but soon branched out in many other directions. For example: Vetter as a typical Zen Buddhist. He insists again and again that one should give undivided attention to what one is doing when making music (or anything else, though he would not talk about anything, but about art). And he applied this attitude in all his music, and all his other creative work, as well as his cooking and everyday life. When I read and re-read his texts, or when I go through the conversations we had and the interviews I did with him, I frequently stumble upon contradictions (literally: ‘counter-speaking’) concerning his spiritual or religious outlook. You may be looking to clarify his positions towards spiritual questions, and find that he has much to say about that. Many people felt he was a very religious person and his biography testifies to that. Certainly a believer! But then you will sooner or later find a remark in which he warns for overzealous religious interpretations. “Here and there one learns about the connection between overtones and Our Lord. That is far removed from me!” And yet, many of his art and music works bear very clear Christian (and not just Zen) elements.

It seems that it does not make sense. And that is exactly what we can take away from Michael Vetter (or maybe from Zen in general), and what keeps me coming back to him for fresh insights: there is no single, or final way to talk about or do anything. There are only temporarily, or partially ‘true’ or ‘convincing’ arguments to believe, or positions to take. As soon as one clings too much to certain truths, it is time to let it go again and look for yet another perspective .

In the weeks to come we will prepare ourselves with this in mind: try as best as you can to follow certain aesthetic and creative paths, and be always willing to throw them overboard again and replace them with something new. I am excited about this moment in our O TRIOM collaboration, which began in early 2022, if I remember well. And I salute the brilliant artist who bridged so many visions and visuals, sounds and musics, thoughts and dreams in a lifetime bursting with creative output.

Read an earlier post about why we should remember Michael Vetter here.

PROGRAM

FOR CONCERT TICKETS

CLICK HERE

O TRIOM Artists

LEE Wei Lin

LU Qi Chung

Mark van Tongeren

Production

Organizer| Taiwan Overtone Singing Association TOSA
Executive Producer  | Lee Chichen
Visual Design  | Bai Chi Hao
Image source | Michael Vetter

Lecture| prof. CHUNG Mingder

Taiwan Overtone Singing Association is also on Facebook.

Photos from a 2014 concert by O TRIOM

O TRIOM 紀念米歇爾·費特大師 系列泛音講座、工作坊暨音樂會

與談者將說談泛音音樂在台灣發展的故事，從當年北藝大邀請國外泛音音樂家來台傳藝及演出，到《OM泛唱作為藝乘》一書的誕生，泛音藝術家米歇爾・費特大師的生平創作故事，及至往後泛音音樂在台灣生根2022年台灣泛音詠唱協會TOSA的成立。

＊同場放映呂啓仲拍攝之泛音藝術家費特大師來台紀錄片《Transverbal穿越語言的相遇》。

｜工作坊內容｜

介紹「泛音唱法」，引領學員如何唱和體驗泛音，藉由唱出和聽到泛音，踏上精神的探險之旅。

點此報名工作坊＆講座

O TRIOM 米歇爾‧費特大師 紀念音樂會

時間：

2023/10/21  六 19:00

2023/10/22 日  14:00

地點：

夢響廳 Dreamphony Hall

新北市蘆洲區光榮路97巷59號

**捷運蘆洲站步行約5分鐘**

演出者：Mark van Tongeren．呂啓仲．李維琳

 音樂會購票點此 

O TRIOM 演出者

製作團隊

主辦單位| |台灣泛音詠唱協會

執行製作  | 李紀辰

視覺設計 |  白濟豪

圖片來源 | Michael Vetter

講座講者| 鍾明德教授

台灣泛音詠唱協會Facebook

Read an earlier post about why we should remember Michael Vetter here.

The post O TRIOM remembers Michael Vetter appeared first on Fusica.