Artist page

The Vienna Art Orchestra, founded in 1977 by director and composer Mathias Rüegg, began by performing Rüegg's unique postmodern compositions across Europe. Among its founding members were saxophonists Wolfgang Puschnig and Harry Sokal, singer Lauren Newton, and tuba player Jon Sass. The band signed a recording contract with the Swiss hatART label in 1980 and made its first tour of the United States in 1984. After a brief disbandment at the end of the 1980s, the ensemble reformed in 1992 with a smaller group of musicians, shifting its focus from Rüegg's compositions to arrangements of works by notable American jazz composers such as Duke Ellington and Charles Mingus, as well as classical music inspired by Verdi, Wagner, Schubert, and Erik Satie. In 1997, the ensemble expanded again, incorporating younger musicians and regularly featuring new compositions by Rüegg in its concerts, which often included visual and dramatic elements. The Vienna Art Orchestra has performed over 800 concerts and released more than 35 recordings. The film "An Echo from Europe: Vienna Art Orchestra on Tour," directed by Othmar Schmiderer, was released in 1998. The ensemble received nominations for the Amadeus Austrian Music Award in 2001 for the album "All That Strauss" and in 2003 for "Art and Fun." However, on July 10, 2010,

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