Barblina Meierhans Composer
Barblina Meierhans creates works in the disciplines of contemporary music and sound art.
She studied composition at Dresden University of Music, new music theatre and transdisciplinarity at Bern University of the Arts, and violin at Zurich University of the Arts. In her composition method, she has been inspired by the composition method of Prof. Mark Andre and Prof. Manos Tsangaris.
Mainly, her works have been played in Germany and Switzerland, sometimes also in Argentina, Austria, Denmark, France, Greece, Italy, India, the Netherlands, Poland, Serbia, South Korea, the UK, and were part of, among others, the Lucerne Festival, Spor Festival, Münchener Biennale, Ultraschall Berlin, Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Festival Archipel, Festival Internacional de Musica Tacec, New Talents Biennale Cologne, and Tonlagen Festival Dresden. She has received several scholarships and awards including the Förderpreis für junge Komponisten und Musikwissenschaftler dkv Leipzig, the City of Zurich’s Auslandatelier-Stipendium Berlin, studio residencies in Bangalore and New Delhi by Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, studio residency in Rome by Canton of St.Gallen, scholarship at the NAIRS Contemporary Art Center, and the Trächsel scholarship BEST.
For some time past, Barblina Meierhans became involved on different levels in the fields of teaching and artistic research, and she has given workshops.
Aus der Presse
»Music is first and foremost a vibration; a movement that, reduced to the absurd and limited to the genre of Homo sapiens, has as its minimal expression the pulsation of air and blood. The piece ‘Rise’ by Barblina Meierhans, which opens the ‘Dance of the Sun’ show by the Geneva Camerata, which closed the Oviedo Dance Festival this Monday with mastery and great vision, has something of this original essence. This piece, a five-minute calderón, a sustained tone with certain modulations, accompanied by the breaths of the brass, while Martí Corbera moved in the centre of the stage as if it were the birth of the first musical gesture in history, made the audience at Campoamor feel from the beginning what kind of performance they were going to see and hear. Something completely different, as the Monty Pythons would say.«
Chus Neira (La Nueva España)
»Barblina Meierhans' composition is anything but glittering salon music. It is also not satisfied with the direct effect, but shows subtle emotions without opulent rhetoric. The music stands for itself and, with its static nature, contrasts the moving screen images with its own. Music that does not illustrate or amplify, but reinterprets what you see.«
Charles Uzor (St. Galler Tagblatt)
»Noises are also central to Barblina Meierhans' composition “Auf Distanz”. In this spatial music, the soloist is placed at the back of the stalls, his percussive snapping in contrast to the wind noises of the ensemble on stage. A rapprochement occurs when this increases to gusts of wind and the flautist begins to breathe in reverse, even to rattle. The reference to corona becomes ghostly when the flautist no longer plays at all in the reverberation: a powerful piece.«
Urs Mattenberger (Luzerner Zeitung)
»Another highlight was the concert installation. Those days are over... by Barblina Meierhans - ‘a tour with percussion, performers and ensemble’ through the Ruhrstadt bowling alleys. The real ‘star’ of this installation was the bowling alley itself. Like a relic from times long past - original and largely unchanged since the 1950s - this was perhaps the last major ‘appearance’ of the Ruhrstadt bowling alleys, which have been closed since spring 2019 and are expected to be demolished soon. The audience was led through the bowling alley like a procession through a part of the history of the Ruhr Valley that will never exist again. The group encounters touching, ironic and sad musical and scenic miniatures until everyone plays one last ball themselves.«
Mathias Lehmann (Positionen)
Mathias Lehmann (Positionen)
»Sound installations by Barblina Meierhans and works by Nicolaus Anton Huber were among the highlights in Witten this year.«
Torsten Möller (Schweizer Musikzeitung)
Torsten Möller (Schweizer Musikzeitung)