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Peter Schärli: “Peace Now!”

Silke Eberhard - Alto sax
Jean-Jacques Pedretti - trombone
Christian Weber - double bass
Norbert Pfammatter - drums
Peter Schärli - trumpet

Peter Schärli calls for peace, which doesn't mean that there is no creative friction on stage. You discover wondrous melodies and a lightness that can have a healing effect.

portrait

As a musician, I don't just deal with sounds. I register what is going on in the world, think about my thoughts, and have an attitude towards people, society and life. In recent years it has become even clearer that our global system is falling apart. Capitalism is functioning more and more perfidiously. Behind his clean mask, the world becomes less loving. More inhuman. More brutal.
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The gap between rich and poor is widening every day. In order to maximize profits, human rights are violated and people starve. It is once again socially acceptable to humiliate, discriminate against and hate minorities and the defenceless. Black/white, good/evil, right/wrong, right/left: binary thinking doesn't get us anywhere. We have to learn to think in ternary terms again (yes/no/maybe). It takes the maybe, the doubt, the vulnerability. I am suspicious of the stubborn assertors and know-it-alls.
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The impressions of perfect and unwholesome worlds are reflected in my music. Maybe with my concerts I can encourage all those who continue to want a humane world and are committed to fair conditions and peace. We have to defend ourselves against the agitators and populists! That's the only thing worth living for.
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I can afford to spend my life making music. What a privilege, what happiness! I can give others moments of joy and therefore also myself.
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Music can change the world, you just have to listen to it. Peace Now!
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Peter Schärli about Peter Schärli: “Peace Now!” in 2018

Peter Rüedi

The warm sound of Peter Schärli

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The fact that a good resolution cannot be implemented does not speak against the person who makes it. Big goals often seem naive. “Music can change the world, you just have to listen to it.” His word in God's ear. There is also an aesthetic logic to this idiosyncratic and versatile musician, who has moved in many temperature zones over the course of his career and with a lot of talent and perseverance has achieved a discreet worldwide reputation in the jazz community, out of the cool and into the hot . Running mild, running wild. Schärli has always been a warm, pathetically speaking: a “souled” trumpeter whose sound and phrasing always reminds me a little of the unfortunately almost forgotten Johnny Coles.

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The compositions (all of the trumpeter's inventions) feature beautiful choruses and unisons, but leave plenty of room for improvisatory excursions and occasional passages of calculated chaos. Wonderfully lively music, thoughtful and free. It might not change the world. But she lets us endure it for a while, which is a lot.

Peter Rüedi on “Peace Now!” by Peter Schärli: “Peace Now!” in Weltwoche on January 8, 2020

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