Bernhard Gander (1969, Austria) studied piano and conducting at the Tyrolean Provincial Conservatoire and composition with Beat Furrer in Graz. He also studied electronic music at the Studio UPIC in Paris with Julio Estrada and Curtis Roads and at the Swiss Centre for Computer Music in Zurich. In 2004 he received the Musikförderungspreis of the City of Vienna, Erste Bank Composition Prize, and in 2005 a government grant. Also he received commissions from Klangforum Wien, Musikprotokoll, Konzerthaus, Wien Modern, Ensemble Modern and Donaueschingen (2008).

fète.gare (2002)
…fète (celebration, feast) because music for me is fundamentally about celebration.
…gare (railway station) because I have a wonderful view of the Südbahnhof (Southern railway station) from my window (till 2007).

I photographed the same view again and again over a year and analyzed the pictures. According to the season, the weather and the time of day, each image changes: contours are softer or firmer, various elements occupy the foreground are illuminated and “disappear” again or are concealed.

Beine und Strümpfe (Legs and Stockings, 2007)
…because this piece behaves like legs and stockings:
I – Stockings are produced in a factory – chaotic, coloured yarns are woven together to produce various patterns: close-meshed, light, dark, fine-spun, coarse-spun, elastic, close, clinging to the skin…
II – the stockings are tried on and presented on the catwalk-applause, flash-lights.
III – and then the party in the disco; many legs (in charming  stockings) dance, on their own, in pairs, a change of partners, make for the private room, just the dull thud of the music and dimmed lights, the stockings won’t take in any longer, they ladder; back into the melèe, and everyone – well almost everyone – is dancing to the same rhythm underneath a large rotating disco ball.
The piece is dedicated to Klangforum Wien.