Marek Pospieszalski & Julian Sartorius

Saxophonist and composer Marek Pospieszalski takes a unique approach to his instrument, preparing the sax by modifying the body and keys, or using a guitar amplifier to turn its wails into squealing feedback. He's well respected in the jazz world, listed by German publication JazzThing as one of Europe's most promising musicians, and performing in a number of ensembles, but on last year's 'Joyous', he deviated visibly from traditions. Challenging the limitations of the saxophone, he uses ideas from sound design to help sculpt his open-ended noise without losing the instrument's signature expressiveness.

Trained at jazz schools in his home country of Switzerland, Julian Sartorius quickly developed his own approach to percussion. He's enticed not just by rhythm, and its seemingly endless variability, but the open-ended language of electronic music, that helps punctuate his organic patterns - made with found objects and prepared instruments - with enigmatic tonalities. Over the years, Sartorius has collaborated with a litany of musicians, including Matthew Herbert, Kate Tempest, Valentina Magaletti and Shahzad Ismaily, and created various broad-minded solo albums. In 2012, he released 'Beat Diary', a 12LP box set that featured 365 beat tracks, and on this year's 'Hidden Tracks: Domodossola – Weissmies', he hiked from Italy to Switzerland, using found objects and local architectures, as well as the altitude itself, to inform the music.

Julian Sartorius is an artist of the SHAPE+ platform for innovative music and interdisciplinary art, co-funded by the European Union and Pro Helvetia.

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.