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A Sonic Dialogue Across Borders and Disciplines
String Quartets brings together three visionary composers—Stephan Thelen, Gebhard Ullmann, and Udo Agnesens—in a compelling exploration of contemporary string quartet writing. Performed with striking intensity and nuance by the Al Pari Quartet, this album spans a landscape of sonic textures, rhythmic complexity, and deeply personal expression.
The Composers & Works
Stephan Thelen contributes two powerful pieces—"Urgent Call" and "Continuum in 9"—bridging minimalist structure and progressive rock energy. Drawing from his background as a mathematician and founder of the band Sonar, Thelen’s music embraces polyrhythmic layering and mathematical precision while retaining an almost visceral emotional charge. “Urgent Call” is a driving invocation of Thelen’s sonic ideals, while “Continuum in 9” melds crackling textures with electric urgency, breaking boundaries between concert hall and rock stage.
Gebhard Ullmann’s String Quartet No. 1 unfolds as a meditative, melodic journey across movements that shimmer with emotional clarity. A prominent jazz saxophonist and clarinetist, Ullmann here turns to composition as a space of reflection. His quartet opens with ethereal sul tasto textures and builds into complex interrelations of melody, memory, and transformation. Inspired by themes from his own creative archives, Ullmann’s music resonates with a sense of transience and transcendence.
Udo Agnesens, represented by String Quartet No. 23, offers the most introspective contribution. Though a prolific composer with over 30 quartets to his name, Agnesens often writes without seeking performance—his focus lies in creation over dissemination. The 23rd quartet is marked by a solemn pace and emotional depth, demanding immense control from the performers. It draws listeners inward, revealing its subtle beauty through patience and restraint. “If you don’t have the time to really listen to the music,” he says, “maybe you should be doing something else”.
The Al Pari Quartet
Founded in 2017 by students of the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music in Katowice, the Al Pari Quartet—Dominik Kossakowski (violin), Alicja Miruk-Mirska (violin), Wiktoria Trzebowska (viola), and Elżbieta Rychwalska-Dobrowolska (cello)—has become a formidable force in contemporary chamber music. Their work on this recording demonstrates not only technical mastery but deep interpretive insight. They deliver each composition with clarity, warmth, and expressive sensitivity, bridging the complex rhythmic structures and emotional demands of each piece.
The Al Pari Quartet was established in 2017 by four students of the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music in Katowice. All the musicians have experiences as soloists, thanks to which they won several prizes, but also experiences in chamber music and orchestras, activity that they are currently carrying on.
As a quartet, they received a scholarship by Hans und Eugenia Jütting Stiftung in 2017 and have been invited to play a concert in Stendal, Germany, in 2018. The quartet is working under the supervision of Szymon Krzeszowiec (Silesian Quartet) at the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music, and has taken part in masterclasses with Peter Schuhmayer (Artis Quartet), Frank Reinecke (Vogler Quartet), Dariusz Smolarski, Roland Baldini, Anne-Christin Schwarz. In summer 2017, the Al Pari Quartet participated at the 43rd International Music Courses in Łańcut (Poland) and studied with Andrzej Orkisz.
The ensemble had concerts in Łańcut Castle and in the Theater in Jaworzno, and performed during the Jaw Music Festival’s masterclasses with Jury Revich and during the Mikstury Kultury Festival in Bydgoszcz. In May 2018, the musicians participated at the International FIMU Festival Belfort in France where they played four concerts. The ensemble was invited to perform Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet with Bartłomiej Dobrowolski, at the National Radio Symphony Orchestra Chamber Hall in Katowice, during the Promising Young Musicians concert cycle.
„Gebhard Ullmann is one of the finest improvising artists in the world today“ (Paul Bley)
Born on november 2, 1957 in Bad Godesberg, German saxophonist (tenor and soprano), bass clarinetist, bass flutist and composer Gebhard Ullmann studied medecine and music in Hamburg and moved to Berlin in 1983.
Since then he has recorded 65 CDs as a leader or co-leader for prestigious labels such as Soul Note (Italy), Leo Records (UK), Between The Lines (Germany), CIMP (USA), NotTwo Records (Poland), Clean Feed (Portugal) Intuition Records (Germany), WhyPlayJazz (Germany) and others.
For many years he is considered one of the leading personalities in both the Berlin and international music scenes and has received numerous awards for his work including the Julius Hemphill Composition Award in two categories ('99), the Deutsche Phonoakademie award ('83 together with Andreas Willers), the SWF Jazz Award ('87 again together with Willers) the first Berlin Jazz Award (2017) and the German Jazz Award in the category woodwinds (2022). His CD Tá Lam was nominated best-jazz-CD-of-the-year in 1995 and the CD Silver White Archives best-crossing-borders-CD-of-the-year in 2014 by the German Schallplattenkritik.
His CDs Final Answer (2002) The Bigband Project (2004) New Basement Research (2008) News? No News! (2010) Mingus! (2011) Clarinet Trio 4 (2012) Hat And Shoes (2017) were all listed in Downbeat Magazine among the best CDs of those years. The CD Transatlantic received the prestigious Choc of the French Jazz Magazine in 2012.
Since 2005 Gebhard Ullmann was listed in the Downbeat Critics Poll, 2015 for the first time in three categories.
Since 1993 Ullmann was a recording artist for Soul Note and has been living in New York City and Berlin. He has toured with his music throughout Europe as well as Africa, the Middle East, Canada, New Zealand, the USA, South East Asia, Mexico and China and performed on most of the world's most prestigious jazz festivals.
During the 80's Gebhard Ullmann was a leading force in the musicians' organisation JazzFront Berlin. Since the mid 90's he had a teaching assignment for saxofone and ensemble at the University of Music Hanns Eisler in Berlin for 10 years. He also holds master classes at universities worldwide.
From 2014 - 2018 he was the head of the German Jazz Musicians' Union.
Ullmann's working bands are the transatlantic projects'The Chicago Plan' and 'Conference Call', the Berlin based 'Clarinet Trio', the electro acoustic trio 'Das Kondensat', the worldwide first quarter-tone-piano-quartet 'mikroPULS', the electro/acoustic sextet 'GULFH of Berlin' and the new multi-genre and multi-generational 'The Hemisphere Project'.
He is a member of the 'Hannes Zerbe Jazz Orchestra', the projects of guitarist 'Scott DuBois' and the 'Satoko Fujii Berlin Orchestra'.
He also currently works on a new Solo Project.
As a composer Gebhard Ullmann wrote for different chamber music ensembles including two string quartets, several solo pieces for woodwind instruments and violin and a 61-minute series for piano solo entitled 'Impromptus und Interationen', that was recorded in 2023 by Vitalii Kyianytsia and will be released in 2024.
He also composed several larger works for classical orchestra and a new score for the movie 'Berliner Stilleben' from 1929 by László Moholy-Nagy for the BuJazzO plus Choir as part of the project 'Klingende Utopien - 100 Jahre Bauhaus'.
2020 he published the Orchestersuite No.1, 2021 his first symphony entitled 'Symphonische Verwebungen for Orchestra, Voice, Piano and Percussion' and 2022 the 21-minute work 'Tá Lam For Large Orchestra'.
His compositions are distributed by the Universal Edition, Vienna.
Ullmann recorded or performed with Paul Bley, Andy Emler, Steve Swell, Han Bennink, Satoko Fujii, William Parker, Barry Altschul, Herb Robertson, Marvin Smitty Smith, Laurent Cugny, Ellery Eskelin, Bob Moses, Keith Tippett, Frank Gratkowski, Michael Zerang, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Sergeij Starostin, Tiger Okoshi, Bobby Previte, Ernst Ludwig Petrowsky, Glen Moore, Trilok Gurtu, Ab Baars, Andreas Willers, Lauren Newton, Andrew Cyrille, Sylvie Courvoisier, Frank Möbus, Lee Konitz, Alexander v. Schlippenbach, Benoit Achiary, Willem Breuker, Carlos Bica, Enrico Rava, Rita Marcotulli, Bob Stewart, Dieter Glawischnig, Tony Malaby, Günther Lenz, Drew Gress, Michael Rabinowitz, Matt Wilson, Ivo Papasov, the Ensemble Percussion de Guinee, Tyshawn Sorey, Karl Berger, Mark Helias, Gerry Hemingway, Joe Fonda, Michael Stevens, George Schuller, the European Radioorchestra, spoken word artist Sadiq Bey, the actor Otto Sander and many musicians from the Berlin scene as well as many others.
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