Hong Kong - Interview - excerpt
Radio RTHK, November 19, 2000

"... and you also use amateur musicians, is that right?"

"Yes, this is right. The Ensemble Zwischentöne is an ensemble not built up only of orchestra instruments. There are people in the ensemble who play not just one instuments, for instance. That means that we do a lot of pieces which are not written for orchestra instruments but which are written for object sounds for example, for stones, for plastic bottles, or pieces which have to be performed not in the normal spaces, not in the concert halls - and this is an important feature for our ensemble."

"Why the amateur musicians and not people who have their instruments to a high quality?"

"Because, with instrumentalists of high quality you would have 2 problems: first they don't like to use other instruments than their own instrument, and the other thing is, they don't want to play music that is not highly virtuosic. So if the music is very simple and pure they wouldn't like it. But there is so much beautiful music that is simple, music which we are highly insterested in. Therefore also this is a very important thought to follow for the ensemble."