Fo[u]r Alto

microtonal music for four alto saxophones

Frank Gratkowski – alto saxophone, composition
Florian Bergmann – alto saxophone
Leonhard Huhn – alto saxophone
Salim Javaid – alto saxophone

Fo[u]r Alto is the quadrupling of the alto saxophone as a unified sound body. Since the founding of the ensemble in 2008, the four Berlin saxophonists Frank Gratkowski, Salim Javaid, Leonhard Huhn, and Florian Bergmann have developed a distinctive sound language characterized by artistic uncompromisingness and continuous musical research.
Collective improvisations are combined with Gratkowski’s compositions. A variety of techniques are employed, such as spectral analyses, intervallic microtonal concepts, various extended playing techniques, and shimmering, dense sound layers created through the multiplication of overtones produced by the instruments. Recently, they have also incorporated percussion instruments like gongs and singing bowls, as well as musical transcriptions of speech and natural sounds, which expand and enrich the ensemble’s expressive range.
A key element is the conception of spatial music. When the venue allows, the musicians position themselves around the audience to provide a multidirectional musical experience.
Fo[u]r Alto has played numerous concerts across Europe, including the Portrait Concerts of Frank Gratkowski Jeunesse Spezial 2014 at the Porgy & Bess in Vienna and Trias 2018 at the Loft in Cologne, as well as at the Acht Brücken Festival in Cologne, the Berlin Serious Series, the Panakustika Wiesbaden, the Saxophone Festival Stuttgart, the EuroMicroFest Freiburg, and the Blurred Edges Festival Hamburg.
In 2023, the ensemble received a grant from the Berlin Senate for Culture, which enabled them to undertake an extensive record release tour for the CD 2 Compositions by Frank Gratkowski (released by IMPAKT Cologne). The CD was produced in 2021 as part of a grant from the Berlin Senate for Culture and the Music Fund. In 2020, with support from the Music Fund and the Cologne Cultural Office, they realized the octet concert Fo[u]r Alto & Strings at the Kunst-Station Sankt Peter in collaboration with Lola Rubio (violin), Vincent Royer (viola), Elisabeth Coudoux (cello), and Kathrin Pechlof (harp). To mark its tenth anniversary, the ensemble presented the concert series Ten Years of Fo[u]r Alto in 2019, supported by the Berlin Senate Department for Europe and Culture, at Ausland, Wabe, and Jazzkeller 69. In the fall of 2012, they released their first CD 4 Compositions by Frank Gratkowski on the English label Leo Records.

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