for keyboard with live-audio and live-video

22 minutes

score and patch

Commissioned and premiered by Zubin Kanga.

Keyboard Cat is a piece for keyboard with live-audio and live-video. It's about memes and GIFs, and about posing as a pianist. Mostly it is about the way a pianist presses a key — about arm strokes and special touches, all the hand and body movements pianists make on purpose or unconsciously while playing. The music revolves around inside-keyboard sounds, what you hear is less the playing than the machinery behind it, standing in for the inside-pianist things going on in the performer's head while performing.

five techno songs with text by Sivan Ben Yishai

for electric guitar with live-audio and live-video

15 minutes

score

my new piece for electric guitar with live-video dedicated to, commissioned and premiered by Emilio Guim. If you are interested in playing it, let me know.

for percussion solo with live-video and tape

12 minutes

commissioned and premiered by Miguel Garçia 2024 in Basel

patch & score

Tiltshift is a solo piece for a percussion player. It is about the craziness of percussion players instrument collections. And it is about separating the arms and legs of the performer (in the video, not in reality) as a representation of the musical layers in the composition.

The basic version is tailored to the Miguel Garçia’s instruments. You find photos with the set-up in the score-folder. Each performer needs to find her or his own set of instruments for a performance of Tiltshift.

for 8 performers and live-camera operator with live-video and live-audio

35 minutes

commissioned and premiered by ensemble mosaik in December 2022

score&patch

patch and score are available for free, just send an email

backslash is about playing and performing together and for each other, it’s about being an individual, about being part of a couple or of a group in a rehearsal process and on stage. The musicians play their instruments, move on stage, change their situation and process live-recorded audio and video live on stage during the performance. As a composition, backslash explores the boundaries between the freedom of a prepared improvisation and fixed notation. In a longer rehearsal process, the musicians get to know their agency and perform in constantly changing pairings and in various constellations. The piece lasts about 30 minutes.

for 2 performers with live-video and live-audio

premiere by Alter Face piano ensemble in Palma October 2022

Deep Blue is a project that is constantly being developed. It is played by two performers who sit opposite each other like chess players and using a Novation Launchpad looking like a chess board. One player controls the sound with half of the buttons, the second player processes the video with the other 32 buttons. Depending on the occasion, I develop a new solution for each concert together with the players. For this purpose, 8 videos are produced or selected by the performers. The videos and the sound of the videos are played and manipulated during the performance. The formal flow of the performances offers as much freedom as the players desire. In the best case, a version of Deep Blue continues to evolve in collaboration with me over several performances. If you are interested, I will be happy to respond to inquiries by mail. Deep Blue is the only piece that I do not make freely available. But every performance duo gets a free copy, of course. The controllers can also be borrowed.

for 8 performers with live-video and tape.

premiere 2021 in Concertgebouw Brugge

hide to show is my third composition for NADAR. It was commissioned by Siemens and by Concertgebouw Brugge. hide to show is about being alone in a room, syncing with others without seeing them, it is about being observed, about making yourself visible or invisible and replacing yourself in many ways. hide to show is also a lecture about hyperreality, about how virtual stuff that never existed is copied and pasted into our so called reality.

for 4 EWI-5000 MIDI-saxophones, live-video and live-audio, premiered 13 March 2020 in Basel with EW-4.  

score&patch

mimikry is my first concept-composition. There is no score but there is a basic instruction, how to build and how to perform a new version. In addition it is my first piece with audio-processing and video-processing. Both is triggered by MIDI through Max/Jitter. The instruments do not produce any sound, actually they never produce sound themselves, but they play back and process videos and the sound of videos downloaded from youtube. In these videos you see people unbox, explane, show, repair, modify and play EWIs. In this way mimikry is also meant to be a performance lecture about the use and the meaning of MIDI-instruments.

for 2 sopranos, mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, bass, flute, clarinet, saxophone, trombone, piano and percussion with live-video and tape.

premiere March 2018 in Barcelona with Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart & Ensemble Crossing Lines
15 minutes       score&patch

The live-video in transit is based on a video-feedback system that allows the performers to interact in different time-layers. This composition is inspired by Baudrillard’s idea of hyper-realism. Virtual voices, designed for virtual performances, bounce back into reality and the virtualization of voices as a process of mapping is imitated by the singers once again live on stage.

for a pianist without piano with live video and tape.

premiere Jan 2017 in Gent by Frederic Croene

duration 13 minutes   score&patch

Performances by women may be called Key Jane.

It has become a trademark of Michael Beil (°1963) to thoroughly dismantle the traditional image of the musician and his instrument. In Key Jack, the grand piano has even disappeared from the stage altogether. Deprived of his beloved instrument, the pianist has exchanged his black suit for a more casual outfit. Once a solist, he is now assisted by 2 questionable Doppelgänger. Yet, Key Jack is still a highly virtuosic solo piano piece. In front of the camera the pianist faces a mind-bending playback-challenge. Beil thereby skillfully recombines movement, image and sound, thus confusing even the most alert spectators. The result is a fascinating performance, that almost makes you forget the piano isn’t actually there.

Rebecca Diependaele 2018

for 4 musicians without instruments with live-video and tape.

premiere March 2017 in Zürich by Ensemble of Nomads
duration 15 minutes   score&patch

caravan shows the production of a visualization live on stage. Thereby each detail is implemented by the performers themselves. And the resulting music-clip is projected already during the performance.
Furthermore the performance without instruments and without click allows the musicians to act with a maximum of freedom whereas the large number of unusual tasks represents a big challenge at the same time.

Stefan Pieper über caravan anlässlich des Konzerts bei der Ruhrtriennale mit dem Ensemble Garage:

Was ist real, was ist virtuell? Wie klein sich die reale physische Wirklichkeit vor der sich immer kolossaler aufblasenden medialen Reproduktion macht, könnte Michael Beils Performance-Stück „Caravan“ assoziieren lassen. Vier Akteurinnen und Akteure agieren vor einer Kamera auf expressive, zugleich konsequent sinnfreie Art. Jeder einzeln und im fliegenden Wechsel. Eine Kamera filmt und montiert alles zu einer Echtzeit-Bildcollage, sie sich – abhängig von den Aktionen der Akteure – immer schneller und verwirrender aufbaut.

for cello solo with live-video and tape.

premiere Nov 2016 in Huddersfield by Dirk Wietheger/Ensemble Musikfabrik
13 minutes    score&patch

Performances by women are called String Jane.

What does it mean to write a piece for solo cello in 2016? What is cello playing in 2016? What is cello playing in general and what is going on in the head of a cello player while playing? String Jack is my answer to these questions. Basic playing techniques deconstructed to their components, the most famous cello pieces and players, various versions of the most difficult passage and much more, that's what you hear and see. The cello!

for flute, oboe, clarinet, trumpet, trombone, horn and percussion with live-video and tape.

premiere in December 2015 in Frankfurt by Ensemble Modern
20 minutes    score &patch

sugar water is a musical and visual palindrome composition citing musical palindromes from all over the music history. Ma fin et mon commencement by Machaut is the archetype of this compositional strategy but there are many other full palindromes like those from Haydn, Mozart, Webern, The Beatles and Missy Elliott. Today the back masking effect is also used for promotion purposes and very popular among conspiracy theorists speculating about hidden messages in music or speeches of famous persons. 

for flute, clarinet, saxophone, trombone, percussion, piano,  violin and cello with live-video and live-audio
premiere in October 2015 in Donaueschingen by Ensemble Nadar.

35 minutes    score&patch

«This is the difference between truth and fiction: fiction has to make sense» (The International 2008)

Similar to my other works Bluff is calling into question all actions related to a concert including all movements a musician does on stage, the composition containing sound and time and its developing process that should also be perceptible for the audience during the performance. Therefore in my most recent pieces like «Blackjack» and «exit to enter» I work with the separation of the four main elements of audio-visual works: movements (of the musicians in order to produce sound or to change position), recorded movements in the video (experiences to be recalled), live played sounds and recorded sounds. All movements, video recordings, real sounds and recorded sounds are separately produced during a performance and combined afterwards in various ways. In Bluff I continue working with this strategy using a much more radical setup. On one hand this new way brings the musicians and the live played music more to the center of attention so that the video will be less dominant than in other pieces. On the other hand in Bluff I use is a completely different way of syncing interaction. The work is perceptibly about separation, isolation and communication on stage. To underline the strangeness of this separation (working technique) and isolation (players) that might seem more familiar to the audience as assumed, I work with «really» very familiar musical material and actions. In the end there might be no difference between appropriate or inappropriate contexts and combinations just as it is in real life.

for flutes, oboes and clarinets with live video and tape.

premiere in November 2014 in Berlin/Sophiensäle by Ensemble Mosaik.

13 minutes    score&patch

the flute-player needs piccolo, flute and bass flute
the oboe player needs oboe, english horn and baritone
the clarinet player needs E-flat, B-flat and bass-clarinet in B

swap is a scenic composition for three woodwinds with three instruments each. Switching instruments during a performance has become a common thing in concerts with contemporary music. The actions and movements related to changing instruments are normally not part of the composition but less welcome side effects. In swap they are to be revealed and celebrated as part of the virtuoso skills of a contemporary music player. They are optimized, choreographed and their duration is reduced to a minimum. Constant changing becomes normal and outstanding at the same time in swap and the 9 instruments melt together to one instrument with a monster range, always on the move. 

for flute, clarinet, piano, percussion, violin and cello with live-video and tape.

premiere in Mai 2013 in Cologne at 8 Brücken Festival by Ensemble Nadar.

14 minutes    score &patch

exit to enter is the high point in a series of compositions with live video, and the end point with regard to possible density in the use of written-out live video. A listener who thinks she already sees all the connections on first hearing is missing the mark. This is usually the case with music, although we don’t normally realize it. You can tell very clearly in exit to enter, perhaps because you see and hear everything at the same time, or because you might see something but not hear it. Sometimes this is something quite obvious. For example, during a concert, the musicians come onstage (enter), go offstage (exit), make movements while playing (and while not playing) and they usually have instruments in their hands. When listening to exit to enter, we concentrate on these things so as not to lose the thread. These things become the content, or in more old-fashioned terms, the material. The question of the identity of what is seen and heard plays a part in exit to enter as well. And of course the associated insecurity, which has been discussed in the media and in personal communications for some time now, is a sign of our times that also emerges here. The same goes for the question of the origins of music. It’s actually not clear whether the music is by me; it’s only clear here and there that it isn’t.

for 17 instruments with live-video and live-audio.

premiere in January 2012 in Cologne by Ensemble Musikfabrik with Otto Tausk.

17 minutes    score &patch

The performance of a big ensemble is already a tour de force by itself. In Blackjack this becomes traceable and noticable by exagerating all actions due to playing together and communicating while performing music to a maximum of visibility and noticeability. At the same time the parts of a performance are deconstructed to their components and recomposed to a confusing framework of new connections, meanings and cross-refenrences.

for guitar with live-video and tape.

premiere in July 2011 in Tel Aviv in Tzlil Meudcan Festival by Yaron Deutsch.

The live-video version was initially programmed by Emilio Guim and revised by me in 2025. There’s also a new score I made in 2025 displaying the video recordings and playbacks.

10 minutes score &patch

Along can be performed in two versions: with tape only or with live-video and tape. Along has been developed in close cooperation with Yaron Deutsch. As with most of my works for soloists, I try to consider the way the musicians play, their musical preferences in music and their special skills. My music is not so much about finding new instrumental sounds but on the contrary about idiomatic playing techniques of an instrument. The tape version I see as a kind of documentation of the working process. With live-video a the structure of the piece is visualized during the performance. As visuals in split-screens easily lead to an overflow of information, the doubling of the music, apparently effortless to follow, at the same time results in confusion for the listener.

for two pianos with live-video and live-audio.

premiere 2009 in Cologne played by GrauSchumacher Piano Duo and commissioned by Harry Vogt/WDR Cologne.

13 minutes    score&patch

for soprano, violin, viola and cello with prerecorded video and tape.

premiere 2009 in Berlin (Konzerthaus) played and comissioned by Ensemble United.

13 minutes score&tape

Like my compositions open source and Die Zwei, this piece is made entirely with elements from another composition. These pieces together with transit and caravan made with citations from pop songs are a personal statement related to the debate about authenticity and the misconception of compositions as a “Meisterwerk” produced by a genius without any copied notes.

for saxophone or clarinet, viola or violin, percussion and piano with live-video and tape or live-audio.

premiere 2006 in Hamburg (opera stabile) by ensemble intégrales.

10 minutes score &patch

Karaoke Rebranng! is my first piece with live-video as finally those days the computers became fast enough to process video-recording in real time. So Karaoke stands for playing not only with your own recorded music but also with your own recorded video. It was very exciting to make parts of piece already past visible in sync to what is played in the present. The piece is also a remix of Branng!, a composition that I made for a music theater project in Stuttgart in 2005.

for percussion with 5-channel-tape (optional with video by Veit Lup).

first performance 2003 in Staatstheater Berlin by Michael Wertmueller.

15 minutes tape&video

There’s no score for this composition. If you want to play the piece just listen to the tape and double it with percussion instruments that sound similar or maybe different. To stay in sync you may use the sample-display of a DAW like Logic Pro or Pro Tools. The video by Veit Lup has been shot with little cams mounted on two sticks. Michael Wertmueller walked through the Staatstheater in Berlin playing along with these cam-sticks. The loudspeakers should be arranged for 5-channel surround-sound with one center-loudspeaker. If you need more information feel free to contact me.

for flutes and piano with tape and video.

first performance in 2004 in Podewil/Berlin by Bettina Junge and Ernst Surberg, who also commissioned the piece.

12 minutes score&media

before the performance of Die Zwei a video is to be recorded in the same hall 5 times faster and played back during the performance, mirrored and 5 times slower. The projected video has the performance tempo then, but it looks like slow motion. For streaming I would suggest to record different versions in different speeds. Then during a live streaming the recordings, these versions can be stacked with transparency as you see it in the video with Hanna Kinnunen and Emil Hellström. Feel free to ask for details. For contact press FOUR please.

for 6 singers:

2 sopranos, mezzosoprano, tenor, baritone and bass.

first performance 2003 in Philharmonie Stuttgart with Neue Vocalsolisten

12 minutes score & recording

Die Drei is one of my rare works without electronics. The text was written by Anja Tuckermann especially for this composition. In Die Drei phrases consisting of words with three times three syllables in three different languages are combined with melodies, built in a similar way. Thereby, the meaning of the text is less important than the sound of the speech. The group of 6 singers performing Die Drei is devided in two groups of three singers standing apart a little. Three Pairs of singers being part of a different group each are echoing and pairing melodies and three-voice chords.

German program text by Leonie Reinecke

Eine Komposition, in der die Sänger ebenfalls spezielle Positionen im Raum einnehmen, ist Michael Beils Die Drei. Hier sind die sechs Sänger unterteilt in zwei Subgruppen zu je drei Personen. Ein leichter räumlicher Abstand trennt beide Trios voneinander. Gleichzeitig ergeben sich im Laufe des Stückes regelmäßig Zweierkonstellationen, bei denen die von einem Paar gesungenen Melodien von einem anderen Paar imitiert werden. Diese Dreiteilung spielt allerdings nicht nur auf der Ebene der Stimmbehandlung eine Rolle. Auch die formale Konzeption folgt dem Modell des Drittelns: »Alle formalen Komponenten«, so Michael Beil, »bestehen aus drei Teilen. Es beginnt mit Gruppen zu je drei Tönen, die sich dann zu dreimal drei solchen Gruppen zusammenfügen, bis am Ende drei formale Blöcke entstehen. Die Form ist damit recht streng ›fraktal‹ bzw. selbstähnlich gehalten.«

Auch der Text des Stückes – mit Satzbauten aus dreimal drei Silben – folgt der Idee des Fraktals: einem Modell, bei dem das große Ganze seinen (kleineren) Bestandteilen gleicht – ganz ähnlich wie bei einem Romanesco-Blumenkohl. Zudem setzen sich die Textbausteine aus drei verschiedenen Sprachen zusammen. Diese Maßnahme ergriff der Komponist, um möglichst verschiedene Timbres im Gesang zu erzielen. Der semantische Inhalt ist hier also wesentlich weniger bedeutsam als die reine Klanglichkeit der Sprache.

Bemerkenswert ist, dass Die Drei – abgesehen von einem Stück für Jugendorchester – Michael Beils einzige Komposition ohne Elektronik ist. Und dennoch fällt das Stück keineswegs aus dem Rahmen. Denn obwohl Live-Elektronik und -Video zentrale Bestandteile von Beils Ästhetik sind, vermeidet er konsequent die Klangveränderung bzw. das Arbeiten mit Verfremdungseffekten. Typisch für seinen Ansatz ist vielmehr das Aufzeichnen und unmittelbare Wiederabspielen von Instrumentalklängen und Spielgesten der Musiker. Hierbei entwickeln sich komplexe Polyphonien aus vielfach verdoppelten (oder auch rückwärts wiedergegebenen) Bühnenaktionen. In gewisser Weise geschieht in Die Drei das gleiche – nur ohne elektronische Medien. Denn durch die ausgesprochen hohe Geschwindigkeit der sängerischen Imitationen stellen sich immer wieder Echoeffekte ein, die die Sängerpaare zu ihren jeweiligen Doppelgängern werden lassen.

for flute, clarinet, piano, violin, viola and cello with tape.

premiere in 2000 in Berlin by the Modern Art Sextett

10 minutes    score, parts & tape

Und Sechs is an early composition and the first in which I tried to integrate elements and working methods from pop music. One aspect of this is the fact that the tape is rhythmic enough so that you can play along without a click.

for small orchestra and tape

commissioned and premiered by the SWR orchestra Stuttgart

score & audios

Aus Eins Mach Zehn (2000) is a composition for small orchestra with tape and is part of a group of three palindrome pieces that include Mach Sieben for piano and video (1999/2000) and sugar water for ensemble with live video (2015). However, it is the only completely palindromic piece among these compositions. The piece is recorded before the performance and the recording is to be played back backwards during the concert. In its purest form, one should not be able to tell if in which direction the recording is being played. Forwards and backwards are the same. In a live performance, the orchestra plays along with the recording. Because the composition’s sounds are reciprocal, played backwards from the end, the tape and the live part simply double each other in pitch and cross in the middle. The strings and the winds sound quite similar, albeit a bit strange. However, percussion sounds and staccato-notes with the reverb of the hall sound very different as their naturally decreasing volume results in a crescendo when played backwards. This discrepancy in sound and the anticipated inaccuracy results in an intentional, yet very special, blurred orchestral timbre.

for piano video and tape.

premiere January 2000 Berlin by Ernst Surberg
22 minutes       score&instructions

Mach Sieben is my first composition using a common concept for music and video. And it is my first palindrome piece. In the video the audience can see entire piece backwards. Nevertheless if the video is compared to the live-performance it is just the same with some rare exceptions. And at the same time it is not.

for accordion and tape with optional video

score&tape

Und Acht is my first piece with split-screen video and my last piece with a pre-recorded video. An accordionist can perform it with the video of Gerhard Scherer or make his/her own video. In fact, I'm looking forward to an opportunity to automate the video so that performers just play specific passages before a concert and film themselves. The video is then automatically generated and fits on the tape.

The piece was commissioned by Gerhard Scherer and he played the premiere in 1999 in Podewil in Berlin. The original video was made by Veit-Lup. By accident there was a folding wall in the hall where we recorded the video and it looked like the bellows of an accordion. So we decided to use it as a background and to move it as well. In addition we had a wind machine for blowing tape loops behind the player to make the tempo manipulations visible. Gerhard Scherer also provided several reeds from inside an old accordion and we recorded some nice close-up slow-motion videos showing their oscillation.

for sax, perc, pno & soprano

first performance 1998 in Berlin

13 minutes score, tape & video

Und Neun ist Eins was commissioned by the ensemble mosaic and it was the first cooperation of many afterwards. Those days a soprano was still part of the ensemble.

There are videos by Veit-Lup and by Frédéric St-Hilaire, that can be shown together with the piece. You find them in the folder with the scores.

for vl, vla, vc & pno

first performance 1997 in Berlin

16 minutes score & tape

Klavierquartett is an early piece that I still support. There’s a tape that extends the range and the speed of the instruments. The tape was recorded with the string players of the Modern Art Sextett in Berlin. Please let me know if you play or rehearse it. I would love to listen to it again after such a long time.