Ensemble FizFüz

Although based in Germany, the quartet Ensemble FisFüz has specialized in Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, North African, and Baltic music -- in other words, music that involves what is known as modal or scalar playing (a style of playing that is easily recognizable even if one doesn't understand the term's exact technical meaning). FisFüz (which includes some vocals but is primarily an instrumental group) doesn't focus on one modal style exclusively; in contrast to artists who perform nothing but Turkish, Greek, Jewish, North African, or Baltic music, FisFüz likes to mix things up and draw on many different modal styles. Traditional Greek drinking songs are fair game for FisFüz, but so are traditional songs from Turkey, North Africa, Saudi Arabia, and the Baltic region of Eastern Europe. FisFüz, however, isn't strictly a repertory group; although they embrace some traditional songs that have long been in the public domain, the musicians write most of their own material (some of which is jazz-tinged). Because the members of FisFüz have been influenced by so many different types of modal/scalar music, it would be very time-consuming to pinpoint every composer and/or musician who has influenced them in some respect; suffice it to say that their work has been affected either directly or indirectly by everyone from Jewish klezmer bands and smoky Greek rembetika artists to Turkish virtuoso Talip Özkan. Ensemble FisFüz was founded in Germany in 1995 by clarinetist Annette Maye (b. 1974, Flensburg, Germany) and percussionist Murat Coskun (b. 1972). FisFüz isn't the only modal-minded outfit that Maye (who plays the soprano sax as a second instrument) has performed with; she was a co-founder of the Balkan-minded group Döner Four One and spent some time with Clarinet Funtet, an...