Biography

Bastian Pfefferli studied Percussion in Basel with Christian Dierstein and with Matthias Würsch. He absolved his bachelor's and master's degree at the Basel Musikhochschule with honors. He also studied with Eve Payeur in Paris / Rueil Malmaison, where he obtained the „Prix de virtuosité à l'unaimité“. His interest in musictheatre led him to work with percussionists like Jean-Pierre Drouet and Francoise Rivalland.

His career ranges across a wide variety of musical styles and musical cultures. He studied Zarb(Persian goblet-drum) with Pierre Rigopulos and continues his studies now with Keyvan Chemirani. With Sankar Prosad Chowdhury he studies Indian Tabla. He also playes Balinese gamelan and played for many years at the Basler Fasnacht. He performed with the Top Secret Drum Corps in numerous countries such as Scotland, England, Denmark, Belgium, China, and others.

In his student days, he played many concerts with orchestras such as the Collegium Musicum Basel, Aargau Chamber Orchestra and many others. With the Basel Symphonyorchestra he has performed as soloist under the direction of George Gruntz. He played several percussion Concertos in 2010 and 2011. In addition to this intense symphonic concert work, he focuses mainly on contemporary chamber and solo works. He was able to work with composers like Georg Friedrich Haas,Vinko Globokar, Philippe Manoury, Alex Buess, Michael Maierhof James Clarke, Martin Matalon, Jacques Rebotier and Robin Hoffmann. He played with the Ensemble Phoenix Basel and the BOLT ensemble from Australia.

With the in 2012 founded percussion-quartet “Ensemble This I Ensemble That” he played many concerts in countries like Italy, France, Spain and Switzerland.

In 2010 he received the scholarship from the Friedel-Wald Foundation.

His repertoire covers a wide range of contemporary music. Famous works as from composers like S.Sciarrino, D. Lang, I.Xenakis, F.Donatoni and I.Taïra, represent a strong contrast to the the big number of musictheater works by G.Aperghis, V.Globokar, F.Rzewski, S.Saunders-Smith and J.Rebotier.
Contrast and variety of expression is the main issue for his piece selection and interpretation.