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Harry Pepl * 1945  † 2005
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cultural studies, translation, journalism, event promotion

Heimo Steps

1946 – † 2022

Pepl’s supporter and manager in Graz: in 1987 he suggested the recording of “Cracked Mirrors”, in 1988 he wrote the portrait “Vitaler Klangmaler”, saw in Pepl the principle of Hanns Koren embodied, „die Konfrontation des Besten, was bei uns künstlerisch produziert wird, mit dem Internationalen“ [“the confrontation of the best of our own artistic production with the international”], and after 2005 supported the release of “Live In Concerts” and the Harry Pepl Prize.

Circle

Poster of the Graz concert series Jazz M59 (published by the Afro-Asian Institute Graz, editor Heimo Steps) for Austria Drei on Thursday, 1 April 1982, 8 pm, at the Catholic student house Münzgraben in Graz, Austria: Werner Pirchner (vibraphone), Harry Pepl (guitar), Adelhard Roidinger (bass), Mike Di Pasqua (drums).
Austria Drei poster, Graz, 1 April 1982Photo: musical estate, private collection

Styrian cultural scholar, translator and writer (1946 to 2022). He headed the Afro-Asian Institute Graz from 1979 to 1984 and founded the promoter gamsbART in 1984. In 2005 and 2006, together with Johannes Koren jun. and on behalf of the Styrian provincial government, he coordinated the project “auszeit” for the Hanns Koren commemorative year 2006.

Voices

“Live in Montreux”, a hammer for heart and brain, if you let heart and brain be the anvil.

Heimo Steps in 1985 in Sterz, a literary magazine from Graz, on the Jazzzwio album “Live in Montreux”; a play on hammer and anvil

Heimo Steps, Sterz 1985

Harry Pepl: the giant from Hernstein in Lower Austria, “a giant of improvisation” (Le Monde), W.P.’s musical alter ego.

Heimo Steps, Sterz 1985

The Pirchner-Pepl JazzZwio has long had a permanent place in the apocryphal pantheon of music.

Heimo Steps, Sterz 1985

His musical paintings are a pleasure to listen to, not least because sensuality and warmth are inherent in them.

Heimo Steps, Die Steirische 1988

Having grown up with the accordion, he does not deny our own musical tradition and lets it flow into his music.

Heimo Steps, Die Steirische 1988

The great stylistic diversity and his unmistakably idiosyncratic playing, not to mention his perfect command of the instrument, make even the most prominent fellow musicians rave.

Heimo Steps, Die Steirische 1988

For me Harry Pepl also embodies one of the basic principles of Hanns Koren, the great Styrian cultural politician […]: namely the confrontation of the best of our own artistic production with the international.

Heimo Steps „Harry Pepl“, GamsbART-Post 5/2006, S. 2

For me Harry Pepl was one of the patron saints of Jazz M59 and gamsbART.

Heimo Steps „Harry Pepl“, GamsbART-Post 5/2006, S. 2

In the chronology

In the press

All 5 press items on Heimo Steps