«Der Bratschistin Charlotte Hug ist mit der Erfindung der Weichbogentechnik ein grosser Wurf gelungen. Hug setzt – soviel darf ohne Übertreibung behauptet werden – neue Massstäbe.»
ANJA BUEHNEMANN–LANDBOTE 1999
«Hug's 'trick' is that she incorporates her vocalizations inside the unfolding patterns of her viola; except it's no trick at all - gesturally and harmonically, timbrally too, Hug has magick'ed up with what's effectively a hybrid 'instrument' that only she can access.»
PHILIP CLARK–THE WIRE 2011
«Her music is exceptional in many ways and aspects, but the most – the marvelous ability of the composer is to base the music on main basics of classical music and modify the sound in shocking, organic and surprising way. It’s a wild, roaring, tremendous and sparkling mix, where together meet academic avant-garde, free improvisation, experimental music and the citations of various chorals and polyphonic compositions of Baroque and Renaissance. This masterful synthesis helps Charlotte Hug to create an incredible, dynamic and interesting sound, multi-colorful and rich musical pattern, multi-layered facture and solid melodic and rhythmic base. Charlotte Hug manages to create a splendid, bright, exceptional and innovative sound.»
AVANTSCENE WORLDPRESS 2019
«There has always been something special about a performance by Charlotte Hug. Her revolutionary playing celebrated in the unique 'soft-bowing' technique has turned the shrill glissandi of the viola into hues of deep, indulgent warmth. As her passion for the human interaction with her instrument developed, she began to meld her unique vocalistics into her artful reinvention of the viola and her music. Hug's brave adventure in which Charlotte Hug reigns supreme. It is here that her world of music awakens the spirits dancing in the flesh.»
AUL D'GAMA ROSE–ALLABOUTJAZZ 2019
«By reinterpreting her own drawings “Son-Icons” made on site – with extraordinary results. So far the sonic potential of the viola has remained unexplored. Not anymore.»
DAN WARBURTON–PARISTRANSATLANTIC 2000
«Magique! La voix naturelle évite le pathétique. Cette voix de feu-follet ne se contente pas de nous surprendre par ses audaces et sa justesse de ton. Il n’y a pas de mots pour décrire une telle symbiose avec l’alto et les mouvements de l’archet. La voix d’un oracle ou de la sibylle….Bouleversant n’est pas encore le mot qui convient, …La performance se déroule au milieu de ses Son-Icons, dessins au graphite sur des surfaces semi-transparentes qui gravitent dans l’espace environnant. Leurs formes en amas de toiles d’araignées évoquent ses rhizomes sonores en mouvement perpétuel, chaos de l’inconscient et cheminement de la création intentionnelle…La musique de Charlotte Hug acquiert ici une dimension extraordinaire, organique et raffinée, intense et recueillie…Une musique rare et un cédé qu’on réécoute avec un bonheur grandissant. Exceptionnel!»
JEAN-MICHEL VAN SCHOUWBURG–IMPROJAZZ 2012
«Auch die Performance selbst spielte direkt mit radikalen Nacht-und Grenzerfahrungen. Ersteres galt für die phänomenalen Stimmimprovisationen, die von tiefen, vogelartigen Gurren bis hin zum Jauchzen im gleissenden Falsett so naturhafte wie irreale Geräuschklänge in den Raum zauberten.»
URS MATTENBERGE–LUZERNERZEITUNG 2011
«Die szenische Wandelmusik mit der sensationellen Bratschistin Charlotte Hug...»
HAMBURGER ABENDBLATT 2005
«Die ganze Welt in einer Bratsche – ein furioser Auftakt. Bei ihrem Konzert “anderwelten” beschwor Charlotte Hug einen Klangkosmos, den man niemals in vier Bratschensaiten vermuten würde.»
MÜNCHNER ABENDZEITUNG 2004
«Ein Spiel von Wahn und Ironie, dem man sich nur schwer entziehen kann.»
CHRISTOPH HAFFTR–DISSONANZ 2004
«La musique de Charlotte Hug acquiert ici une dimension extraordinaire, organique et raffinée, intense et recueillie…»
JEAN-MICHEL VAN SCHOUWBURG–IMPROJAZZ - 2012
«Charlotte Hug, a viola-player who applied much the same vigorously energy to the fiddle that Ornette Coleman once did.»
Q MAGAZINE 2007
«Il a fallu peu de temps à Charlotte Hug pour s’imposer parmi les improvisateurs européens...»
GUSTAVE CERUTTI–MPROJAZZ 2002
«Charlotte Hug is finding new and fertile ground for string instruments in electroacoustic settings.»
MICHALE ROSENSTEIN–SIGNAL TO NOISE 2000
«Sonic landscapes…beyond imagination.»
FREDERICK MARONGIS–MUSIC EXTREME BUENOS AIRES 2003
«An encyclopedia of extended string techniques, supreme control over sound, music pregnant with uncompromising originality.»
DEREK TAYLOR–ONE FINAL NOTE 1998
« Over one hour of free improvisation that breaks constantly musical paradigms and stretches boundaries with originality and inspiration.»
FEDERICO MARONGIU– MUSIC EXTREME 2001
«... takes string music to another level.»
BILL SMITH – CODA 1998
«Charlotte Hug is perhaps the most innovative artist in Switzerland: viola player, voice artist, performer, composer, visual artist.»
PIRMIN BOSSART–JAZZNMORE 2019
«What a phenomenon, this slender artist and extreme musician with her wild mane of hair. Hug draws unbelievable sounds from the strings and produces even more unbelievable clicks in her throat. A shaman, a banshee, a Yma Sumac, surreal fauna, from the bird of paradise to the horse on the land, she transcends the sounds of the viola.»
RAUL DITTMANN–BAD ALECHMY 2019
«Charlotte Hug hat mit ihren Performances eine neue Kunstgattung erfunden, die aus Geschichten, Tönen, Bildern und ihr selbst besteht.»
SUSANNE KÜBLER–TAGESANZEIGER 2011
«This duo (of voice and viola) was produced in real time by just one person controlled by just one brain – magnificent.»
JOHN EYLES–ALL ABOUT JAZZ 2012
«Die Schweizerin Charlotte Hug lässt sich bei ihrer assoziativen, die Grenzen zwischen Aussen und Innen zum Verschwimmen bringenden Performance von ihrer Stimme leiten, verfügt aber mit der Bratsche über ein weiteres Instrument zur transzendentalen Entrückung.»
GAN–WIEN 2010
«Hug's viola playing has always displayed great variety and invention, so it is no surprise that her voice is a flexible and versatile instrument, capable of producing a range of sounds from prolonged high frequency squealing tones through to surprisingly low frequency guttural utterances reminiscent of Sainkho Namchylak at her more demonic. That vocal range enables Hug to mirror her viola playing with her voice so that the two can become intertwined and indistinguishable… Hug, just as often, opts for contrasting viola and voice as having them occupy similar territory. Hug's vocals become increasingly playful… As with any improvising duo, the strength of the music lies in the differing positions that the two strands take up relative to each other and the ways in which they react and adapt to each other. So it proves here—with the important proviso that this duo (of voice and viola) was produced in real time by just one person controlled by just one brain. …Hug employing her full range of techniques on both instruments and blending them together into a coherent and satisfying whole. Magnificent!»
JOHN EYLE–ALL ABOUT JAZZ–2012
«Trance kann in der Konzentration liegen, mit der Charlotte Hug der Stille dissonante Akkordfragmente von zerbrechlicher Filigranität ablauscht, indem sie die Bogenhaare ihrer Bratsche aus der Halterung entlässt, um jene Klänge um vielgesichtige Vokalisen zu zarten Collagen zu ergänzen. »
ANDREAS FELBER–STANDART WIEN 2010
«Charlotte Hug ist ein Paradiesvogel der Musikwelt... Nicht nur äusserlich gleicht sie der Künstlerin Pipilotti Rist; auch was ihre Kreativität und Eigenwilligkeit betrifft, reicht sie an die sinnliche Fantasie des Popstars der Kunstszene heran. »
CHRISTIAN HUBSCHMID–SONNTAGSZEITUNG 2011
«Charlotte Hug is a brilliant violist, improviser and performer who uses such idiosyncratic inventions as the 'soft bow' … the music grows out of a dialogue between the visual and the acoustic.»
JOHN PITT–NEW CLASSICS 2002
«Ein Spiel von Wahn und Ironie, dem man sich nur schwer entziehen kann.»
CHRISTOPH HAFFTR–DISSONANZ 2003
«Adventures on the edge of music***** For five hours, Charlotte Hug stood in the dockyard in Cork, Ireland, as the water rose to her throat. She played and sang the entire time. In a less dramatic but more extreme experiment, she had herself locked into a Zürich’s sleep laboratory for 40 hours, playing, singing and drawing without a break. This year’s artiste étoile at the Lucerne Festival does nothing by halves. Both the above experiences inspired “Slipway to galaxies”, her solo performance in the Lucerne museum of Art. In a sepulchral gloom surrounded by the translucent ribbons of her graphic “Son-Icons”, Hug makes eerie notes with her voice and viola. She is tall, rake-thin and wild-haired, and struts between the meters-long pages of her self-drawn “scores” with assured theatricality. She undoes the screw at the end of her bow and wraps the loosened horsehair around all four strings to produce unearthly chords. Then she lets the heel of her unfastened bow fall on the wooden floor, and adds the effect like a drum. »
FINANCIAL TIMES–SHIRLEY APTHORP 2011
«Entfesselte Bratsche... Furios und wild nimmt sich "Delirum" aus, eine Improvisation, die zwischen Freudestaumel und Irrsinn schwankt. ...wenn sie mit nassem, entspannten Bogen spielt, streicht das weiche Haar über alle vier Saiten, die nunmehr säuseln-mehrstimmig. Und wo die Qualitäten des Resonanzkörpers perkussiv oder klangmalerisch genutzt werden, erinnert die Musik an DJs, die leere Rillen rauschen lassen, um das Medium, den Tonträger selbst ins Bewusstsein zu bringen.»
UELI BERNAYS–NZZ 2003
«Slipway to Galaxies is beyond charming: it bewitches, moves, captivates and enthralls. With her viola and her beautiful siren’s voice, Hug unfolds riches of invention, sensuality, and wordless storytelling skills. “Anderwelten” vividly evokes marine soundscapes to the point where I started doubting that it was indeed performed without any electronics (yet it’s true).
This is a mature work by an accomplished artist with astounding free improvising skills. »
FRACOIS COUTURE - MR. DELIRE–ALL MUSIC GUIDE 2012
«Charlotte Hug, currently based in London. Her playing was technically fascinating and she added a lot of theatrical and vocal elements to take it to another level. Hug’s string touch was often light, but was insistently out and played with good humor.»
BYRON COLEY–THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ 2006
«Hug is a beguiling and theatrical performer, using the space not only for its reverberant possibilities, but also as a setting to suggest a transgressive element in her play. Hug is to detach the hairs from the bow and draw them over the strings, holding the bow itself under the instrument. This produces a rich and resonant drone for a cantabile quality, matching her voice. All of these engaging elements served to produce an hour of transfixing music to start the second day of the festival with a bang and a chirp.»
ERIC HILL–VICTORIAVILLE QC 2018
«It's immediate, technically daunting work of a rare virtuosity, but as with the best music that technique is in the service of the mystery of creation…It's all concentrated focus, a meditation at once on resonances and the mechanics of hands, strings and bow, an expanding musical consciousness that gradually takes in voice to create a compelling sonic universe. Within that world there's tremendous variety in her materials: Throughout it's fascinating and subtle music, clearly the expression of an individual even when it's hard to imagine it being performed by one. »
STUART BROOMER–POINT OF DEPARTURE 2011
«Zwischen den Sinnen: Es gibt etwas Drittes. Danach forscht die weltläufige Künstlerin Charlotte Hug unermüdlich - immer mit der Mission, zu finden, was zwischen den Medien, zwischen den Sinnen liegt… Einblicke in die wundersame Welt der Charlotte Hug lassen erkennen, dass ihre oft skurril wirkende Kunst das zwingende Produkt konsequent zu Ende gedachter Gedanken ist, jenseits von Normen und Klassifizierungen.»
BARBARA ECKLE–DEUTSCHLANDRADIO 2011
