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Born 1952, in Zurich, mathias rόegg completed his studies to be a primary school teacher and taught for a while in various special needs schools. From 1973-75, he studied classical composition and jazz piano in Graz. In 1976, he moved to Vienna, where he worked as a free-lance pianist. Tired of solo work, he created the Vienna Art Orchestra in 1977. Since then, he has written almost all of the VAOs programs, adding up to nearly 400 compositions and arrangements, and has handled the management and organization of the orchestra himself. From 1983-87, he also led the Vienna Art Choir. In the years 1984-86, he was voted No.1 Arranger by Down Beat, the American jazz magazine. He has written commissioned pieces for other jazz orchestras, such as the NDR Big-Band, SDR Big-Band, Umo Big-Band Helsinki, Swedish Radio Jazz Group and the RTV Big Band Slovenia, as well as for classical orchestras, such as the Wiener Symphoniker, Basler Sinfonietta, Opus Novum, Ensemble Kontrapunkte, Die Reihe, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie, Orchestre de Normandie Basse and lOrchestra della Svizzera Italiana. He has also led workshops in Vienna, Cologne, Hannover, Berlin, Bern and Trento. As part of his collaboration with George Tabori and the Serapionstheater, he composed film and theater music. From 1983 - 90, he engaged in special projects combining music and literature with the Viennese poet/lyricist Ernst Jandl. Rόegg has also worked as artistic director for numerous festivals, including the U & E Third Dream Festival, Jandl Total, Vienna meets Paris, Vienna meets London, and the Alpentφne festival in Altdorf (CH). In addition, he has headed numerous multimedia projects, including Der achte Tag (Wiener Festwochen 1980), Jonny tritt ab (Donaueschingen 1981), SENS (Wiener Festwochen 1987), Fe & Males (1989) and La belle at la bκte (1992). For the 1991 Mozart Year, he produced the music film Mozarts Balls, on commission by the BBC. Founder of the Viennese jazz and music club Porgy & Bess, he also recently established the Austrian jazz award, the Hans Koller Preis. Since 1994, he has devoted himself increasingly to chamber music and has written compositions for soloist and chamber orchestra for Corin Curschellas, Michel Portal, Wolfgang Puschnig, Matthieu Michel and Wolfgang Muthspiel, in addition to a variety of works for other classical ensembles. During 2003 he was together with Bill Frisell the musical director of the RuhrTriennale Festival Century of Song dedicated to the European Song of the 2oth century.
