Lucerne Festival Academy 3

Not quite as famous as the film Jaws but every bit as legendary: The Yellow Shark, Frank Zappa’s final album. In 1992, shortly before his far-too-early death and already visibly weakened by cancer, the American avant-garde rock maverick joined forces with the new music specialists from the Ensemble Modern. For them he wrote a virtuosic orchestral suite that blends newly created pieces with Zappa favorites like Uncle Meat and G-Spot Tornado. That last work — a whirlwind celebration of the vaginal orgasm — was originally composed for the electronic Synclavier and long thought to be unplayable. In a way, The Yellow Shark brought Zappa’s musical life full circle: before rising to fame as a provocative rock icon with The Mothers of Invention, he had looked more to Igor Stravinsky and Edgard Varèse for inspiration. He later collaborated with Pierre Boulez as well as Kent Nagano and the London Symphony Orchestra. The Yellow Shark also gleefully tears down the wall between “high” and “popular” music, mixing experimental sounds with jazz inflections and the rhythmic drive of rock.

Tickets: CHF 50