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Album Release: Luise Volkmann & Été Large "The Stories We Tell"
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Album Release: Luise Volkmann & Été Large "The Stories We Tell"
On 3 October, Luise Volkmann and her large ensemble Été Large will release their new album ‘The Stories We Tell’.
Cologne-based saxophonist, composer, bandleader and NICA artist Luise Volkmann is a passionate border crosser who expands her vocabulary from album to album. Her aim has always been to conceive the unthinkable and realize the impossible. She has also applied this maxim to the third album by her band Été Large. The title, tellingly, is ‘The Stories We Tell.’
Let’s take a look back. The large formation Été Large was conceived as big from the start. Not because it is a band with many members—there are quite a few of those in Germany—but because Luise Volkmann moved with seven-league boots beyond traditional notions of big band and conventional genre formats. It was never about the thousandth fusion package of certain styles or new perspectives on what already existed. Instead, it was about an anarchistic alternative to the established music business, whatever you want to call or locate it—without making any concessions. With Été Large, Luise Volkmann unleashes a genuine creative force that defies comparison. The group’s first programmatic album ‘Eudaimonia’ (2017) was about proving something. In the second, much more personal chapter ‘When The Birds Upraise Their Choir’ (2020), she demonstrated that she no longer needed to prove anything. Now follows the third act, ‘The Stories We Tell,’ where she can leave behind everything apodictic and simply tell stories. ‘For me, the first two albums had the character of a homage,’ recaps Luise Volkmann. ‘That is not the case at all with the new album. As it’s simply about storytelling, the strength of the album lies more in a kind of introversion.’
These stories reflect a new commitment to simplicity. Everything superfluous must be stripped away so that the passion can manifest itself all the more clearly—and the stories that need to be told. Luise Volkmann is a brilliant storyteller who implements her stories with narrative power and poetic sensitivity. Music is not an end in itself. It’s about something. Every note, every syllable triggers something in the listener, but also globally in the long term, according to the butterfly wing theory, because the energy of the songs often takes unexpected paths. The composer is aware of this responsibility, and this mission is palpable, even if it is conveyed here in an absolutely unobtrusive and unpretentious manner.
‘The Stories We Tell’ marks the tenth anniversary of Été Large. But this is not the only reason why the album documents the result of an individual and collective maturing process. The leader and her collective have succeeded in focusing on the essentials. In her arrangements, Luise Volkmann takes a very cautious approach to the possibilities of a large formation. The sounds of the individual instruments are given plenty of room to breathe. She works with well-contrasted, congenially complementary human voices. Yet each instrument also acquires an individual color that not only flanks or underpins the vocals but in turn makes non-verbal statements. Only in the subtle osmosis of voices and instruments can the songs fully unfold their ultimate effect. Luise Volkmann approaches a kind of artistic perfection, fully aware that she neither can nor wants to achieve it. Because ultimately, it is also about the spaces in between, which only the listeners can fill with their imagination.
‘In times when polarization is becoming more and more noticeable, I want to give my music the power to juxtapose ambivalences with its stories. I can be angry or sad about different things at the same time and still show understanding for other feelings or attitudes. Making the complexity of thought and action tangible and thus creating the basis for an open dialogue is important to me. That’s why I place the verbal and non-verbal sides of storytelling on an equal footing.’
•••
The Stories We Tell – Luise Volkmann & Été Large
Available digitally and as a double vinyl on Bandcamp.
Released 3 October 2025 on Boomslang Records
Musicians:
Casey Moir - voice
Laurin Oppermann - voice
Conni Trieder - flute (Track 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11)
Nicolas Schwabe - flute (Track 1,3, 5, 6, 12)
Luise Volkmann - alto saxophone
Peter Ehwald - tenor saxophone
Rémi Fox - baritone saxophone
Johannes Böhmer - trumpet
Marleen Dahms - trombone
Johanna Stein - violoncello
Athina Kontou - bass
Yannick Lestra - keyboard and electronics
Paul Jarret - guitar
Max Santner-drums
All music composed by Luise Volkmann
Production:
Aufgenommen Juli 2024 at Deutschlandfunk Kammermusiksaal Köln
Radio-Producer Deutschlandfunk: Thomas Loewner
Audio Engineer: Oliver Dannert
Recording Director: Gunther Rose
Recording, Production, Editing: Tobias Hess
Mixing: Sebastian Clobes
Mastering: Christoph Stickel
Graphic Design: Elsa Westreicher
A co-production with Deutschlandfunk
© & ℗ 2025, Deutschlandradio/Luise Volkmann
Album Release: Felix Hauptmann & Kirke Kaja "Underwater Consciousness"
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Album Release: Felix Hauptmann & Kirke Kaja "Underwater Consciousness"
On June 27, Karja Hauptmann Duo will release their new album Underwater Consciousness
After various releases with his trio PERCUSSION or as Side Man, NICA artist Felix Hauptmann has come out with an intimate duo recording: the new album Underwater Consciousness recorded with a soulmate on the keys - Kirke Karja from Estonia. The two pianists explore their shared underwater sound world together in a way that is both challenging and delicate at the same time. Complexity and simplicity are directly opposed to each other in this experiment and blend together to create a uniquely harmonious sound.
KARJA HAUPTMANN, the duo of acclaimed pianists Kirke Karja and Felix Hauptmann, is releasing their debut album via Boomslang Records - available as vinyl and digital download.
Underwater Consciousness blurs the boundaries between free improvisation and spontaneous composition, capturing the exploration of textural depth, rhythmic complexity and layered structures in a delicate yet captivating piano dialog. The music springs from a shared rhythmic sensibility and draws the listener into immersive soundscapes of urgency and introspection.
The production: a process of sonic exploration
The album was recorded on January 4, 2024 at LOFT, Cologne. After an intense day of rehearsing and exploring new textures and musical ideas, Hauptmann and Karja recorded the album in just one hour. Each piece unfolds organically - shaped by their improvisational conversation and intuitive artistic connection, in which humor and playfulness also find their place.
“The recording shows depth and urgency - both core values of our work.”
The album is available digitally and on vinyl.
•••
Release on June 27, 2025 on Boomslang Records
Recorded at LOFT, Cologne
Sound engineer: Stefan Deistler
Mix & Mastering: Christian Heck
Cover-Artwork: Cyrille Beirnaert
Poem & title: Maria Filippou
Supported by NICA Artist Development
ACHT BRÜCKEN: NICA artists set silent films to music
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ACHT BRÜCKEN: NICA artists set silent films to music
ACHT BRÜCKEN: NICA artists set silent films to music
Four commissioned compositions for silent films were created between the ACHT BRÜCKEN Festival, Stadtgarten Köln and NICA artist development under the motto ‘Light!’: pianist Marlies Debacker interprets ‘Ballet Mécanique’ in a quintet. Saxophonist Jonas Engel dresses abysses with Asta Nielsen in the leading role in new sounds. Saxophonist Fabian Dudek sets Andy Warhol’s motionless experimental film ‘Empire’ to music, while percussionist Thomas Sauerborn sheds new light on everyday life in Kiev, Kharkiv and Odessa in 1929 with ‘Man with a Movie Camera’.
In the 95 years since its release, Dsiga Wertow’s ‘Man with a Movie Camera’ has lost none of its significance: As an experiment in a universal cinema language, the silent film, which manages entirely without intertitles, has already received various musical interpretations. The film, whose structure - as if according to musical parameters - finds its rhythm, literally sucks viewers into life in Kiev, Kharkiv and Odessa in 1929. Thomas Sauerborn’s composition intensifies this pull, inspired by the symbiosis of film and camera techniques on the one hand and the realism of the images on the other.
Sauerborn, together with two companions from the formation Das Ende Der Liebe, brings two female trombonists into this ensemble and thus opens up the space between the breathing wind instruments, the manipulated sounds of the Nintendo Gameboy and live sampling. Together they bring the everyday life and rhythm of 1929 into the present day - juxtaposing it with the life and sounds of the 21st century.
Is this even a film? If you want to answer the question in the affirmative, it is a film that has been stripped of most of the attributes that generally distinguish a moving image from a photograph. A fixed camera shot captures the top of the Empire State Building. Andy Warhol exposed over six hours of celluloid in this way, completely without sound, from the onset of dusk until deep into the night. According to the instructions of the New York avant-garde icon, the material is to be projected in 16 instead of 24 frames per second, resulting in a performance time of over 8 hours. There is a philosophical dimension to slowing down a still image.
The film will be shown in full length at Stadtgarten Köln. Saxophonist and composer Fabian Dudek and his quintet will play their own soundtrack for 50 minutes. It is the phase of transition from day to night, from light to dark, a very gradual yet drastic change that is barely perceptible to the temporal resolution of the eye. Is the contrast accentuated musically? Is the still image acoustically set in motion or painted over in sound colours? Dudek wants to approach the project with his own new compositional technique.
Jonas Engel’s older work ‘What the Wild flowers Witnessed’ evokes memories of the song ‘Moaner’ by Underworld from the 1997 Batman soundtrack and drives the listener forward. The trio put together especially for this occasion uses the juxtaposition of instruments and voice in a very similar way - but on a more equal footing. Musical spaces here range from the very intimate to the dramatic. It allows plenty of room for interpretation - in keeping with Urban Gad’s ‘Abyss’. The silent film from 1910 also juxtaposes large, free spaces with small, very regimented ones. The protagonist, a tutor, is courted by a pastor’s son in Denmark at the time the film was made, when the circus is in town during a summer visit to her parents’ holiday home. The plot opens up abysses between freedom, dependence, confinement and emotion. Whether these are ultimately overcome remains in the eye of the beholder. Engel’s compositions utilise abysses and give listeners the opportunity to find their footing or lose themselves even more.
And ‘Ballet mécanique?’ This French silent film, made 15 years later, is the first Dada film! Post-cubist and without any plot, we see all kinds of everyday objects such as pots or crockery, but abstracted in such a way that they no longer seem familiar, but rather appear as their form. A rhythmic interplay of objects, to which Marlies Debacker will create a non-pictorial background, in which composed, random and improvised sound actions overlap and invite us to discover our own connections in a multifaceted web of sound-image and sound-sound relationships. A work somewhere between musique concrète, musique concrète instrumentale, drones and pulsating textures.
Overview of all events
12.05. | 20:00
ACHT BRÜCKEN: Thomas Sauerborn | Man with a Movie Camera
14.05. | 18:00
ACHT BRÜCKEN: Fabian Dudek | Empire
15.05. | 18:00
ACHT BRÜCKEN: Marlies Debacker | Ballet Mécanique & Jonas Engel | Afgrunden
These concerts are organised in cooperation with ACHT BRÜCKEN | Musik für Köln, the European Centre for Jazz and Contemporary Music Stadtgarten Köln and NICA artist development.
Goodbye NICA artists of 2022
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Goodbye NICA artists of 2022
For four of our treasured artists the time accompanied by NICA artist development comes to an end.
After three very successful years the NICA artist generation of 2022 - Luise Volkmann, Sophie Emilie Beha, Fabian Dudek and Rebekka Salomea - will make their way to new frontiers.
To mark their goodbye, each artist will play a last concert throughout the rest of this year. For their appearances as NICA artists on the stage of Club JAKI each one of them prepared a particular special program – premieres one shouldn’t be missing out on.
We are delighted to invite you to these special concerts and to showcase what the four artists of the NICA Generation 2022 have planned next:
29.09. Rebekka Salomea – vocalist
27.10. Luise Volkmann - saxophonist (album release show)
24.11. Sophie Emilie Beha - curator, vocalist
15.12. Fabian Dudek - saxophonist
All of these artists have established themselves during their time with NICA through different means: All four went on research trips beyond Europe, expanding their international networks, creative ideas and collaborations. NICA has supported album releases and tours, coaching in different aspects of artist life, content production, and provided in-depth counseling to ensure the individual development of their careers. In addition, we have cooperated with international institutions, such as BIMHUIS Amsterdam, RAUW Festival Rotterdam, or INTL Jazzplatform Poland (many inaugurated by the EJN) to create playing opportunities and commissioned compositions, as well as giving the first curator in the program the infrastructure and insight to bring her own festival idea into life. We are most excited to see what all four are up to next.
Sophie Emilie Beha, the first curator of the support programme, is ending her time at NICA with an ongoing concert series called ritual. Taking place on the first day of every month, the evening always begins with a walk through Cologne’s Stadtgarten park and focuses on the sensory experience of music and uniquely designed performances.
A research trip to L.A. concludes the funding period for singer, composer and bandleader Rebekka Salomea. This follows on from a stay in 2023, which was already supported by NICA. While working on new material and her solo programme following the release of her album ‘Good Life’ in October 2024, which she will present at her last NICA live concert, SALOMEA continues to expand her internationally established network with her trip.
Saxophonist, bandleader and composer Luise Volkmann is marking her departure from NICA in no less emotional fashion with the release of her album ‘The Stories We Tell’, performed by her large ensemble Été Large. Released on 3 October 2025, the musician is presenting the project for her final NICA live date at Club JAKI, located in the Stadtgarten. She already celebrated a release at her last concert at JAKI: in 2024, she released the album ‘Enxame’ in a duo with Brazilian guitarist Kiko Dinucci and went on a mini tour this year, which not least underlines her ambitions and successes in the international music context.
Last but not least, saxophonist, composer and bandleader Fabian Dudek has also demonstrated his drive during his three years in the support programme. He will be bringing his quartet Almost, formed at NICA live with Leif Berger (drums), Felix Hauptmann (piano) and London-based bassist Ruth Goller, not only to his final concert as a NICA artist at JAKI, but also to other stages across Europe. Dudek recently shone with an international band at Cologne Jazzweek 2025: with his commissioned composition ‘Night by Night’, he completes his cycle (‘Day by Day’) for the Cologne festival, which he began in 2022 – listen to ‘Night by Night’ here on Deutschlandfunk.
We are proud and happy to have had the chance to accompany these exceptional musicians on their journey and be witnesses to their growth.
👉 Save the Date: We want you to also save the date for NICA live special and the 15th edition of Winterjazz Köln in the very beginning of 2026 at Stadtgarten Köln:
NICA live special – 8th & 9th January 2026
15th Winterjazz – 10th January 2026
Jorik Bergman receives Horst and Gretl Will Scholarship for Jazz and Improvised Music 2025
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Jorik Bergman receives Horst and Gretl Will Scholarship for Jazz and Improvised Music 2025
Congratulations!
Flutist, composer and arranger Jorik Bergman - NICA artist 2024 - receives the Horst and Gretl Will Scholarship for Jazz and Improvised Music 2025, awarded to promote contemporary music and the free artistic development of young musicians.
Statement of the jury on the awarding of the scholarship:
“The quality and originality as well as the colorful differentiation of her compositional work for larger ensembles is exceptional, and as a flutist she represents a unique and rather rare voice in the jazz context. The jury also paid particular attention to the intensive and varied work required to bring together and maintain larger ensembles on a freelance basis and to provide them with opportunities to play, music and perform. The fact that Jorik Bergman has been doing this with remarkable success for some time contributed to the jury’s decision.”
The award-winning concert will take place on September 5 as part of the Cologne Jazzweek in the concert hall of the Stadtgarten Köln. Here, Berman will present a new large ensemble constellation with the brand new program “Perennial Potpourri”. Admission to the prizewinners’ concert is free.
September 05 // 8:00 pm // Stadtgarten Köln - free admission
Jazzpreis der Stadt Köln: Jorik Bergman - Perennial Potpourri feat. Martin Gasser, Jen Böckamp, Kira Linn, Matthias Bergmann, Shannon Barnett, Clara Vetter, Reza Askari & Alexander Parzhuber
Album Release: Fabian Dudek "This Every Place"
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Album Release: Fabian Dudek "This Every Place"
Fabian Dudek releases his new album This Every Place on 9 May
NICA artist Fabian Dudek is releasing his fifth album under his own name with This Every Place. His quartet, consisting of Felix Hauptmann (piano, also a NICA artist), David Helm (bass) and Fabian Arends (drums), is expanded for the first time to include another saxophone - Dudek chose none other than the bustling composer, improviser and saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock, who has been living and working in New York for several years. With a great understanding of structure and freedom, Dudek created a work that fits effortlessly and with audible growth into the musician’s already considerable discography.
His quartet’s second production, »Isolated Flowers«, was nominated for the German Record Critics’ Award, with the jury of the Horst and Gretl Will Foundation praising, among other things, the “captivating mixture of […] instrumental virtuosity and ambiguously original sound design”. In 2023, Dudek presented the multi-layered album »Protecting A Picture That’s Fading« with the sextet La Campagne, whose ‘density of events in gravitational compositions’ (FAZ) earned him a nomination for the German Jazz Award. Last year, the quartet production »Distant Skies, We Dream« was again celebrated by the press and public. The Badische Zeitung was enthusiastic about the ‘secure balance between formal rigour and unrestrained playing’, NRW Jazz heard ‘breathtaking music with crooked metres, played against traditional norms’ and summed up: ‘an expressive, dense, almost unlimited, contemporary jazz in a class of its own.’
The new album »This Every Place« also reinforces the impression that Fabian Dudek seems to have an inexhaustible wealth of ideas at his disposal. At the same time, his individual sound (both as an instrumentalist and as a composer) is becoming more and more concrete, his creative drive more far-reaching. For the first time, the bandleader has added an internationally renowned personality to his quartet, namely saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock. ‘After three quartet albums, I felt it was a logical and exciting step to add someone else,’ explains Dudek. ‘Laubrock was the first and only person I asked because she has been inspiring me for a while, both in the way she plays and in what she composes.’ Apparently the interest is mutual, as the joint project is set to continue. But that’s just in passing.
‘I had sent her my compositions for a complete concert programme and when she came to Germany, she was very well prepared,’ recalls Dudek. Two days of rehearsals were followed by two concerts, in Rüsselsheim and the Stadtgarten in Cologne. The latter was recorded and there was time for further recordings the next day. ‘We were lucky enough to be able to leave our live set-up in the hall and simply continue playing the next day, again under live conditions, but without an audience.’ From the recordings, Dudek selected four pieces of seven to eighteen minutes in length, which offer an intense, at times energetic and condensed, then again transparent essence of the recordings.
‘I don’t want the albums to be extremely long,’ explains Dudek, comparing them to his experiences in museums: if the exhibition is too big, the first impression is gone by the end. ‘Basically, I want to reach people with the music, leave room for interpretation and offer scope for offence, but not overwhelm the listener.’ In fact, the compositions and improvisations on This Every Place are so rich that they reveal new details on repeated listens.
He had never written for two saxophones before, says Fabian Dudek, which is why he was initially concerned with the question of how the expansion would affect the structure of his band, which has existed since 2018. However, the supposedly challenging composition process turned out to be quite straightforward and largely intuitive. Some of the new pieces were subsequently tried out and formulated in the quartet even before Laubrock joined the band.
Dudek’s flowing, constantly changing rhythms were already striking on last year’s album. This concept of ‘morphing grooves’, which take on a different shape from bar to bar, can be found again on the new work. The tension between flows and experimental contrasts is important to Dudek. And that the flow can be felt, even though it may not be possible to fully analyse the complex rhythms. ‘Distant Skies… opened up the barrel by switching to electric bass and making greater use of the synthesiser. We have now built on this foundation with Ingrid and created new forms, some of them ad hoc.’
Music that appeals emotionally and through intellectual sophistication, that offers entertaining aspects and at the same time represents an art form. This is what Fabian Dudek has in mind and is realised by This Every Place. With his clever to sophisticated compositions, extremely attentive and variable players as well as enormously expressive saxophone duets with guest star Ingrid Laubrock, he once again makes a striking mark on the contemporary international music landscape.
Addendum from July 05, 2025: This Every Place by Fabian Dudek makes it onto the longlist 03/2025 of the German Record Critics’ Award in the category Jazz II (modern & contemporary). We are eagerly awaiting the best list on August 15, 2025.
•••
Fabian Dudek - alto-saxophone, flute, compositions
Ingrid Laubrock - soprano- & tenor-saxophone
Felix Hauptmann - piano, synthesizer
David Helm - bass
Fabian Arends - drums
Alle Kompositionen von Fabian Dudek
Alle Titel erschienen im Traumton Musikverlag
Aufnahme, Mix und Master von Martin Ruch
Aufgenommen im Stadtgarten Köln
Artwork von Benjamin Rückert
Album Release: RAY LOZANO "SILK&SORROW"
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Album Release: RAY LOZANO "SILK&SORROW"
RAY LOZANO releases her new album ‘SILK&SORROW’ on 28 March
Following her debut album Pairing Mode, NICA artist RAY LOZANO is continuing the vision of her personal sound world: the new album SILK&SORROW will be released on 28 March in record shops and on all popular streaming platforms. Her debut album already set a good example in terms of indie R’n’B and alternative soul from Germany - with the follow-up, the producer and singer comes up and trumps once again.
Let’s be honest: life is an eternal swipe left and right, an ‘I love you’ here, a ghosting there - until you find yourself bursting into tears over a meme at two in the morning. RAY LOZANO demonstrates a special feel for these moments on her new album SILK&SORROW, which will be released on Melting Pot Music. Her songs feel like a compassionate message from a friend who sends a simple ‘Are you OK?’ late at night - without pressure, without expectation, simply as a silent presence. Each track feels like Ray is looking over your shoulder as you scroll, like she’s there at the exact moment when your laughter turns into a sigh and you’re suddenly hit with a nostalgia you didn’t see coming. Her superpower? Turning those mundane, bittersweet moments into something that feels almost sacred.
On SILK&SORROW, the German-Filipino singer and producer deals with the contradictory emotional worlds of our time - the constant change between intense connection and complete distance, between emotional flooding and inner emptiness. ‘Silk’ stands for the gentle, warm moments, while “Sorrow” captures the unavoidable emotional impacts.
SILK&SORROW doesn’t want to solve anything. It wants you to feel - really feel. At a time when vulnerability often degenerates into a pleasing playlist aesthetic, Ray is forging her own path. SILK&SORROW dispenses with polish and perfection. The songs move gently between sorrow and consolation, revealing a simple truth: the real splendour lies in cracks and fractures. Consider this album your anthem through the quiet hours of the night.
On 31 March, RAY LOZANO will present her new album at JAKI as part of NICA live.
The album is available digitally and on vinyl.
•••
Release on 28 March 2025 on Melting Pot Music
Vocals by Ray Lozano
Produced by Ray Lozano & Samon Kawamura
Additional vocals on ‘KIKI’ & ‘LOTA’ by Pia Allgaier
Additional vocals on ‘I DON’T CARE’ & ‘LOTA’ by SALOMEA
Guitar on ‘BETTER DAYS’, ‘HiYA’, ‘LET THE HEART GROW’ by Phillip Niessen
Guitar on ‘DRAGON’ and ‘KIKI’ by Fritz Dinter
B3 organ on ‘HiYA’ by Lutz Krajenski
Additional guitar on ‘CAN’T LOVE’ by Boti Ikvai-Szabo
Mixed & mastered by Samon Kawamura
Artwork by Tom Richardson
Cover photo by Kaspar Achenbach
German Jazz Award 2025: NICA artists nominated
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German Jazz Award 2025: NICA artists nominated
Nominations for the German Jazz Award 2025 have been announced.
The place for this year’s German Jazz Award ceremony on June 13 will once again be Cologne - as a stronghold for jazz and improvised music, a large number of Cologne musicians are already among the nominees and winners of the prestigious prize. This year’s nominees also include a number of NICA artists who were able to arouse the jury’s interest with their current projects in various categories:
Saxophonist, composer and sound tinkerer Luise Volkmann, born in 1992 and NICA artist since 2022, is among the nominated musicians in the “Woodwind” category. This is not the first time the musician has been considered for the German Jazz Award: Volkmann was already selected as a nominee for the category “composition of the year” in 2021.
Stefan Schönegg, double bassist, composer and co-founder of the Cologne-based musicians’ collective and label impakt, has been a NICA artist since 2023. His release “Enso: A Simplified Space” with Marlies Debacker (piano, also a NICA artist) and Etienne Nillesen (prepared snare drum) is dedicated to minimalist sound production in an intimate line-up. Recorded in the chamber music hall of Deutschlandfunk, Schönegg and his project, which was released again with this line-up in December 2024, were nominated in the “Radio Production of the Year” category.
Sophie Emilie Beha - also a NICA artist since 2022 - is the first curator and journalist to join the NICA artist development funding program. Launched as a pilot project, the boundaries and possibilities of the program are thus extended to the learning field of curatorial and journalistic activities. Since her appointment, Beha has been able to realize several inspiring projects, including the festival Houbara with a focus on Iranian music practice from the past and present, as well as the new concert series R.I.T.U.A.L., which will take place in the Stadtgarten from June 2025. Beha is also nominated this year in the special category “Journalistic Achievement” for the radio report “Courageous Patterns - The Singer and Composer Miriam Elhajli”.
Several NICA artists have already been among the nominees and winners of the German Jazz Award in the past, including Heidi Bayer (“Composition of the Year 2023”), Pablo Held (“Piano/Keyboards 2022”; category now renamed “Keyboard Instruments”) and Theresia Philipp (in collaboration with Andreas Theobald, MDR Rundfunkchor and Leipziger Jazztage) in the “Radio Production of the Year” category.
The 5th German Jazz Award ceremony will take place on June 13 at the E-Werk in Cologne-Mülheim and will be broadcast live by WDR.
Further information on the German Jazz Award can be found here.
Album Release: Luise Volkmann & Été Large "The Stories We Tell"
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Album Release: Luise Volkmann & Été Large "The Stories We Tell"
On 3 October, Luise Volkmann and her large ensemble Été Large will release their new album ‘The Stories We Tell’.
Cologne-based saxophonist, composer, bandleader and NICA artist Luise Volkmann is a passionate border crosser who expands her vocabulary from album to album. Her aim has always been to conceive the unthinkable and realize the impossible. She has also applied this maxim to the third album by her band Été Large. The title, tellingly, is ‘The Stories We Tell.’
Let’s take a look back. The large formation Été Large was conceived as big from the start. Not because it is a band with many members—there are quite a few of those in Germany—but because Luise Volkmann moved with seven-league boots beyond traditional notions of big band and conventional genre formats. It was never about the thousandth fusion package of certain styles or new perspectives on what already existed. Instead, it was about an anarchistic alternative to the established music business, whatever you want to call or locate it—without making any concessions. With Été Large, Luise Volkmann unleashes a genuine creative force that defies comparison. The group’s first programmatic album ‘Eudaimonia’ (2017) was about proving something. In the second, much more personal chapter ‘When The Birds Upraise Their Choir’ (2020), she demonstrated that she no longer needed to prove anything. Now follows the third act, ‘The Stories We Tell,’ where she can leave behind everything apodictic and simply tell stories. ‘For me, the first two albums had the character of a homage,’ recaps Luise Volkmann. ‘That is not the case at all with the new album. As it’s simply about storytelling, the strength of the album lies more in a kind of introversion.’
These stories reflect a new commitment to simplicity. Everything superfluous must be stripped away so that the passion can manifest itself all the more clearly—and the stories that need to be told. Luise Volkmann is a brilliant storyteller who implements her stories with narrative power and poetic sensitivity. Music is not an end in itself. It’s about something. Every note, every syllable triggers something in the listener, but also globally in the long term, according to the butterfly wing theory, because the energy of the songs often takes unexpected paths. The composer is aware of this responsibility, and this mission is palpable, even if it is conveyed here in an absolutely unobtrusive and unpretentious manner.
‘The Stories We Tell’ marks the tenth anniversary of Été Large. But this is not the only reason why the album documents the result of an individual and collective maturing process. The leader and her collective have succeeded in focusing on the essentials. In her arrangements, Luise Volkmann takes a very cautious approach to the possibilities of a large formation. The sounds of the individual instruments are given plenty of room to breathe. She works with well-contrasted, congenially complementary human voices. Yet each instrument also acquires an individual color that not only flanks or underpins the vocals but in turn makes non-verbal statements. Only in the subtle osmosis of voices and instruments can the songs fully unfold their ultimate effect. Luise Volkmann approaches a kind of artistic perfection, fully aware that she neither can nor wants to achieve it. Because ultimately, it is also about the spaces in between, which only the listeners can fill with their imagination.
‘In times when polarization is becoming more and more noticeable, I want to give my music the power to juxtapose ambivalences with its stories. I can be angry or sad about different things at the same time and still show understanding for other feelings or attitudes. Making the complexity of thought and action tangible and thus creating the basis for an open dialogue is important to me. That’s why I place the verbal and non-verbal sides of storytelling on an equal footing.’
•••
The Stories We Tell – Luise Volkmann & Été Large
Available digitally and as a double vinyl on Bandcamp.
Released 3 October 2025 on Boomslang Records
Musicians:
Casey Moir - voice
Laurin Oppermann - voice
Conni Trieder - flute (Track 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11)
Nicolas Schwabe - flute (Track 1,3, 5, 6, 12)
Luise Volkmann - alto saxophone
Peter Ehwald - tenor saxophone
Rémi Fox - baritone saxophone
Johannes Böhmer - trumpet
Marleen Dahms - trombone
Johanna Stein - violoncello
Athina Kontou - bass
Yannick Lestra - keyboard and electronics
Paul Jarret - guitar
Max Santner-drums
All music composed by Luise Volkmann
Production:
Aufgenommen Juli 2024 at Deutschlandfunk Kammermusiksaal Köln
Radio-Producer Deutschlandfunk: Thomas Loewner
Audio Engineer: Oliver Dannert
Recording Director: Gunther Rose
Recording, Production, Editing: Tobias Hess
Mixing: Sebastian Clobes
Mastering: Christoph Stickel
Graphic Design: Elsa Westreicher
A co-production with Deutschlandfunk
© & ℗ 2025, Deutschlandradio/Luise Volkmann
Goodbye NICA artists of 2022
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Goodbye NICA artists of 2022
For four of our treasured artists the time accompanied by NICA artist development comes to an end.
After three very successful years the NICA artist generation of 2022 - Luise Volkmann, Sophie Emilie Beha, Fabian Dudek and Rebekka Salomea - will make their way to new frontiers.
To mark their goodbye, each artist will play a last concert throughout the rest of this year. For their appearances as NICA artists on the stage of Club JAKI each one of them prepared a particular special program – premieres one shouldn’t be missing out on.
We are delighted to invite you to these special concerts and to showcase what the four artists of the NICA Generation 2022 have planned next:
29.09. Rebekka Salomea – vocalist
27.10. Luise Volkmann - saxophonist (album release show)
24.11. Sophie Emilie Beha - curator, vocalist
15.12. Fabian Dudek - saxophonist
All of these artists have established themselves during their time with NICA through different means: All four went on research trips beyond Europe, expanding their international networks, creative ideas and collaborations. NICA has supported album releases and tours, coaching in different aspects of artist life, content production, and provided in-depth counseling to ensure the individual development of their careers. In addition, we have cooperated with international institutions, such as BIMHUIS Amsterdam, RAUW Festival Rotterdam, or INTL Jazzplatform Poland (many inaugurated by the EJN) to create playing opportunities and commissioned compositions, as well as giving the first curator in the program the infrastructure and insight to bring her own festival idea into life. We are most excited to see what all four are up to next.
Sophie Emilie Beha, the first curator of the support programme, is ending her time at NICA with an ongoing concert series called ritual. Taking place on the first day of every month, the evening always begins with a walk through Cologne’s Stadtgarten park and focuses on the sensory experience of music and uniquely designed performances.
A research trip to L.A. concludes the funding period for singer, composer and bandleader Rebekka Salomea. This follows on from a stay in 2023, which was already supported by NICA. While working on new material and her solo programme following the release of her album ‘Good Life’ in October 2024, which she will present at her last NICA live concert, SALOMEA continues to expand her internationally established network with her trip.
Saxophonist, bandleader and composer Luise Volkmann is marking her departure from NICA in no less emotional fashion with the release of her album ‘The Stories We Tell’, performed by her large ensemble Été Large. Released on 3 October 2025, the musician is presenting the project for her final NICA live date at Club JAKI, located in the Stadtgarten. She already celebrated a release at her last concert at JAKI: in 2024, she released the album ‘Enxame’ in a duo with Brazilian guitarist Kiko Dinucci and went on a mini tour this year, which not least underlines her ambitions and successes in the international music context.
Last but not least, saxophonist, composer and bandleader Fabian Dudek has also demonstrated his drive during his three years in the support programme. He will be bringing his quartet Almost, formed at NICA live with Leif Berger (drums), Felix Hauptmann (piano) and London-based bassist Ruth Goller, not only to his final concert as a NICA artist at JAKI, but also to other stages across Europe. Dudek recently shone with an international band at Cologne Jazzweek 2025: with his commissioned composition ‘Night by Night’, he completes his cycle (‘Day by Day’) for the Cologne festival, which he began in 2022 – listen to ‘Night by Night’ here on Deutschlandfunk.
We are proud and happy to have had the chance to accompany these exceptional musicians on their journey and be witnesses to their growth.
👉 Save the Date: We want you to also save the date for NICA live special and the 15th edition of Winterjazz Köln in the very beginning of 2026 at Stadtgarten Köln:
NICA live special – 8th & 9th January 2026
15th Winterjazz – 10th January 2026
Jorik Bergman receives Horst and Gretl Will Scholarship for Jazz and Improvised Music 2025
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Jorik Bergman receives Horst and Gretl Will Scholarship for Jazz and Improvised Music 2025
Congratulations!
Flutist, composer and arranger Jorik Bergman - NICA artist 2024 - receives the Horst and Gretl Will Scholarship for Jazz and Improvised Music 2025, awarded to promote contemporary music and the free artistic development of young musicians.
Statement of the jury on the awarding of the scholarship:
“The quality and originality as well as the colorful differentiation of her compositional work for larger ensembles is exceptional, and as a flutist she represents a unique and rather rare voice in the jazz context. The jury also paid particular attention to the intensive and varied work required to bring together and maintain larger ensembles on a freelance basis and to provide them with opportunities to play, music and perform. The fact that Jorik Bergman has been doing this with remarkable success for some time contributed to the jury’s decision.”
The award-winning concert will take place on September 5 as part of the Cologne Jazzweek in the concert hall of the Stadtgarten Köln. Here, Berman will present a new large ensemble constellation with the brand new program “Perennial Potpourri”. Admission to the prizewinners’ concert is free.
September 05 // 8:00 pm // Stadtgarten Köln - free admission
Jazzpreis der Stadt Köln: Jorik Bergman - Perennial Potpourri feat. Martin Gasser, Jen Böckamp, Kira Linn, Matthias Bergmann, Shannon Barnett, Clara Vetter, Reza Askari & Alexander Parzhuber
Album Release: Felix Hauptmann & Kirke Kaja "Underwater Consciousness"
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Album Release: Felix Hauptmann & Kirke Kaja "Underwater Consciousness"
On June 27, Karja Hauptmann Duo will release their new album Underwater Consciousness
After various releases with his trio PERCUSSION or as Side Man, NICA artist Felix Hauptmann has come out with an intimate duo recording: the new album Underwater Consciousness recorded with a soulmate on the keys - Kirke Karja from Estonia. The two pianists explore their shared underwater sound world together in a way that is both challenging and delicate at the same time. Complexity and simplicity are directly opposed to each other in this experiment and blend together to create a uniquely harmonious sound.
KARJA HAUPTMANN, the duo of acclaimed pianists Kirke Karja and Felix Hauptmann, is releasing their debut album via Boomslang Records - available as vinyl and digital download.
Underwater Consciousness blurs the boundaries between free improvisation and spontaneous composition, capturing the exploration of textural depth, rhythmic complexity and layered structures in a delicate yet captivating piano dialog. The music springs from a shared rhythmic sensibility and draws the listener into immersive soundscapes of urgency and introspection.
The production: a process of sonic exploration
The album was recorded on January 4, 2024 at LOFT, Cologne. After an intense day of rehearsing and exploring new textures and musical ideas, Hauptmann and Karja recorded the album in just one hour. Each piece unfolds organically - shaped by their improvisational conversation and intuitive artistic connection, in which humor and playfulness also find their place.
“The recording shows depth and urgency - both core values of our work.”
The album is available digitally and on vinyl.
•••
Release on June 27, 2025 on Boomslang Records
Recorded at LOFT, Cologne
Sound engineer: Stefan Deistler
Mix & Mastering: Christian Heck
Cover-Artwork: Cyrille Beirnaert
Poem & title: Maria Filippou
Supported by NICA Artist Development
Album Release: Fabian Dudek "This Every Place"
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Album Release: Fabian Dudek "This Every Place"
Fabian Dudek releases his new album This Every Place on 9 May
NICA artist Fabian Dudek is releasing his fifth album under his own name with This Every Place. His quartet, consisting of Felix Hauptmann (piano, also a NICA artist), David Helm (bass) and Fabian Arends (drums), is expanded for the first time to include another saxophone - Dudek chose none other than the bustling composer, improviser and saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock, who has been living and working in New York for several years. With a great understanding of structure and freedom, Dudek created a work that fits effortlessly and with audible growth into the musician’s already considerable discography.
His quartet’s second production, »Isolated Flowers«, was nominated for the German Record Critics’ Award, with the jury of the Horst and Gretl Will Foundation praising, among other things, the “captivating mixture of […] instrumental virtuosity and ambiguously original sound design”. In 2023, Dudek presented the multi-layered album »Protecting A Picture That’s Fading« with the sextet La Campagne, whose ‘density of events in gravitational compositions’ (FAZ) earned him a nomination for the German Jazz Award. Last year, the quartet production »Distant Skies, We Dream« was again celebrated by the press and public. The Badische Zeitung was enthusiastic about the ‘secure balance between formal rigour and unrestrained playing’, NRW Jazz heard ‘breathtaking music with crooked metres, played against traditional norms’ and summed up: ‘an expressive, dense, almost unlimited, contemporary jazz in a class of its own.’
The new album »This Every Place« also reinforces the impression that Fabian Dudek seems to have an inexhaustible wealth of ideas at his disposal. At the same time, his individual sound (both as an instrumentalist and as a composer) is becoming more and more concrete, his creative drive more far-reaching. For the first time, the bandleader has added an internationally renowned personality to his quartet, namely saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock. ‘After three quartet albums, I felt it was a logical and exciting step to add someone else,’ explains Dudek. ‘Laubrock was the first and only person I asked because she has been inspiring me for a while, both in the way she plays and in what she composes.’ Apparently the interest is mutual, as the joint project is set to continue. But that’s just in passing.
‘I had sent her my compositions for a complete concert programme and when she came to Germany, she was very well prepared,’ recalls Dudek. Two days of rehearsals were followed by two concerts, in Rüsselsheim and the Stadtgarten in Cologne. The latter was recorded and there was time for further recordings the next day. ‘We were lucky enough to be able to leave our live set-up in the hall and simply continue playing the next day, again under live conditions, but without an audience.’ From the recordings, Dudek selected four pieces of seven to eighteen minutes in length, which offer an intense, at times energetic and condensed, then again transparent essence of the recordings.
‘I don’t want the albums to be extremely long,’ explains Dudek, comparing them to his experiences in museums: if the exhibition is too big, the first impression is gone by the end. ‘Basically, I want to reach people with the music, leave room for interpretation and offer scope for offence, but not overwhelm the listener.’ In fact, the compositions and improvisations on This Every Place are so rich that they reveal new details on repeated listens.
He had never written for two saxophones before, says Fabian Dudek, which is why he was initially concerned with the question of how the expansion would affect the structure of his band, which has existed since 2018. However, the supposedly challenging composition process turned out to be quite straightforward and largely intuitive. Some of the new pieces were subsequently tried out and formulated in the quartet even before Laubrock joined the band.
Dudek’s flowing, constantly changing rhythms were already striking on last year’s album. This concept of ‘morphing grooves’, which take on a different shape from bar to bar, can be found again on the new work. The tension between flows and experimental contrasts is important to Dudek. And that the flow can be felt, even though it may not be possible to fully analyse the complex rhythms. ‘Distant Skies… opened up the barrel by switching to electric bass and making greater use of the synthesiser. We have now built on this foundation with Ingrid and created new forms, some of them ad hoc.’
Music that appeals emotionally and through intellectual sophistication, that offers entertaining aspects and at the same time represents an art form. This is what Fabian Dudek has in mind and is realised by This Every Place. With his clever to sophisticated compositions, extremely attentive and variable players as well as enormously expressive saxophone duets with guest star Ingrid Laubrock, he once again makes a striking mark on the contemporary international music landscape.
Addendum from July 05, 2025: This Every Place by Fabian Dudek makes it onto the longlist 03/2025 of the German Record Critics’ Award in the category Jazz II (modern & contemporary). We are eagerly awaiting the best list on August 15, 2025.
•••
Fabian Dudek - alto-saxophone, flute, compositions
Ingrid Laubrock - soprano- & tenor-saxophone
Felix Hauptmann - piano, synthesizer
David Helm - bass
Fabian Arends - drums
Alle Kompositionen von Fabian Dudek
Alle Titel erschienen im Traumton Musikverlag
Aufnahme, Mix und Master von Martin Ruch
Aufgenommen im Stadtgarten Köln
Artwork von Benjamin Rückert
ACHT BRÜCKEN: NICA artists set silent films to music
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ACHT BRÜCKEN: NICA artists set silent films to music
ACHT BRÜCKEN: NICA artists set silent films to music
Four commissioned compositions for silent films were created between the ACHT BRÜCKEN Festival, Stadtgarten Köln and NICA artist development under the motto ‘Light!’: pianist Marlies Debacker interprets ‘Ballet Mécanique’ in a quintet. Saxophonist Jonas Engel dresses abysses with Asta Nielsen in the leading role in new sounds. Saxophonist Fabian Dudek sets Andy Warhol’s motionless experimental film ‘Empire’ to music, while percussionist Thomas Sauerborn sheds new light on everyday life in Kiev, Kharkiv and Odessa in 1929 with ‘Man with a Movie Camera’.
In the 95 years since its release, Dsiga Wertow’s ‘Man with a Movie Camera’ has lost none of its significance: As an experiment in a universal cinema language, the silent film, which manages entirely without intertitles, has already received various musical interpretations. The film, whose structure - as if according to musical parameters - finds its rhythm, literally sucks viewers into life in Kiev, Kharkiv and Odessa in 1929. Thomas Sauerborn’s composition intensifies this pull, inspired by the symbiosis of film and camera techniques on the one hand and the realism of the images on the other.
Sauerborn, together with two companions from the formation Das Ende Der Liebe, brings two female trombonists into this ensemble and thus opens up the space between the breathing wind instruments, the manipulated sounds of the Nintendo Gameboy and live sampling. Together they bring the everyday life and rhythm of 1929 into the present day - juxtaposing it with the life and sounds of the 21st century.
Is this even a film? If you want to answer the question in the affirmative, it is a film that has been stripped of most of the attributes that generally distinguish a moving image from a photograph. A fixed camera shot captures the top of the Empire State Building. Andy Warhol exposed over six hours of celluloid in this way, completely without sound, from the onset of dusk until deep into the night. According to the instructions of the New York avant-garde icon, the material is to be projected in 16 instead of 24 frames per second, resulting in a performance time of over 8 hours. There is a philosophical dimension to slowing down a still image.
The film will be shown in full length at Stadtgarten Köln. Saxophonist and composer Fabian Dudek and his quintet will play their own soundtrack for 50 minutes. It is the phase of transition from day to night, from light to dark, a very gradual yet drastic change that is barely perceptible to the temporal resolution of the eye. Is the contrast accentuated musically? Is the still image acoustically set in motion or painted over in sound colours? Dudek wants to approach the project with his own new compositional technique.
Jonas Engel’s older work ‘What the Wild flowers Witnessed’ evokes memories of the song ‘Moaner’ by Underworld from the 1997 Batman soundtrack and drives the listener forward. The trio put together especially for this occasion uses the juxtaposition of instruments and voice in a very similar way - but on a more equal footing. Musical spaces here range from the very intimate to the dramatic. It allows plenty of room for interpretation - in keeping with Urban Gad’s ‘Abyss’. The silent film from 1910 also juxtaposes large, free spaces with small, very regimented ones. The protagonist, a tutor, is courted by a pastor’s son in Denmark at the time the film was made, when the circus is in town during a summer visit to her parents’ holiday home. The plot opens up abysses between freedom, dependence, confinement and emotion. Whether these are ultimately overcome remains in the eye of the beholder. Engel’s compositions utilise abysses and give listeners the opportunity to find their footing or lose themselves even more.
And ‘Ballet mécanique?’ This French silent film, made 15 years later, is the first Dada film! Post-cubist and without any plot, we see all kinds of everyday objects such as pots or crockery, but abstracted in such a way that they no longer seem familiar, but rather appear as their form. A rhythmic interplay of objects, to which Marlies Debacker will create a non-pictorial background, in which composed, random and improvised sound actions overlap and invite us to discover our own connections in a multifaceted web of sound-image and sound-sound relationships. A work somewhere between musique concrète, musique concrète instrumentale, drones and pulsating textures.
Overview of all events
12.05. | 20:00
ACHT BRÜCKEN: Thomas Sauerborn | Man with a Movie Camera
14.05. | 18:00
ACHT BRÜCKEN: Fabian Dudek | Empire
15.05. | 18:00
ACHT BRÜCKEN: Marlies Debacker | Ballet Mécanique & Jonas Engel | Afgrunden
These concerts are organised in cooperation with ACHT BRÜCKEN | Musik für Köln, the European Centre for Jazz and Contemporary Music Stadtgarten Köln and NICA artist development.
Album Release: RAY LOZANO "SILK&SORROW"
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Album Release: RAY LOZANO "SILK&SORROW"
RAY LOZANO releases her new album ‘SILK&SORROW’ on 28 March
Following her debut album Pairing Mode, NICA artist RAY LOZANO is continuing the vision of her personal sound world: the new album SILK&SORROW will be released on 28 March in record shops and on all popular streaming platforms. Her debut album already set a good example in terms of indie R’n’B and alternative soul from Germany - with the follow-up, the producer and singer comes up and trumps once again.
Let’s be honest: life is an eternal swipe left and right, an ‘I love you’ here, a ghosting there - until you find yourself bursting into tears over a meme at two in the morning. RAY LOZANO demonstrates a special feel for these moments on her new album SILK&SORROW, which will be released on Melting Pot Music. Her songs feel like a compassionate message from a friend who sends a simple ‘Are you OK?’ late at night - without pressure, without expectation, simply as a silent presence. Each track feels like Ray is looking over your shoulder as you scroll, like she’s there at the exact moment when your laughter turns into a sigh and you’re suddenly hit with a nostalgia you didn’t see coming. Her superpower? Turning those mundane, bittersweet moments into something that feels almost sacred.
On SILK&SORROW, the German-Filipino singer and producer deals with the contradictory emotional worlds of our time - the constant change between intense connection and complete distance, between emotional flooding and inner emptiness. ‘Silk’ stands for the gentle, warm moments, while “Sorrow” captures the unavoidable emotional impacts.
SILK&SORROW doesn’t want to solve anything. It wants you to feel - really feel. At a time when vulnerability often degenerates into a pleasing playlist aesthetic, Ray is forging her own path. SILK&SORROW dispenses with polish and perfection. The songs move gently between sorrow and consolation, revealing a simple truth: the real splendour lies in cracks and fractures. Consider this album your anthem through the quiet hours of the night.
On 31 March, RAY LOZANO will present her new album at JAKI as part of NICA live.
The album is available digitally and on vinyl.
•••
Release on 28 March 2025 on Melting Pot Music
Vocals by Ray Lozano
Produced by Ray Lozano & Samon Kawamura
Additional vocals on ‘KIKI’ & ‘LOTA’ by Pia Allgaier
Additional vocals on ‘I DON’T CARE’ & ‘LOTA’ by SALOMEA
Guitar on ‘BETTER DAYS’, ‘HiYA’, ‘LET THE HEART GROW’ by Phillip Niessen
Guitar on ‘DRAGON’ and ‘KIKI’ by Fritz Dinter
B3 organ on ‘HiYA’ by Lutz Krajenski
Additional guitar on ‘CAN’T LOVE’ by Boti Ikvai-Szabo
Mixed & mastered by Samon Kawamura
Artwork by Tom Richardson
Cover photo by Kaspar Achenbach
German Jazz Award 2025: NICA artists nominated
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German Jazz Award 2025: NICA artists nominated
Nominations for the German Jazz Award 2025 have been announced.
The place for this year’s German Jazz Award ceremony on June 13 will once again be Cologne - as a stronghold for jazz and improvised music, a large number of Cologne musicians are already among the nominees and winners of the prestigious prize. This year’s nominees also include a number of NICA artists who were able to arouse the jury’s interest with their current projects in various categories:
Saxophonist, composer and sound tinkerer Luise Volkmann, born in 1992 and NICA artist since 2022, is among the nominated musicians in the “Woodwind” category. This is not the first time the musician has been considered for the German Jazz Award: Volkmann was already selected as a nominee for the category “composition of the year” in 2021.
Stefan Schönegg, double bassist, composer and co-founder of the Cologne-based musicians’ collective and label impakt, has been a NICA artist since 2023. His release “Enso: A Simplified Space” with Marlies Debacker (piano, also a NICA artist) and Etienne Nillesen (prepared snare drum) is dedicated to minimalist sound production in an intimate line-up. Recorded in the chamber music hall of Deutschlandfunk, Schönegg and his project, which was released again with this line-up in December 2024, were nominated in the “Radio Production of the Year” category.
Sophie Emilie Beha - also a NICA artist since 2022 - is the first curator and journalist to join the NICA artist development funding program. Launched as a pilot project, the boundaries and possibilities of the program are thus extended to the learning field of curatorial and journalistic activities. Since her appointment, Beha has been able to realize several inspiring projects, including the festival Houbara with a focus on Iranian music practice from the past and present, as well as the new concert series R.I.T.U.A.L., which will take place in the Stadtgarten from June 2025. Beha is also nominated this year in the special category “Journalistic Achievement” for the radio report “Courageous Patterns - The Singer and Composer Miriam Elhajli”.
Several NICA artists have already been among the nominees and winners of the German Jazz Award in the past, including Heidi Bayer (“Composition of the Year 2023”), Pablo Held (“Piano/Keyboards 2022”; category now renamed “Keyboard Instruments”) and Theresia Philipp (in collaboration with Andreas Theobald, MDR Rundfunkchor and Leipziger Jazztage) in the “Radio Production of the Year” category.
The 5th German Jazz Award ceremony will take place on June 13 at the E-Werk in Cologne-Mülheim and will be broadcast live by WDR.
Further information on the German Jazz Award can be found here.
Album Release: Das Ende der Liebe "PERSIST"
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Album Release: Das Ende der Liebe "PERSIST"
Das Ende der Liebe releases the new album ‘PERSIST’ on 14 February
Together with his companions from Das Ende der Liebe, Thomas Sauerborn - NICA artist 2024 - will release the new album PERSIST on 14 February. Sauerborn and his three bandmates have been working on expanding their sound cosmos since 2014. Drawing on many years of musical cooperation, electronics, acoustics, improvisation, psychedelic and groove meet uninhibitedly. The band called their music ‘alien jazz’ on their last release Schne*e (2022), which was voted one of the top 20 albums of the year by GROOVE magazine.
For their new album PERSIST, the quartet expands into a quintet with dey non-binary, interdisciplinary artist:in su dance110: With effects and voice, dey complements the experimental sound palette of Das Ende der Liebe with familiar lightness.
Conceived as an alternative to our complicated relationship with time in the modern world, the music of Das Ende der Liebe addresses the tension between the increasingly demanding pace of modern life and our unconscious longing for moments of reflection and contemplation. Once again, Das Ende der Liebe on Persist allow the sounds of the individual to merge into a larger whole, playing with the listener’s perception: A saxophone turns out to be a voice, a percussion line slips out of the synthesis and a seeming choir proves to be not really of human origin.
If you would like to delve deeper into the band’s material, we recommend a visit to the band’s new homepage ‘DEDL Megaworld’. This is a digital and interactive archive that provides albums, live sets and also uncut studio material.
Addendum from May 15, 2025: The album PERSIST by Das Ende der Liebe was awarded the German Record Critics’ Award in the Best List 02/2025 and category “Electronic and Experimental”. Congratulations!
For a release concert, Das Ende der Liebe will be coming to NICA live on 5 June - accompanied by visual artist Lucas Grey for a fully immersive sound experience.
Listen and buy this album digitally or on Vinyl.
Line-Up:
su dance110 - Vocals, Electronics
Andreas Völk - Live Sampling, Barth Audios, Organs
Laurenz Gemmer - Yamaha CP70, Melodica, Ableton Live
Kenn Hartwig - Electric Bass, Sitar, Nintendo Gameboy
Thomas Sauerborn - Acoustic Drumset + FX Pedals, Drum Pads
•••
Released February 14th, 2025 with Anunaki Tabla
All Music composed by Das Ende der Liebe & su dance110
Recorded and Mixed by Ingo Krauss at Candy Bomber Studio
Mastered by Thomas Ölscher at Railroad Track Studios
Artwork by Eradj Yakobov
Cooperations in Focus: 2024 Review
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Cooperations in Focus: 2024 Review
Whether BIMHUIS, South Tyrol Jazz Festival Alto Adige or Kongsberg Jazz Festival. New international and national collaborations.
Creating spaces of exchange for a young, experimental generation of musicians and encouraging sustainable networking and creative exchange is one of the main focuses of NICA artist development. In the context of national and international collaborations, it is essential to initiate links with an audience that is eager to discover new things.
This year, we had the opportunity to cooperate with a number of European festivals and venues and offer opportunities for live experiences beyond the local scene.
Saxophonist and composer Fabian Dudek played a double concert with his quartet Almost at BIMHUIS in Amsterdam and at Stadtgarten Köln in June 2024. Both evenings they were accompanied by Dutch Mountain Tribe, the ensemble of Dutch saxophonist and composer Koen Boeijinga. Founded in 1974 and based at Piet Heinkade in Amsterdam since 2005, BIMHUIS is one of the most important venues for improvised music in the Netherlands.
The summer brought three international collaborations: singer and bandleader Rebekka Salomea played with SALOMEA (feat. Yannis Anft, Oliver Lutz and Leif Berger) at RADAR Festival in Varna, Bulgaria, where they gave a preview of their current album ‘Good Life’. Pianist Marlies Debacker gave a solo performance at the Kongsberg Jazz Festival, the most traditional jazz festival in Norway. With Day by Day, Fabian Dudek presented a band at the Südtirol Jazz Festival Alto Adige, which celebrated its premiere at the Cologne Jazzweek 2023.
There has been a close collaboration with Cologne Jazzweek since 2022. Theresia Philipp was commissioned to compose a piece for this year’s 4th edition of the festival, and the composer and saxophonist took the opportunity to form a new band. Seeds of Sweat performed for the first time on 4 September. Two Cologne Jazzweek concerts were curated by NICA in cooperation with the renowned Jazzfestival Saalfelden and the Jazzwerkstatt Bern, which will in turn offer a stage to the programme’s sponsored artists at their festivals in the future.
The collaboration with the Leipziger Jazztage, which began in 2023, was also successfully continued with the duo premiere of cellist and composer Emily Wittbrodt and US singer and guitarist Wendy Eisenberg.
Album Release: SALOMEA "Good Life"
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Album Release: SALOMEA "Good Life"
SALOMEA’s new Album “Good Life” to be released on October 18th
Following the release of the three singles “Twirl Up”, “Obsessing” and “Layla Tov”, SALOMEA have released their third album “Good Life” on the Papercup Records/Rough Trade label. Four years after “Bathing In Flowers”, the new album by the versatile multi-genre band was eagerly awaited.
“Good Life” is an album that has emerged from a deep confrontation with grief and death and translates these themes into a plea for optimism, for the importance of love and hope for the future in poignant melodies and multi-faceted rhythms that demand movement. The band leader’s lyrics and melodies are characterized by the conviction and truth that through suffering, happiness and beauty can arise.
The band’s music combines the lyricism of German-American singer and composer Rebekka Salomea Ziegler with smooth, contemporary jazz production to create an enticing, multi-layered soundscape. Former NICA artist and drummer Leif Berger joins Yannis Anft on keyboards and Oliver Lutz on bass to form the rhythm section of the expressive band, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year with the release of the new album.
“Good Life” showcases the colorful range of Ziegler, who played the leading role in writing and producing the album. With the broad diversity of her formative influences, which Ziegler knows how to emphasize with loving clarity, SALOMEA creates a sound world that is both new and familiar, inviting listeners to explore.
An album with lyrics that break with hetero-normative narratives, focusing on the celebration of femmes* and mothers and an urgent appeal to listen and exchange. The immediate stories of diasporic displacement and separation, grief and finding solace, and the contrast of courage, kindness and hope inherent in the album make “Good Life” an extraordinary experience. An album as a place, a sound and a feeling of belonging and freedom.
The title track “Good Life” by SALOMEA:
Line-up:
Rebekka Salomea Ziegler - vocals
Leif Berger - drums
Yannis Anft - keyboard
Oliver Lutz - bass
•••
Release: 18.10.2024
Mix: Manu Schlindwein
Master: Zino Makorey
Artwork Photography: @fisch
Graphic Design: Hanna Osen
•••
The album will be released on CD and LP and will also be available digitally.
Album Release: Luise Volkmann/ Kiko Dinucci "Enxame"
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Album Release: Luise Volkmann/ Kiko Dinucci "Enxame"
On their debut as a duo, Luise Volkmann on soprano saxophone and Kiko Dinucci on guitar create an atmosphere of sound that is as intense as it is intimate
The music of this duo has a special intimacy: the melodies of Luise Volkmann’s soprano saxophone strike a balance between fragility and something festive and life-affirming. The guitar playing has a special elegance that reveals the depth of the extensive musical knowledge of Kiko Dinucci, who works not only as a musician but also as an archivist of various musical styles.
Last spring, Cologne-based musician Luise Volkmann travelled to Brazil for the first time together with her saxophone, supported by NICA artist development. Since 2008, when she lived in the coastal city of Natal for a year as a pupil, she had returned again and again, but never to establish professional connections. Now, during her first artist residency in São Paulo, she met guitarist Kiko Dinucci. He has his musical roots in punk and rock on the one hand and in the Brazilian musical tradition of MPB (Musica Popular Brasileira) on the other. As an uncompromising composer and guitarist, he founded internationally renowned bands such as Metá Metá and Passo Torto.
Enxame emerged from this encounter: Improvised 30 minutes in which experimental - never avoiding rhythm - and powerful sounds of different musical traditions are fused. It is not for nothing that these cross-connections, which are condensed into expressive and moving music by this duo, bear the name ‘Enxame’ (meaning ‘swarm’): The knowledge of each other, the understanding of each other and the experience of each other is expressed here in the form of intelligent swarm music and Volkmann and Dinucci’s dense harmony impressively integrates the listener into this feeling.
•••
Release: 16.08.2024
Recorded March 2023 in São Paulo
Mix and Master: Julius Gass
Artwork: Nada Tshibwabwa
Graphic Design: Elsa Westreicher
•••
The album will be released digitally and on cassette.
NICA x BIMHUIS: Dutch Mountain Tribe & Fabian Dudek / Almost
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NICA x BIMHUIS: Dutch Mountain Tribe & Fabian Dudek / Almost
NICA artist development and BIMHUIS Amsterdam cooperate
Two visionary bands in exchange: This double-concert is a cooperation between NICA artist development and BIMHUIS. Founded in 1974 and based at the Piet Heinkade in Amsterdam since 2005, BIMHUIS is one of the most important venues for improvised music in the Netherlands. The day before the concert at Stadtgarten Köln, Koen Boeijinga and Fabian Dudek will play with their bands at BIMHUIS.
•••
Dutch woodwind player, composer and improviser Koen Boeijinga presents his new project Dutch Mountain Tribe. The seven-piece collective consists of young pioneers as well as established virtuosos from the Dutch improvisation scene.
Dutch Mountain Tribe spins a web of idiosyncratic melodies, enchanting rhythms and fiery improvisations. Like folk songs from a mythical Dutch mountainside, they are coloured by an arsenal of percussion instruments, flutes, bagpipes and other objects from the immense collection of band leader Koen Boeijenga. This versatile wind player and composer includes both young and established players in his seven-piece band.
Last year, Dutch Montain Tribe was honoured with KEEP AN EYE The Records. The band’s debut album was released on 15 March 2024 on ZenneZ Records.
•••
On the road, somehow arriving somewhere. Concentrated on a destination with an uncertain outcome in mind: Almost. Four musicians focusing on Fabian Dudek’s unique and thoughtful compositions, with which the German saxophonist explores new sound spheres. Dudek has worked with pianist Felix Hauptmann for many years – Hauptmann plays in Dudek’s two main projects and contributes his voice to this constellation which premiered summer 2023. Like Dudek and Hauptmann, drummer Alex Parzhuber stands out with his attentive and energetic playing, whether on his releases under his own name or, for example, as a member of Dudek’s La Campagne or of Vagabond Souls.
These three are joined by London-based bassist, singer, and composer Ruth Goller, who is considered an important player in the English improvisation scene, who previously collaborated with, among others, Paul McCartney and Marc Ribot. A meeting of four individually strong musicians, who unite around Dudek’s music, which explores escapes from the world and leaves its listeners enough space for reflection.
Fabian Dudek's "an empty room, then smiling" broadcasted on Deutschlandfunk
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Fabian Dudek's "an empty room, then smiling" broadcasted on Deutschlandfunk
The concert premiere dudek carnival | an empty room, then smiling | from 14.08.2023 available for re-listening via the DLF Audiothek
Saxophonist and composer Fabian Dudek performed twice at Cologne Jazzweek 2023: With the premiere of his composition “Day By Day”, which he wrote for his Horst and Gretl Will Foundation Award Winners’ Concert, and with dudek carnival. An international line-up put together by Dudek especially for the Cologne Jazzweek, which corresponds to his idea of sound and artistic collaboration. ” Through the strength of the composition comes the freedom to play,” says Dudek. Giving his fellow musicians room to develop their individualistic spirit is particularly important to Dudek in all his compositional work. Dudek was commissioned to write this composition in cooperation between NICA artist development and Cologne Jazzweek.
A live recording of the concert is now available to listen to for 30 days in the DLF Audiothek.
•••
First broadcast: 12.03.2024, 09:05 pm “Jazz Live”
Between chaos and structure
dudek carnival
Line-up:
Sasha Berliner - vibraphone
Felix Hauptmann - piano
Fabian Dudek - saxophone, composition
Simon Jermyn - e-bass
Lesley Mok - drums
Recording from 14.08.2024 at Cologne Jazzweek, Stadtgarten Köln
Microphone: Thomas Loewner
NICA live special 2024
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NICA live special 2024
NICA live special will take place for the second time on 5 January 2024!
For the second time, the concert evening NICA live special will take place on the eve of WINTERJAZZ Köln at Stadtgarten Köln. Six of the ten NICA artists will present current projects and music. Involved are: Laura Totenhagen, Fabian Dudek, Ray Lozano, Stefan Schönegg and Marlies Debacker.
The co-operation between WINTERJAZZ KÖLN and NICA artist development has worked well in recent years. With its two-day focus on the young, innovative improvised music scene, the start of the year in Cologne has become particularly attractive for an international audience of professionals.
NICA LIVE SPECIAL is mainly reserved for invited guests and professionals. Other interested visitors are welcome! To take part, please register by 4 January at nica@stadtgarten.de.
As always, the WINTERJAZZ evening on Saturday (6 January) is open to all music lovers. 11 bands will be performing on three stages, including NICA artist Theresia Philipp.
Admission is free on both evenings!
NICA x Tampere Jazz Happening 2023
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NICA x Tampere Jazz Happening 2023
Four NICA artists present their bands at the Finnish festival
On 2 November 2023, Kira Hummen, Fabian Dudek and Rebekka Salomea and their bands will kick off the International Tampere Jazz Happening in Finland. Janning Trumann closes the festival on 5 November with his new project NOSACRUM.
The artistic director of the festival, Juhamatti Kauppinen, became aware of the four musicians during the concert evening “NICA live special” in Cologne at the beginning of the year.
Instrumentalist, singer and composer Kira Hummen presents her latest band with Valentin Brummer on drums and Karla Lee on vocals and synthesiser. Saxophonist and composer Fabian Dudek will come to Finland together with pianist Felix Hauptmann, Ruth Goller on bass and drummer Leif Berger. Rebekka Salomea presents her band SALOMEA and trombonist Janning Trumann plays with Florian Zwissler on electronics and Berlin drummer Oli Steidle.
The Tampere Jazz Happening was first held in 1982 and has been part of the city’s cultural events calendar in southern Finland every year since. The festival has been organised since 1990 by Tampere Music Festivals, which is part of the cultural department of the city of Tampere.
NICA artist development is cooperating with the international festival for the first time this year.
Record release: Fabian Dudek / La Campagne
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Record release: Fabian Dudek / La Campagne
“Protecting A Picture That’s Fading” published on Traumton Records
In the past four years, Fabian Dudek has received a lot of attention, especially with his quartet (featuring Felix Hauptmann, Fabian Arends, David Helm). Their debut from 2019 already received an enthusiastic response.
The album released today on Traumton Records was recorded with the formation La Campagne, which was founded around two and a half years ago. From the end of 2020 to August 2022, the ensemble met again and again for intensive rehearsal phases to fill Dudek’s given framework with a collective vision. His compositions became the basis for creative developments, a kind of stimulus for all participants to contribute their own thoughts. “During the recordings, something new kept happening from take to take,” says Dudek, “we only got to this particular point through the many rehearsals. We play with the material and in the process loosen rules; these are personal and collaborative processes.”
Dudek and his alto saxophone become audible after about a quarter of an hour, in the second half of the second piece: “I have fun listening to the others play my music,” says Dudek calmly, “I’m interested in what’s good for the music, not in my ego as an instrumentalist.
Line-up:
Fabian Dudek – alto saxophone, composition
Pauline Turrillo – flute
Berthold Brauer – trumpet
Felix Hauptmann – piano, synth
Roger Kintopf – double bass
Alexander Parzhuber – drums
•••
Recording: Martin Ruch
Mixing & Mastering: Martin Ruch
•••
The album was released on CD and is also available in digital format.
NICA exchange trifft Cologne Jazzweek 2023!
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NICA exchange trifft Cologne Jazzweek 2023!
The concert series with a focus on international networking is part of the festival in Cologne for the second time
After a successful start of the concert series “NICA exchange” in cooperation with the Cologne Jazzweek (12 - 18 August 2023) in the previous year and its successful start in the regular programme of Stadtgarten Köln, the cooperation will be continued with three concerts under the title “NICA exchange x CJW” at this year’s festival.
The cooperation project enables up-and-coming national and international musicians, especially from the fields of jazz and improvised music, to play on the stages of the Cologne Festival. The main focus of the concert series is to create spaces of exchange for a young, experimental generation of musicians, to encourage sustainable networking and creative exchange and, in the context of the festival, to initiate a connection with an audience eager to discover new things.
This year, France and Finland are participating. The artists were selected in cooperation with the NICA partner organisations there (AJC Jazz and We Jazz), who in turn invite NICA artists and support them in their research, networking and presentation.
In addition to international acquaintance, the project focuses on the stage as a place of encounter and at this point the festival premiere dudek carnival [an empty room, then smiling] can be highlighted. NICA artist Fabian Dudek was commissioned by NICA artist development and Cologne Jazzweek to compose a piece and has put together an international band for it, including the two up-and-coming New York-based musicians Sasha Berliner (vibraphone) and Lesley Mok (drums).
An overview of all “NICA exchange x CJW” projects:
- 14.8. 21:00 Stadtgarten: dudek carnival | an empty room, then smiling |
- 14.8. 22:30 Jaki: Superposition
- 18.8. 18:30 Green Room: Nefertiti Quartet feat. Frederik Köster
Cologne Jazzweek has been taking over Cologne’s city centre in August since 2021. For a full week, the varied programme offers its listeners a cross-section of the Cologne, German and international music scene. In addition to the stages in the Stadtgarten Köln, concerts also take place in the WDR Sendesaal, CBE, Loft Köln and Philharmonie Köln, among others.
NICA Backstage: Introducing the project management team
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NICA Backstage: Introducing the project management team
Esther Weickel and Ella O’Brien-Coker started working with the NICA artists a year ago.
One year ago, Esther Weickel (head of project) and Ella O’Brien-Coker (project coordination) took over the management of NICA artist development.
For both of them, communication and trust are the key to identify, formulate and realise the needs of NICA artists for their professional development. Their main concern is to work together with the NICA artists on individual ways of support and at the same time to promote the further possibilities of NICA artist development.
What the two did before NICA, what motivates them, more about the possibilities of NICA and the connection of the support programme to the Stadtgarten Köln - Thomas Venker sat down with Ella and Esther to talk about this and more with them.
The whole interview online in kaput magazine (only available in German).
Pilot project 'Constellations' starts
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Pilot project 'Constellations' starts
NICA artist Pablo Gīw takes part in first edition of the european exchange
Together with nine other organisations of the Europe Jazz Network (EJN), NICA artist development (as part of Stadtgarten Köln) is launching the pilot project ‘Constellations’ in 2023.
The collaborative exchange programme aims to revive and expand the international ambitions and networks of musicians and professionals after a long period of pandemic restrictions. This is done through research stays of the participants in one of the European partner locations each, through meetings, networking and exchange of professional know-how and contacts. Constellations’ aims to set the foundation for a better networked and more sustainable music scene.
All partner organisations involved in ‘Constellations’ run their own musician support programmes. In organising and implementing ‘Constellations’, they draw on existing infrastructures and contacts. The participating artists and cultural workers benefit from these competences not only during their respective research stays, but also at joint meetings such as the European Jazz Conference in Marseille this autumn.
For NICA artist development, trumpeter and improviser Pablo Gīw is taking part in ‘Constellations’. He will spend seven days in Paris and Lyon at the end of March, building on his existing interest in the improvised music scene in France. Paris-based pianist Delphine Deau has been through the Jazz Migration programme of the Association Jazzé Croisé (AJC). For her further musical career, she wishes to gain new insights and perspectives, which she hopes to find in Germany and especially in the Cologne scene, supported by NICA artist development.
The pilot edition of ‘Constellations’ runs until November 2023. ‘Constellations’ is funded by the European Union and supported by MusicAire as part of the Music Moves Europe programme.
NICA LIVE SPECIAL w/ WINTERJAZZ
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NICA LIVE SPECIAL w/ WINTERJAZZ
NICA LIVE SPECIAL on 6th January 2023
WINTERJAZZ Cologne, organised by Stadtgarten Cologne and NICA artist development, will finally take place live and with an audience again in 2023: We celebrate the 12th edition of this brilliant music festival on the three stages of the Stadtgarten! The focus is on the vital, creative and diverse scene of Cologne and North Rhine-Westphalia and its networks, which extend beyond the region to international collaborations.
New this year is NICA LIVE SPECIAL on Friday, 6th January: Seven NICA artists present an insight into their current artistic work: The musicians Janning Trumann, Kira Hummen, Pablo Gīw, Luise Volkmann, Philip Zoubek, Laura Totenhagen and Fabian Dudek will present their highly diverse projects - from solo performances to 13-piece ensembles.
NICA LIVE SPECIAL is mainly reserved for invited guests and professionals. Other interested visitors are welcome! To participate, please register by 5th January at nica@stadtgarten.de.
The WINTERJAZZ evening on Saturday (7th January) is, as always, open to all music lovers. 10 bands with a total of 36 musicians will perform on three stages, including NICA artist Rebekka Salomea Ziegler.
Free entrance on both evenings!
•••
PROGRAMME 6.1.
Laura Totenhagen Solo
Pablo Gīw & Mariel Roberts
La Campagne
Été Large
Gratkowski – Zoubek – Landfermann – Mahnig »Torbid Daylight«
Kira Hummen
Janning Trumann X NOSACRUM
PROGRAMME 7.1.
Katrin Scherer’s CLUSTER Quartett
Jan Lukas Roßmüller Trio
Marlies Debacker Solo
Christian Lorenzens „Silver Motion“
h i l d e
Yaroslav Likhachev Quartett
MOLASS
Raissa Mehner Deviation
The Human Element
SALOMEA
More info about the bands on www.winterjazzkoeln.com
New Artistic Director at Stadtgarten Cologne
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New Artistic Director at Stadtgarten Cologne
An era comes to an end: Forty-four years after the foundation of the Initiative Kölner Jazz Haus (IKJH) and after 36 years as Head Curator of the concert programme at Stadtgarten Köln, the ‘European Centre for Jazz and Contemporary Music’, Reiner Michalke passes the baton to his successor Kornelia Vossebein, who will take over as Artistic Director of this internationally renowned venue as of 1 July 2022.
More Info www.stadtgarten.de
Here you will find the complete press release.
Danksagung - свобода і мир - Freiheit und Frieden // Solidaritätskonzertes
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Danksagung - свобода і мир - Freiheit und Frieden // Solidaritätskonzertes
Danksagung
Die Stimmung des свобода і мир - Freiheit und Frieden // Solidaritätskonzertes hallt nach. Es war ein bedeutender Abend, mit schmerzvollen Momenten. Doch in allem steckte auch Trost und “Heilung”, wie die mitwirkende ukrainische Musikerin Mariana Sadovska es sagte. Und dies war mit Sicherheit einer der bewegendsten Momente an diesem Abend, bewies er doch, dass das Ziel, den Betroffenen zu helfen, erreicht worden ist.
Und nicht nur das. Allein an diesem Abend sind über 20.000.- Euro durch Eintrittsgelder, Spenden und Senderechte zusammengekommen. Und es ist weiterhin möglich über unser Spendenkonto finanziellen Beistand zu leisten.
Wir möchten uns von ganzem Herzen bei allen bedanken, die diesen Abend möglich gemacht haben. Aber der Krieg ist noch nicht vorbei. Jetzt geht es darum, den Menschen in der Ukraine mit all unseren Möglichkeiten weiterhin zur Seite zu stehen.
Besonders freuen wir uns, dass neben Tamara Lukasheva auch NICA artist Janning Trumann am Solidaritätskonzert mitgewirkt hat.
Video von Tamara Lukasheva: Erste Gelder schon ausgezahlt!
Video des Konzerts:
Interview mit Tamara Lukasheva über die aktuelle Lage der Kriegsopfer in der Ukraine vom 28.02.2022
Foto: Mariana Sadovska, Tamara Lukasheva (Initatorin des Solidaritätskonzerts) und Taya Chernyshova (vlnr)
© Niclas Weber
Sonae & Trees SUMMER unter den Top 10 der besten Musikvideos 2021
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Sonae & Trees SUMMER unter den Top 10 der besten Musikvideos 2021
SUMMER, ein kollaboratives, audio-visuelles Werk der Komponistin und Produzentin Sonae und der Videokünstlerin Jennifer Trees ist von A Closer Listen in die Top-10-Liste der besten Musikvideos 2021 aufgenommen worden.
Das 90-minütige Werk SUMMER feierte am 4. September 2021 Premiere im Stadtgarten Köln. Die beiden Künstlerinnen beleuchten darin das Thema Klimawandel.
Sonaes dazugehörige Album »Summer« ist am 4. Oktober 2021 bei laaps erschienen.
NICA presents "Imaginarium": Transcontinental multimedia concert with Hong Kong
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NICA presents "Imaginarium": Transcontinental multimedia concert with Hong Kong
On Sunday, 31 October 2021 at 1 pm, a joint multimedia concert by musicians in Hong Kong and Cologne will take place in real-time collaboration for the first time. “Imaginarium”, which will be held as part of the Freespace Jazz Festival in Hong Kong, invites selected musicians in Hong Kong to perform live in front of an audience in interaction with artists from the NICA artist development programme who will be connected from Stadtgarten Cologne.
The German artists Elisabeth Coudoux (cello), Pablo Giw (trumpet) and Philip Zoubek (piano) will perform at Stadtgarten Cologne. Their counterparts at Freespace Jazz Fest Hong Kong, will be the artists Nelson Hiu (multi-instrumentalist), Charles Ng (saxophone), Simon Hui (double bass) and Fiona Lee (sound art).
The result is a multimedia virtual and real free improvisation jam that encourages new encounters, modes of communication and forms of musical and visual experimentation. The event will be available to watch via live stream at www.stadtgarten.de.
The technical challenges involved in the implementation could only be realized with the flexibility and great support of NetCologne.
Imaginarium - HK/Cologne is co-presented and co-produced by Freespace Jazz Fest HK, Goethe-Institut Hong Kong and NICA artist development / Stadtgarten Köln, and is part of the mission to establish international platforms and initiate long-term artistic collaborations.
Pablo Held releases first solo album on own label
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Pablo Held releases first solo album on own label
NICA Artist Pablo Held will release “Embracing You”, his first solo album on his own new label “Hopalit Records” on October 1, 2021. After 13 albums on Pirouet Records & Edition Records, Held now wants to document his work on his own, entering into a more direct exchange with his audience. The album can be pre-ordered here.
The album features eleven tracks, including eight compositions penned by Held and three interpretations of works by his musical heroes John Taylor, Wayne Shorter &Thelonious Monk. For the production of the vinyl album Hopalit Records collaborates with Green Vinyl Records.The Dutch pressing plant is currently causing a sensation with a revolutionary environmentally friendly pressing method.
“Embracing You” is special for Held in many ways: it is not a classic piano solo album, but also features Mellotron, Celestaand synthesizers in addition to the grand piano. The recording process took almost a year, with several recording sessions in different studios and some creative changes of direction. Above all, “Embracing You” is dedicated to his family, which was the main source of inspiration for his music, especially during the Corona period.
Press release: Thomas Kemp (in excerpts)
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
Elisabeth Coudoux's Emiszatett releases new CD »Earis«
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Elisabeth Coudoux's Emiszatett releases new CD »Earis«
Elisabeth Coudoux’s Emiszatett are releasing their new CD »Earis« on Impakt Records on May 14, 2021.
With Pegelia Gold (voice), Elisabeth Coudoux (violoncello), Matthias Muche (trombone), Robert Landfermann (bass), Philip Zoubek (prepared piano, synth) und Etienne Nillesen (extended snare drum).
In November 2020, stuck in cologne, Elisabeth composed these pieces – more close to her own intuition. These ideas are a direct result of a conceptual processes that matured over the span of many years, shaped by the individual sound and the personalities of the musicians involved. 12 short sonic islands teem with abstract, experimental sounds that don’t shy away from melody or formal play. EARIS - The ear behind the iris - the idea of seeing without words, of forming a musical poem from the inner emotional landscape, which needs no words.
Die 12 new pieces are available on Bandcamp and can be downloaded or bought as a CD.
New Streaming Series: "NICA Magazine presents"
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New Streaming Series: "NICA Magazine presents"
We are launching a new streaming series with “NICA Magazine presents”: every Monday at 8pm Stadtgarten Köln will show a new episode with magazine features and previously unreleased concert recordings of NICA Artists. Each show will consist of three parts: A short interview, followed by concert recordings and “High Five” with spontaneous improvisations. Singer Laura Totenhagen kicks things off.
The NICA magazine is produced by an experienced editorial team - consisting of Martin Laurentius (“Jazzthing” and others), Felix Klopotek (Kölner Stadt-Revue and others) and Kornelia Vossebein (NICA) - in cooperation with Klangmalerei.tv.
»WE ACTUALLY MAKE MUSIC«: podcasts by Sonae and soundartist Philipp Höning
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»WE ACTUALLY MAKE MUSIC«: podcasts by Sonae and soundartist Philipp Höning
WE ACTUALLY MAKE MUSIC:
four podcasts by sonae and soundartist philipp höning made for ON - Neue Musik Köln
»we’ve been thinking about how to create a format that contributes to current thinking processes as much as it allows us to be what we are: artists, and to speak in our own language, in this case: music.«
4 reasons to shut up and play
a podcast in four parts by HÖNING + SONAE:
Philip Zoubek releases solo CD »Vortex«
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Philip Zoubek releases solo CD »Vortex«
On December 11, 2020 NICA Artist Philip Zoubek released his new solo CD »Vortex« on WhyPlayJazz. On Vortex, which was recorded at LOFT in Cologne, Philip Zoubek turns his traditional instrument into an orchestra:
»Fascinating new music, eventful, alert, detailed and conscious of forms: Philip Zoubek makes long process in a precisely reflected and yet spontaneously developed flow of events. Thus, in his new solo program, he layers strange sounds into a surprising, strikingly plausible and, in its urgency, convincing sound journey into open terrain, which he paces out powerfully and nuanced (…)«.
The CD, with about 50 minutes of playtime full of sounds modulated with pieces of wood, e-bows, rubber, a wide variety of plastic and metal screws, is available on WhyPlayJazz.
Livestream: »Früchte des Zorns« am Schauspiel Köln mit Musik von Pablo Giw
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Livestream: »Früchte des Zorns« am Schauspiel Köln mit Musik von Pablo Giw
Die Dekonstruktion des amerikanischen Traums steht im Mittelpunkt des mit dem Pulitzerpreis gekrönten Romans FRÜCHTE DES ZORNS. John Steinbeck erzählt darin die Geschichte der Farmerfamilie Joad aus Oklahoma, die nach Jahren der Dürre ihr altes Leben aufgibt und sich auf die Reise entlang der Route 66 macht. Ihr Ziel: Kalifornien. Doch der Californian Dream rückt in immer weitere Ferne, als die Migrierenden im Westen bloß auf Schwindler*innen, Ausbeutung und Ausgrenzung stoßen. Ein Stoff der Stunde, der die Zusammenhänge zwischen Wirtschaftskrise, Migrationsbewegung und Klimawandel aufdeckt.
Die Musik für dieses Stück wurde komponiert von dem NICA-Artist Pablo Giw, der diese ebenso live auf der Bühne spielen wird. Die digitale Online-Premiere findet am 20.12.2020 von 17:00 - 19:00 statt.
Foto aus den Proben © Krafft Angerer
Philip Zoubek's Trio releases new CD »Nonplaces«
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Philip Zoubek's Trio releases new CD »Nonplaces«
The three extraordinary musicians Philip Zoubek, David Helm and Dominik Mahnig take an unconventional approach to the conventional format of the piano trio on their new CD.
On »Nonplaces«, the Philip Zoubek Trio captivates the listener with enticing sounds. The pianist Philip Zoubek has further developed his playing on the prepared grand piano and this time he also uses synthesizers. The fast music is full of imagination and challenging but fascinating urgency. It is complex and simple at the same time, inviting the listener on a creative journey to something new - something that one would not expect from a conventional piano trio. »Nonplaces« is an album of inspiring musical dialogues between composition and improvisation and a departure from the tried and tested.
»Most of the pieces are permanent shape-shifters, a kaleidoscope of bouncing melodies and subtle changes in rhythm and style, structurally held together and controlled by the phenomenal sense of tempo that the three musicians let you hear. A format-forming, extraordinary recording: the album of the year for me!«
Achim Doppler, CONCERTO
The Philip Zoubek Trio performed together for the first time in 2018.
»Nonplaces« is the second album of the formation; it is available on bandcamp and whyplayjazz.
2nd generation has started!
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2nd generation has started!
The 2nd generation has started!
Another six outstanding musicians* have been selected as the 2nd generation to receive NICA funding for their careers. They were nominated by selected promoters and music journalists. The final selection of the ‘NICA artists 2020’ was the responsibility of an expert jury. The six artists are:
Heidi Bayer (trumpet, *Lichtenfels)
Leif Berger (percussion, *Münster)
Sonae (producer/DJ, *Köln)
Laura Totenhagen (vocals, *Bergisch-Gladbach)
Janning Trumann (trombone, *Uelzen)
Philip Zoubek (piano, *Tulln, Austria)
Click here for the press release.
Further information about the artists is available here.
Pablo Held starts new podcast series
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Pablo Held starts new podcast series
In his interview series »Pablo Held Investigates«, Pablo Held has been talking to his musical idols and companions since 2018. Some of the interviews from the successful series can be read in JazzThing magazine. Wayne Shorter, Joey Baron, Dave Holland, Bill Stewart, John Scofield, Norma Winstone, Larry Goldings or Dave Longstreth already talked to Pablo Held about their music and creative process.
After Pablo Held tried out something new on the occasion of his new album »Ascent« and published a audio commentary about the inspirations and working method for this album, the idea for a new podcast series was born.
His plan is to publish an audio commentary for each of his albums. In the current episode he talks about his album »The Trio Meets John Scofield«, which was released in 2014 by Pirouet Records.
NICA streams... International Jazz Day
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NICA streams... International Jazz Day
In January this year the monthly series NICA presents at the Jaki started. Due to the current situation the series cannot be continued for the time being. As long as this is the case, there will instead be »NICA streams« every Thursday, which will bring the artists of the free Cologne scene to life digitally, curated and recorded by the NICA artists Elisabeth Coudoux, Pablo Giw, Pablo Held and Tamara Lukasheva.
On the occasion of the International Jazz Day, »NICA streams…« will network with the three clubs Moods (Zurich), Porgy&Bess (Vienna) and Victoria (Oslo) to create a joint programme. The programme will start at 19:00 in Cologne, continue at 20:00 at Victoria and continue at 20:30 at Porgy & Bess.
In Cologne, NICA Artist Pablo Held will host the evening. Due to the occasion, he will be supported by Mascha Corman, who will conduct interviews with the three above-mentioned venues as NICA foreign correspondent. Pablo Held has invited the following two duos as musical program points:
Landferman / Ramond
With Christian Ramond and Robert Landfermann, two generations of Cologne double bassists meet for discourse. Both are connected by a Bonn past and early lessons with the great German jazz personality Gunnar Plümer. As a duo, they weave together standards of the American jazz tradition with European improvisational music.
Simon Seidl / Veronika Morscher
Austrian-born songwriter Veronika Morscher presents a program from her own pen in a rare duo performance with jazz pianist Simon Seidl. The vocalist’s passion for storytelling and her penchant for poetry are shown to advantage in a very special way in the reduced setting and through the characterful and expressive accompaniment of the Ingolstadt-born pianist.
Monthly concert series »NICA presents«
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Monthly concert series »NICA presents«
Starting in January, the four artists in residence Elisabeth Coudoux, Pablo Giw, Pablo Held and Tamara Lukasheva will regularly present their musical ideas, visions, cooperations or discoveries in the monthly concert series »NICA presents« on a Monday evening under their names in the JAKI Club of the Stadtgarten.
Tamara Lukasheva will start on 27 January 2019 with her new project Lukoshko.
Mon 27.01.20
20:00 JAKI
entrance free
more infos about concert
NICA live special 2025
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NICA live special 2025
NICA live special will take place for the third time on 10 January 2025!
For the third time, the concert evening NICA live special will take place on the eve of Winterjazz Köln at Stadtgarten Köln - this year at three different venues: in the concert hall and JAKI Klub in the Stadtgarten as well as in the Christuskirche, which is within walking distance.
Seven of the current thirteen NICA artists will present their current projects and music: Fabian Dudek, Felix Hauptmann, Thomas Sauerborn, Jonas Engel, Stefan Schönegg, Jorik Bergman and Emily Wittbrodt.
The partnership between Winterjazz Köln and NICA artist development has proven its worth in recent years: The two-day focus on the young, innovative improvising music scene is a further building block for the increasing visibility of musicians from North Rhine-Westphalia on national and international stages due to the creativity and commitment of its protagonists.
NICA live special is primarily organised for invited guests. Interested listeners can register for participation until January 7 at nica@stadtgarten.de.
Winterjazz Köln takes place on Saturday (11.1.) and, as always, is open to all music lovers. 14 bands with around 50 musicians will perform on three stages in Stadtgarten Köln and one in Club Zimmermanns to ring in the new concert year.
Admission to both evenings is free!
Further information about NICA live special can be found here.
Album Release: Stefan Schönegg “Enso: On a withered tree a flower blooms”
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Album Release: Stefan Schönegg “Enso: On a withered tree a flower blooms”
Stefan Schönegg’s new album “Enso: On a withered tree a flower blooms” released by impakt Records on December 13th
For his ensembles, all under the title Enso, the Cologne-based bassist, composer, and improviser Stefan Schönegg writes contemporary chamber music for various instrumentations.
Since 2016, Schönegg has focused on minimal material that allows for a patient exploration of timbres and melodic gestures and blurs the boundary between improvisation and composition. Enso has thus developed into a collective term for a growing number of participants who interpret Schönegg’s music.
“On the withered tree a flower blooms” is Enso’s 7th release and the second with Marlies Debacker on piano and Etienne Nillesen on snare drum. The almost 45-minute piece is drone music, a slow, subtle layering of meandering textures. While the previous album “A Simplified Space” was mainly about silence and expression of the moment, this album invites you to immerse yourself in a completely different way: Through the finest rhythmic and harmonic ramifications, the music develops an immediate pull, into its pure essence - the sound.
Line-Up:
Stefan Schönegg - double bass, composition
Marlies Debacker - piano
Etienne Nillesen - extended snare drum
•••
Recorded April 2023 at Chamber Music Hall Deutschlandfunk, Cologne
Released on 13th December by impakt Records
Producer – Thomas Loewner
Recording producer – Stephan Schmidt
Recording engineer – Hendrik Manook, Philipp Wissler
Recording technician – Jens Müller
Mastering – Giuseppe Ielasi
Album Release: Totenhagen "Raw"
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Album Release: Totenhagen "Raw"
Laura Totenhagen’s new album “Raw” was released on November 8th
Improviser, singer, and composer Laura Totenhagen, NICA artist since 2020, released her new album ‘Raw’ on 8 November. The album is a compilation of five improvised duos between Totenhagen and selected musicians, with each of the duo recordings being released throughout 2025.
Having already released two albums with her a cappella quartet Of Cabbages and Kings in 2018 and 2023, Totenhagen is now continuing with her solo career. Her previous work also includes solo a cappella vocal performances, in which she uses a wide range of techniques and body movements to transform each song into a unique representation of music and expression.
Since 2020, Totenhagen’s vocal practice has undergone a radical transformation. Previously dedicated to contemporary jazz, Totenhagen can now be found in free improvisation formats with musicians such as Farida Amadou, Eve Risser or with her performative programme with solo voice. Four years ago, the Cologne-based musician embarked on a confrontational exploration of her previous work in an unconventional way. NICA artist development was able to provide support here. Totenhagen has been part of the musician development programme since 2020, which has accompanied her on her path to individualisation and further professionalisation: this leads to emancipated expression, free vocal improvisation, conceptual work, and the constant exploration of her stage presence. In her a cappella performances, as well as her work with various effects pedals, Totenhagen strives for liberation from conventional musical rules and patriarchal shackles. She explores the possibilities of her multi-faceted voice authentically, with a love of detail, humour, and a need for directness.
With her duo partners and instruments ranging from the traditional Korean gayageum to more modern FX and vocal pedals, Totenhagen explores the expression of her broad sound palette in her improvisations. With ‘Raw,’ Totenhagen and her collaborators DoYeon Kim, Sara Schoenbeck, Nick Dunston, Anton Kaun and Lucy Liebe lead the listener through a variety of ever-changing musical environments and soundscapes - a unique listening experience that constantly challenges the listener to confront change and emotion.
“This record is entertaining and leaves you hungry for more. A charming provocation that reverberates in our whirring minds – between beauty, the shadows, and (supposedly) grime.”
writes freelance curator Louis Rastig in his liner notes for the album. Talking about the development of Totenhagen’s career and style, he says:
“Nature does not deal in “too much.” Totenhagen is its medium, and Raw is Totenhagen in a nutshell. The artistic manifestation of the Divine Feminine, she distances herself from the normative baggage of her roots through collaborative works-in-progress, taking us on a journey to the evolution of her actual self.”
•••
Line-up:
Laura Totenhagen - Voice + FX
DoYeon Kim - Gayageum
Sara Schoenbeck - Bassoon
Nick Dunston - Double Bass
Anton Kaun - Noise-Art
Lucy Liebe - Guitar + FX
•••
Release: 8.11.2024
Recording:
Lily Wen (Track 1-4), Figure8 Recordings Brooklyn, NYC
Reinhard Kobialka (Track 5-6), TOPAZ - Audio Studios, Cologne
Daniel Door (Track 7), SVS Studios, Munich
Dominik Ehrl (Track 8), Watt Matters Studio, Bielefeld
Mixing:
Christian Heck (Tracks 1-6), Manu Rzytki (Track 7), Lucy Liebe (Track 8)
Mastering - Lukas Fehling
Cover:
Artwork photographies - Bảo Ngô
Bioplastic Rose, Bioplastic Water Bra and Single Row Tutu - Caroline Zimbalist
Nails - BarberSpa BK
Postproduction - Thomas Lambertz
Art direction - Laura Totenhagen
•••
The album has been released digitally and will be available on vinyl.
Theresia Philipp – seeds of sweat available to listen to on Deutschlandfunk
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Theresia Philipp – seeds of sweat available to listen to on Deutschlandfunk
The concert premiere from 4th September 2024 will be broadcast on “Jazz Live” in November
As a part of the Cologne Jazzweek 2024, Theresia Philipp presented her new band seeds of sweat and gave the first performance of her compositions especially for this line up. Parts of the concert will be broadcast on Deutschlandfunk’s “Jazz Live” on 19th November 2024. The Cologne-based saxophonist, clarinettist and composer Philipp has brought individually strong musicians together and laid foundations down for a collaboration which does not care for supposed genre boundaries, and lives up to Philipp’s claim to be a political subject as an artist. Texts by Philipp herself and other authors, including Ber Alena, Koleka Putuma and Katja Hummel, emphasise this.
This concert premiere was made possible by the co-operation between NICA artist development and Cologne Jazzweek under the title ‘NICA exchange’.
First broadcast: 19th November 2024 at 21:05 in the programme “Jazz Live” on Deutschlandfunk. Moderation: Sophie Emilie Beha
Line-up:
Theresia Philipp – saxophone, clarinet
Lynn Cassiers – vocals, efx
Shannon Barnett – trombone, vocals
Keisuke Matsuno – guitar
Robert Lucaciu – bass
Kresten Osgood – drums
Recording from 04.09.2024 at Cologne Jazzweek, Stadtgarten Köln
These are the NICA artists 2024!
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These are the NICA artists 2024!
After being nominated by selected North Rhine-Westphalian event organisers, music journalists and other cultural professionals, the artists living in NRW were selected by a jury of experts.
We are pleased to announce the following participants as NICA artists of the 5th funding generation:
- Jorik Bergman (flutist, *1996)
- Jonas Engel (saxophonist, *1990)
- Felix Hauptmann (pianist, *1993)
- Thomas Sauerborn (percussionist, *1987)
- Emily Wittbrodt (cellist, *1994)
Special features of NICA artist development are the funding period of up to three years and the individual adaptability of the funding programme to the needs of the specific NICA artist to enable them to position themselves as an established artist. Through residencies, masterclasses, concert and rehearsal opportunities, participants can develop further in a focused way as part of the funding programme. International projects are also intended to promote networking in the European music scene. Coaching sessions and workshops offer support in business topics such as marketing, project management and production. At concerts in the NICA live series - an experimental field for bringing together new band constellations, solo formats or curated programmes - at Stadtgarten Köln or at the venues and festivals of cooperation partners, the participants also gain experience in a professional event context.
The jury members are Friederike Darius, part of the Metropole Orkest management team, Prof Anette von Eichel from the Cologne University of Music and Dance, music journalist and WDR Cosmo presenter Uh-Young Kim, author, sound artist and performer Prof Dr Swantje Lichtenstein, double bassist and board member of the Kölner Jazz Haus e. V. initiative Ulla Oster, artistic director of Stadtgarten Köln Kornelia Vossebein and music journalist Christian Werthschulte. Thomas Baerens, Head of the Music Department at the Ministry of Culture and Science, chaired the jury for the last time this year.
Album Release: Tamara Lukasheva & INSO Lviv Orchestra "Anima"
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Album Release: Tamara Lukasheva & INSO Lviv Orchestra "Anima"
The German-Ukrainian singer and composer Tamara Lukasheva has released the album “Anima” on Tangible Music together with the International Symphony Orchestra Lviv.
“I don’t want to sing these songs with anger, hatred or aggression, instead I want to give something comforting. I want to bring us back to the state of humanity,” says Tamara Lukasheva about her newly released music. “Anima”, which means “soul” in Latin, reflects Lukasheva’s deep-rooted belief in the power of music to express emotions and unite people.
The German-Ukrainian artist, who grew up in a musical household and trained in classical piano, combines jazz, chanson and elements of classical music in her works without limiting herself to a specific genre. Her songs, some of which she composes and arranges herself, have a tender but untamed power, which is further enhanced by the participation of trumpeter Matthias Schriefl and INSO Lviv, especially during the war-related recordings in October 2023.
On “Anima”, Lukasheva dedicates herself to the representation of themes such as justice, democracy and human rights, which she defends through the power of her music and artistic expression. Her lyrics, some of which come from poets such as Theodor Fontane and Clemens Brentano, are of universal relevance and address global conflicts, but also offer personal insights into Lukasheva’s own experiences and feelings.
With “Anima”, Tamara Lukasheva reaches a new level of musical creativity that not only impresses but also inspires. Her songs are an appeal to humanity, a poetic counterweight to the challenges of our time. She combines her diverse musical influences to create an impressive overall picture that both reflects reality and offers a space for recovery and renewed vigour. This album is not just a collection of songs, it is a movement, a voice that needs to be heard to grasp the full depth of its message.
From 2019 to 2023, Tamara Lukasheva was supported by NICA artist development in her individual artistic profiling and professionalisation. We are delighted that we were able to accompany Tamara part of her journey with the opportunities offered by the programme and congratulate her on the release of “Anima”.
Further information:
Tamara Lukasheva & INSO Lviv: “Anima”
Tamara Lukasheva – Gesang, Komposition, Arrangement
International Symphony Orchestra Lviv Ltg.: Boris Kreslenko
Label: Tangible Music
Recorded at Philharmonie Lviv, October 18–20, 2023: Andrii Mokrytskyi & Assistent Oleksii Hrytsyshyn
Edits: Andrii Mokrytskyi
Mixing: Jonathan Hoffmann
Mastering: Alex Kloss
Photos: Harald Hoffmann & Patrick Essex
Artwork: Holger Risse
Produced: Tamara Lukasheva
Executive Producer: Janning Trumann
“Anima” ist digital, auf CD und als Vinyl erhältlich.
Album Release: Fabian Dudek "Distant Skies, We Dream"
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Album Release: Fabian Dudek "Distant Skies, We Dream"
“Distant Skies, We Dream” released on Traumton Records
Nuanced to powerful, always extremely attentive in their interplay, a working band that has noticeably grown together, a dynamic spectrum ranging from quiet to passionately escalating passages, contrasts and condensations - that is Fabian Dudek’s quartet.
Dudek released his quartet’s debut album Creating Meaning (Fixcel) in 2019 and the follow-up album Isolated Flowers (Traumton) in 2022. Both productions and the band’s concerts met with an enthusiastic response, with the latter being nominated for the German Record Critics’ Award. Now Dudek’s quartet presents new works on „Distant Skies, We Dream“.
The already remarkably high quality has been raised even further through Dudek’s sophisticated compositions, whose rhythmic sophistication and precise detail set a striking mark in the contemporary jazz landscape. And through open spaces, which can be shaped by his fellow musicians and invite improvisations, on a terrain that is undoubtedly broader than before. For example, when pianist Felix Hauptmann references the aesthetic of modern Classical music four-minute intro to the opus magnum „The River Flows Everywhere” and later in the same piece plays in an almost impressionistic manner. The music also thrives on the fact that they can surprise each other. „To achieve this the pieces need to have a certain openness, perhaps even fragility, that allows different paths.”
The album, which was recorded as part of the „NICA live” concert series at JAKI, was released on 24 May 2024 by Traumton Records.
What was planned as a studio production surprisingly turned out to be a live recording in the end. „We had recorded the pieces in the Fattoria and actually thought the results were great,” says Dudek, “especially as we had already polished the repertoire in concerts beforehand.” Back in Cologne, the quartet gave a concert at JAKI, „which was actually a bit difficult. All the more we all played ‘on fire’ and the gig developed an extremely strong energy.” Due to the intensity of the interplay, it was decided quickly to use only the live recordings for the album, even though the piano in the club did not have the sound quality of the grand piano at the studio. „I look for and sometimes need a bit of dirt,” grins Dudek, who appreciates not only Coltrane, Feldman, Ives and Sakamoto, but also James Brown with Maceo Parker, Tom Waits and some hip-hop artists.
„This album is a milestone for me personally, because I’m now at a point that I’ve been striving for for a long time,”
summarises Fabian Dudek with contentment.
„I have been seeking to get a band to flow and at the same time integrate experimental aspects into the music. We’ve managed to do that really well and it’s extremely fun to play the pieces.”
For all its emotional power, the band is more pointed than ever, consistently realising small-scale structures and letting its expressiveness flare up in a targeted manner. Further facets of this impressive development are the expansion of the sound colour palette, above all through David Helm’s electric bass, but also the synthesiser, Dudek’s punctually shimmering flute and his extremely variable expression on the saxophone.
Line-up:
Fabian Dudek – alto-saxophone, flute, compositions
Felix Hauptmann – piano, synthesizer
David Helm – bass
Fabian Arends – drums
•••
Recording: Dirk Schmidt
Mixing & Mastering: Martin Ruch
Cover art and design: Benjamin Rueckert
•••
The album was released on CD and is also available digitally.
In his exhibition ‘bichrom’, photographer Patrick Essex shows pictures by NICA artists
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In his exhibition ‘bichrom’, photographer Patrick Essex shows pictures by NICA artists
Stadtgarten Köln and NICA artist development present Patrick Essex’s “bichrom” - New exhibition and new lighting concept in the concert foyer and restaurant
Photographer Patrick Essex has created the “bichrom” series especially for the Stadtgarten Köln, which presents musicians in shadowy two-colour images.
The seven musicians depicted are former and current participants of NICA artist development. Using light, transparencies and various glass filters, Essex created a visual framework in his photo studio, which Leif Berger, Elisabeth Coudoux, Marlies Debacker, Fabian Dudek, Pablo Gīw, Theresia Philipp and Rebekka Salomea Ziegler freely interpreted with or without instruments in motion.
Patrick Essex’s flair for light and colour has produced a series of photographs that accentuate the artistic individuality of those depicted and arouse curiosity about music through the dynamism of the images. Stylist Sabine Berlipp is responsible for the musicians’ strikingly vibrant outfits.
The exhibition opening will take place on 27th May 2024 from 6:30pm.
Afterwards, we look forward to a NICA live concert by singer-songwriter and producer RAY LOZANO and interdisciplinary musician douniah at JAKI.
Album release: Debacker | Javaid - Convolution
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Album release: Debacker | Javaid - Convolution
“Convolution” released by impakt Records
impakt Records presents the new album by Marlies Debacker (Piano, Clavinet) and Salim(a) Javaid (Saxophone) entitled “Convolution”.
Convolution is an attempt to fuse saxophone and piano into a meta-instrument. The music draws an inquisitive and melancholic portrait of shades reminiscent of the past – reverberations, echoes, resonances – and transforms them into musical material.
The musicians distil influences from contemporary (chamber) music, free improvisation and electronics into a dense, dark soundscape full of tension. Memories of different playing styles, aesthetics and atmospheres serve as the basis for the inherent mechanisms of the five individual parts of Convolution.
Despite numerous musical pauses, the music hardly contains any silence. A central material of the pieces with piano is working with reverberation and modulation of the internal resonances of the piano. These constantly changing shades of sound events become malleable material in the interaction of pianistic actions (such as pedalling and silently depressing keys) with the saxophone.
The saxophone plays in the range of the reverb‘s activation threshold, so that it is sometimes caught in the resonances and sometimes merges with them.
The way it is recorded draws the listener into this world of reminiscent shades and opens their ears to the nuances of sound.
“Debacker and Salim(a) Javaid make improvised contemporary music with liveliness and plenty of room for silence.“
Line-up:
Marlies Debacker - Piano, clavinet
Salim(a) Javaid - Saxophones
•••
Recorded January (live: 1, 4) & February 2023 at LOFT Köln, by Stefan Deistler
Mixed and mastered July 2023 Stefan Deistler
Cover art and design by Markus Dorninger, Stefan Schönegg
•••
The album was released on CD and is also available as digital version.
Record release: Stefan Schönegg / Enso: A Simplified Space
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Record release: Stefan Schönegg / Enso: A Simplified Space
“Enso: A Simplified Space” released on impakt Records
impakt Records presents the new album by Stefan Schönegg “Enso: A Simplified Space” with Marlies Debacker (piano), Stefan Schönegg (double bass) and Etienne Nillesen (extended snare drum).
Huge swaths of silence separate sounds on the latest album from Cologne bassist Stefan Schönegg’s long running project Enso. The absence frames each gesture - a surface rubbed, a string thwacked, and an expanse of wood struck - and frequently allows the listener to truly experience every utterance on its own, rather than as a component within a larger structure - even if that remains exactly what they are. Nearly all of the sounds produced by the bassist with his long-time collaborator, extended snare drum master Etienne Nillesen and pianist Marlies Debacker, deviate from what we expect from their respective instruments, but the various extended techniques at play aren’t the focus. Indeed, these musicians have all developed sophisticated, elusive languages over years of research and practice, yet they are merely tools in the context of this new transmission from Enso.
Line-up:
Marlies Debacker - Piano
Stefan Schönegg - Double bass
Etienne Nillesen - Extended snare drum
•••
Recorded April 2023 at Chamber Music Hall Deutschlandfunk, Cologne, Germany
Producer: Thomas Loewner
Recording producer: Stephan Schmidt
Recording engineer: Hendrik Manook, Philipp Wissler
Recording technician: Jens Müller
Mastering: Giuseppe Ielasi
Liner notes: Peter Margasak
Cover art and design: Markus Dorninger, Stefan Schönegg
•••
The album was released on CD and is also available as digital version.
Ray Lozano honoured with the Holger Czukay Prize 2023
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Ray Lozano honoured with the Holger Czukay Prize 2023
Congratulations!
Singer-songwriter and producer Ray Lozano - NICA artist 2023 - was honoured with the Holger Czukay Future Prize last night. The Holger Czukay Prize honours artists who have left their mark on Cologne or who have influenced and helped shape current developments.
The jury’s statement said, among other things:
“Ray Lozano demonstrates an outstanding flair for innovative and forward-looking sounds. […] Ray Lozano’s self-determined yet quirky soul sound, somewhere between indie, low-fidelity pop and hip-hop, has the potential to reach many people far beyond the borders of Cologne.”
The award ceremony was hosted by Mayor Henriette Reker at Club Bahnhof Ehrenfeld. The “Holger Czukay Prize for Pop Music of the City of Cologne” 2023 was awarded to the band KLEE. To honour their life’s work, the Holger Czukay Honorary Award was given to the band Floh de Cologne. This year, the Future Prize, awarded to Ray Lozano, was presented for the first time.
As part of the concert evening NICA live special on Friday 5 January 2024, the evening before WINTERJAZZ Köln, Ray Lozano will perform alongside five other NICA artists at Stadtgarten Köln/ JAKI. NICA live special is not open to the public and is primarily reserved for national and international professionals. The interested public will be able to register in advance. Further information will follow soon.
»Night of Surprise« at Stadtgarten Köln
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»Night of Surprise« at Stadtgarten Köln
NICA artist Sophie Emilie Beha is part of the »Night of Surprise« programming team.
On Saturday, 14 October, »Night of Surprise« takes place for the tenth time at Stadtgarten Köln. Since 2013, the one-night festival brings music on stage in all rooms of the venue with free admission, explicitly inviting people to leave their listening habits or genre labels at home and discover something new.
The artistic director is curator Thomas Gläßer. Since last year’s edition of the event, curator and music journalist Sophie Emilie Beha is also part of the Night of Surprise programme team. Starting in late 2022, she has been supported as a curator as part of NICA artist development and this year, for example, she was artistically responsible for »Houbara - Resonanzen Iran«, a two-day festival at the concert hall and Klub Jaki at Stadtgarten. Also involved in the programming of this experimental night on Saturday this week are Meryem Erkus, Friedemann Dupelius and Kieran Kaul.
On the tenth anniversary, »Night of Surprise« spreads her wings and starts on October 12 with Catherine Lamb’s Descensus Trio at Christuskirche and continues tomorrow evening with a concert by Trickster Orchestra at Stadtgarten.
»Night of Surprise« is an event of the European Centre for Jazz and Contemporary Music Stadtgarten Köln in cooperation with the Centre for Contemporary Music ZAM.
Philip Zoubek Trio Extended releases »Mirage«
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Philip Zoubek Trio Extended releases »Mirage«
Philip Zoubek presents breathtaking new album
With his trio with double bassist David Helm and drummer Dominik Mahnig, pianist Philip Zoubek has once again inscribed unexpected facets and forms into perhaps the most classical jazz format - with remarkably conclusive results. Seamless transitions between composition and improvisation characterise the albums released so far, »Outside« (2016), »Nonplaces« (2020) and »Labyrinthus« (2022). Between contemplative calm, repetitive and high improvisational intensity, the musicians also create atmospheres beyond the usual by incorporating electronics, preparations of the grand piano and extended techniques.
For their new album »Mirage«, the trio has grown: expanded to a sextet, it presents its most radical work to date. With the addition of cello, woodwinds and percussion, the sextet creates luminous and sometimes orchestrally charged character pieces between jazz, new music, electronics and ambient. Kaleidoscope-like, this music shimmers in many colours that emerge from and merge into each other. The result is a trenchant ensemble music, a group sound that is originally unspent - full of tension and elasticity.
“»Mirage« is the result of an organic unity, a condensation of rhythms into sounds and sounds into structure, which is indeed breathtaking,” writes music journalist Felix Klopotek in the magazine Stadtrevue.
»Mirage« is released on 15 September 2023 on the Austrian label Boomslang Records and is available as CD, LP and download.
•••
Line-up Philip Zoubek Trio Extended:
Philip Zoubek - (prepared) piano, synthesizer, composition
David Helm - bass
Dominik Mahnig - drums
Elisabeth Coudoux - cello
Leonhard Huhn - woodwinds
Shiau-Shiuan Hung- vibraphone, cello
These are the NICA artists 2023!
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These are the NICA artists 2023!
After being nominated by selected North Rhine-Westphalian event organisers, music journalists and other cultural professionals, the artists living in NRW were selected by a jury of experts.
We are pleased to announce the following participants who will start as 4th generation NICA artists in September this year:
- Marlies Debacker (pianist, *1992)
- Ray Lozano (Singer-Songwriter, *1989)
- Theresia Philipp (saxophonist, *1991)
- Stefan Schönegg (Bassist, *1986)
All those supported since 2022 - Sophie Emilie Beha (curation), Fabian Dudek (saxophone), Kira Hummen (vocals), Luise Volkmann (saxophone) and Rebekka Salomea Ziegler (vocals) remain part of the programme. So does Laura Totenhagen (vocals), part of the second supported generation of 2020. NICA artist development enters the new funding year with a total of ten NICA artists. NICA artist development wishes all the musicians who will be leaving in autumn - after completing their full funding period - Heidi Bayer (trumpet), Janning Trumann (trombone), Philip Zoubek (piano), Pablo Gīw (trumpet) and Tamara Lukasheva (voice) - all the best for their future careers.
Read the full press release on our website.
Fabian Dudek receives Horst and Gretl Will Scholarship for Jazz and Improvised Music 2023
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Fabian Dudek receives Horst and Gretl Will Scholarship for Jazz and Improvised Music 2023
Congratulations!
Saxophonist and composer Fabian Dudek - NICA artist 2022 - receives the Horst and Gretl Will Scholarship for Jazz and Improvised Music 2023, which is awarded to promote contemporary music and the free artistic development of young musicians.
The prize-winner’s concert will take place as part of the Cologne Jazzweek in the concert hall of the Stadtgarten Köln. This means that Fabian will be performing live on two following days with two new line-ups featuring national and international colleagues and new compositions.
14 August // 21:00 // Stadtgarten Köln
NICA exchange x CJW: dudek carnival | an empty room, then smiling | feat. Sasha Berliner, Felix Hauptmann, Fabian Dudek, Simon Jermyn, Lesley Mok
15 August // 20:00 // Stadtgarten Köln
Horst and Gretl Will Scholarship - Prize Winner Concert feat. Fabian Dudek, Roger Kintopf, David Helm, Felix Hauptmann, Kirke Karja, Alexander Parzhuber, Leif Berger
NICA artist Heidi Bayer wins German Jazz Award 2023
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NICA artist Heidi Bayer wins German Jazz Award 2023
This year’s award ceremony took place on April 27 at the Metropol Theater in Bremen.
At the award ceremony of the third edition of the German Jazz Prize 2023, trumpeter and composer Heidi Bayer - NICA artist since 2020 - won in the category “Composition of the Year” for the piece “Cookie Dough” from her album and eponymous project KORSH, released in April 2022.
The prize for “Festival of the Year” was given to Cologne Jazzweek. Delighted for the KJK (Kölner Jazzkonferenz) is, among others, managing director Janning Trumann, also NICA artist since 2020.
Special congratulations also go to other award winners from Cologne, such as the Loft, which received the award for “Venue of the Year” for the second time. The versatile multi-instrumentalist Matthias Schriefl, who frequently graces the stages of the Stadtgarten, was also able to bring the “Brass Player of the Year” award back to Cologne. And the prize for the best “Album Vocal” went to the trio LUAH.
Congratulations to all nominees and winners of the German Jazz Award 2023!
Albumrelease: Luise Volkmann's »Rites de Passage«
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Albumrelease: Luise Volkmann's »Rites de Passage«
What is more alive - the ghost ship that comes to mind when listening to »Rites de passages« or the world of consumer goods in which we ascribe a life of its own to dead things? And what is more eerie - the prevailing conditions or ghostly music that takes on the real spook in all urgency?
Luise Volkmann’s »Rites de passage« is music of resistance and transition. It contrasts the life in which we settle with a utopian space that has yet to be established. The musical transformations take their cues from the concept of ritual. But Volkmann’s artistic “rituality check” is also a political reality check that evokes the question of how we can overcome walls that actually exist in fact? Walls in the minds of hard heads. Concrete walls at borders. She neither adheres to preconceived genres nor does she stop at crossing the last threshold of existence - the preoccupation with death.
Luise Volkmann sees herself as an artist with a social idea of music. This self-conception expresses itself through the pieces of »Rites de passage« - performatively. They are the first songs she has published under her own name exclusively. Her starting point was the idea of foregrounding compositional experimentation over improvisation. At the same time, there is personal history in the collectivist spirit of the album, which is released in two slightly different versions on vinyl and CD on nWog Records. The recordings, made with varying ensembles over the last few years in different places, reveal a clear signature. They are the soundtrack of a period of life.
The cover photo shoot with Thekla Ehling was supported by NICA artist development. So is the live premiere of »Rites de passage« with the participation of 18 musicians on the 15th of April 2023 at Stadtgarten Köln.
»Rites de passage« was released via the label nWog Records and is available on bandcamp.
Pablo Gīw and Mariel Roberts release their album "Kryo"
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Pablo Gīw and Mariel Roberts release their album "Kryo"
Listen in to sweeping landscape music, huge horizontal lines and tiny sounding mountains.
NICA artist Pablo Gīw and New York cellist Mariel Roberts release their duo record „Kryo“ today!
The album is available on all streaming platforms, as well as on a limited tape edition which is available through Bandcamp.
”Kryo” is a spacious landscape music, creating huge horizontal lines and tiny sounding mountains, a melancholic cosmos that gathers in the corner of a frozen creek. Trumpeter Pablo Gīw from Cologne, Germany and Mariel Roberts extend their instruments sound capabilities with a versatile palette of extended playing techniques as well as effect pedals, to create a calm yet complex improvised music. Kryo is the duos first release.
Meet the NICA artists 2022!
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Meet the NICA artists 2022!
Boost for the independent music scene: NICA artist development starts 3rd funding round in September with five new artists and a new management team.
After being nominated by selected North Rhine-Westphalian organizers, music journalists and other cultural entrepreneurs, the artists living in NRW were selected by a jury of experts.
We are pleased to announce the following participants who will start this September as 3rd generation NICA artists:
• Sophie Emilie Beha (Curation, *1997)
• Fabian Dudek (Saxophone, *1995)
• Kira Hummen (Voice, *1994)
• Luise Volkmann (Saxophone, *1992)
• Rebekka Salomea Ziegler (Voice, *1991)
Since spring this year, a new management team for NICA artist development has been formed: Esther Weickel (head of project) and Ella O’Brien-Coker (project coordination) have taken over the funding program from Kornelia Vossebein, who is the new artistic director of Stadtgarten Cologne since July 1st, 2022. For Weickel and O’Brien-Coker, communication and trust are key to ensuring that the needs of NICA artists for their professional development can be identified, articulated, and consequently realized.
They are excited to begin this process in 2022 with the 3rd funding round, working together with the new NICA artists and those who remain in the funding program to explore thoughtful ways to support them individually, while at the same time advancing the possibilities of NICA artist development.
More information in the official press info.
For general information about NICA artist development.
»NICA exchange« at Cologne Jazzweek
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»NICA exchange« at Cologne Jazzweek
European exchange project by NICA artist development / Stadtgarten Cologne in cooperation with Cologne Jazzweek 2022
This summer, »NICA exchange« will take place for the first time as part of Cologne Jazzweek at Stadtgarten Köln. The cooperation project between the NICA artist development program and Cologne Jazzweek 2022 enables European musicians, especially from the fields of jazz and improvised music, to perform on the stages of the Cologne festival. The focus of the concert series is to create spaces of exchange for a young, experimental generation of musicians, to encourage sustainable networking and creative exchange, and at the same time, in the context of the festival, to initiate a connection with an audience open to new discoveries.
This year the countries involved are France, the Netherlands, Poland, and Belgium. The selected artists for »NICA exchange« were chosen in cooperation with local NICA partner organizations (Bimhuis Amsterdam, RAUW Festival Rotterdam, JazzLab Belgium, INTL Jazzplatform Poland and AJC Jazz France), which in turn invite NICA artists and support them in research, networking and presentation.
The project focuses, in addition to international acquaintance, the stage as a place of encounter. This is the case with the concert Deman meets Coudoux/Muche on August 15th in the Green Room of the Stadtgarten, where the Belgian musician Berlinde Deman (tba/srp) meets the German musicians Matthias Muche (trb) and NICA artist Elisabeth Coudoux (vclo).
Cologne Jazzweek has been taking place in downtown Cologne since 2021. For a full week, the diverse program offers its audience a cross-section of the Cologne, as well as German and international jazz scene. In addition to the stages at Stadtgarten Köln, concerts will also take place at the WDR Sendesaal, CBE, Sartory Saal and Open Air at Ebertplatz.
- 15.08. 18:00 Green Room Deman meets Coudoux/Muche (DE/BE)
- 15.08. 19:00 Green Room Bonsai Panda (NL)
- 17.08. 22:30 JAKI Sun-Mi Hong Quintet (NL)
- 19.08. 18:00 Green Room Charley Rose Trio (FR)
- 19.08. 19:30 Green Room Amalia Umeda Quartet (PL)
Official press release
Fotocredits:
Elisabeth Coudoux © Nadine Heller-Menzel
Berlinde Deman © Jan Rouwens
Matthias Muche © Lutz Voigtlaender
Deutscher Jazzpreis 2022 verliehen – NICA artists ausgezeichnet
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Deutscher Jazzpreis 2022 verliehen – NICA artists ausgezeichnet
Deutscher Jazzpreis 2022 in Bremen
At this year’s German Jazz Award ceremony, the joy on the part of Stadtgarten and NICA artist development was great on several occasions:
The Stadtgarten Cologne is pleased to receive the German Jazz Award 2022 in the category “Venue of the Year”!
NICA artist Pablo Held was awarded in the category “Piano/Keyboards”!
Other NICA artists nominated were: Heidi Beyer (brass instruments) and Tamara Lukasheva as part of the ensemble Hard Boiled Wonderland - Music Resistance (Album Vocal of the Year). Congratulations for the nominations and winning the award!
Further information, as well as the official press release of the Stadtgarten Köln can be found here.
Click here for the official website of the Deutscher Jazzpreis.
свобода і мир - Freedom and Peace // Concert in solidarity with Ukranian musicians
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свобода і мир - Freedom and Peace // Concert in solidarity with Ukranian musicians
Tuesday, 01 March 2022, 20.00 h, Stadtgarten Cologne
On the initiative of the Ukrainian NICA artist Tamara Lukasheva, who lives in Cologne, and under the patronage of the Mayor of Cologne, Henriette Reker, we are organizing a solidarity concert for the musicians living and working in Ukraine upcoming Tuesday.
We share the deep dismay that Russia’s aggressive belligerent invasion of Ukraine has caused and stand in solidarity with all people living in Ukraine, here especially with the musicians. To support msuicians directly, we not only want to stand in solidarity with them, but also provide them with money as soon as possible.
So, together with NICA artist Tamara Lukasheva, we will find a way to pass all the income generated from this concert and other actions (entrance fees, donations, fee for WDR broadcasting rights, etc.) directly to those affected.
We would like to see a strong participation as a sign of our solidarity with Ukraine.
You can still donate for musicians in the Ukraine here
More information
Winter Jazz in Space: New Webisodes Series
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Winter Jazz in Space: New Webisodes Series
The 11th edition of the “Winterjazz Köln” festival, which was to take place from January 7 to 8, 2022 with NICA artist developemtn in Stadtgarten Köln, unfortunately had to be canceled due to the current Corona situation. Since then, we have been working at full speed to make the music of the program audible to the public in its freshness and spirit of exploration, despite the circumstances.
This resulted in the new webisodes series “Winterjazz in Space”, which will be available with a total of 6 broadcasts each 3 bands from 7 to 12 January 2022 on www.stadtgarten.de and the Facebook channels of the Stadtgarten. The premiere will take place on the first day actually scheduled for the festival, Friday, January 7, at 8 pm.
PROGRAM
Friday, Jan. 7, 8 pm
Matthew Halpin - Frown Town
Elisabeth Coudoux - Violoncello solo
RE: CALAMARI
Saturday, January 8, 8 pm
NAU Trio
Giw & Kilonzo SUM
LARIZA
Sunday, January 9, 7 pm
Janning Trumann 4
Laura Totenhagen solo
Roger Kintopf STRUCTUCTURE
Monday, January 10, 7 pm
BÖRT
Leif Berger “The Noise Trumpets of Nothing”
Daniel Tamayo Quintet
Tuesday, January 11, 7 pm
TAU5
Heidi Bayer KORSH
Lukoshko
Wednesday, January 12, 7 pm
Barbara Barth ALL OR NOTHING AT ALL
THE RESONATORS
Luciel
*All information is subject to change. Program may be subject to change at short notice.*
More information: www.winterjazzkoeln.com
Cancelled: Winterjazz Köln 2022
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Cancelled: Winterjazz Köln 2022
Due to the current pandemic situation, the Winter Jazz Festival 2022 unfortunately has to be cancelled without replacement. More information about this can be found here.
New exchange project between Rotterdam, Nijmegen and Cologne
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New exchange project between Rotterdam, Nijmegen and Cologne
This autumn ‘The Rotterdam Nijmegen Köln Exchange’ will kick off – the exchange project between RAUW Festival Rotterdam, Festival Jazz International Nijmegen and NICA artist development / Stadtgarten Köln. The aim is to give selected artists from Rotterdam, Nijmegen and Cologne the opportunity to exchange ideas about performing at the participating partner organisations and to get to know the respective music, music scene and professional network in the other cities during their short stay. Joining us in this first edition are Heidi Bayer (NICA), Jo Goes Hunting and Bonsai Panda.
Dates:
19.10.21 / NICA presents: Jo Goes Hunting, JAKI in Stadtgarten Köln
28.10.21 / Heidi Bayer (VIRTUAL LEAK), RAUW Festival, Rotterdam
30.10.21 / Heidi Bayer (VIRTUAL LEAK), Festival Jazz International Nijmegen
17.01.22 / NICA presents: Bonsai Panda, JAKI in Stadtgarten Köln
You can find more information here.
Multimedia-Instellation SUMMER
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Multimedia-Instellation SUMMER
SUMMER is a collaborative audio-visual work by composer and producer Sonae and video artist Jennifer Trees. The walk-through multimedia constellation will be shown for the first time at Stadtgarten Cologne. Tickets can be purchased for 7 p.m., 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. here.
Climate change today poses an imminent threat to life on our planet. SUMMER stages a revealing confrontation with this provocative truth in a floor-to-ceiling A/V installation consisting of two screens placed opposite each other; the audience is positioned in between. The installation creates a space in which to feel honest, perhaps difficult emotions such as fear for the environment and grief for our changed planet. Or to indulge in denial, because the installation also offers the possibility to close one’s eyes. The two screens show different perspectives. In this way, SUMMER places its audience at the center of the problem, forcing them to make a decision at that moment and highlighting their respective active roles in the current climate crisis.
SUMMER was produced with the support of NICA Artist Development and the European Center for Jazz and Contemporary Music at Stadtgarten Cologne. Sonae’s eponymous album will be released on 04.10.2021 by LAAPS.
Sonae & Trees SUMMER © Katja Ruge
NICA Sommerspecial
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NICA Sommerspecial
Es ist Sommerpause!
Ab September meldet sich das NICA Magazin mit neuen Formaten zurück. Um die Wartezeit zu verkürzen, präsentieren wir im Juli und August ausgewählte Highlights aus vergangenen NICA Konzerten im Stadtgarten Konzertsaal und Green Room. Den Anfang machte Elisabeth Coudoux mit ihrer Band Emiszatett – hochkonzentrierte Improvisationen auf dem schmalen Grat zwischen Struktur und Auflösung.
Am 30.07. folgt dann Pablo Giw mit Salomea und Kelvin Kilonzo – in dieser spannenden Dreier-Konstellation werden Improvisationen in Worte und Bewegungen übersetzt, während Jazz sich in Beat Music und dekonstruierten HipHop verwandelt.
Photo: Pablo Giw by Nathan Ishar / Pramudiya
Pablo Gīw's quartet Stellar Banger releases new EP "Data Is"
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Pablo Gīw's quartet Stellar Banger releases new EP "Data Is"
On May 21, 2021 NICA Artist Pablo Giw is releasing the new EP »Data Is« on Ruptured Records with his electro-acoustic quartet Stellar Banger, which is composed of Lebanese musicians Ali Hout and Abed Kobeissy and German musicians Pablo Giw and Joss Turnbull.
The roots of this unique collaboration were laid down during the 2019 iteration of Irtijal Festival in Beirut, when the four men played together for the first time following their respective festival sets. The next year, right before the eruption of the Coronavirus pandemic, they set about working on a set of concrete recordings, from their homes in Beirut, Berlin, Köln and Turin. The resulting, freeform pieces were reworked, stretched and recomposed under varying states of lockdown, over the course of six months and 28 highly kinetic Zoom meetings.
The approach behind Stellar Banger is one of complete musical freedom, away from pre-assigned functions of instrumental / cultural roles, oblivious to the borders separating acoustic and digital media. At the heart of the quartet’s creative process is the notion of instant composing; improvisation with an experimental mindset, drum machines and electronic beats used in an open and intuitive manner, creating an identifiable sonic identity and structure.
The EP can be pre-ordered here. For more information, visit https://giwmusic.com/stellar-banger.
Photo: Stellar Banger by Niclas Weber
New concert series at Stadtgarten Cologne: »NICA live«
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New concert series at Stadtgarten Cologne: »NICA live«
From June 2021, the artists of the NICA artist development programme will present their musical ideas and visions at »NICA live« every Monday at 8 p.m. in the open-air concert space of the »Green Room« in Cologne’s Stadtgarten.
Tickets are available here.
For more information on the NICA Artist Development Programme and its artists click here.
Photo credits: Tamara Lukasheva © Annette Etges
WDR Jazzpreis 2021 - Preisträgerkonzert von Tamara Lukasheva
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WDR Jazzpreis 2021 - Preisträgerkonzert von Tamara Lukasheva
Die NICA-Künstlerin Tamara Lukasheva ist die Gewinnerin des WDR Jazzpreis 2021 Komposition. Ihr Preisträgerkonzert mit der WDR Big Band kann jetzt hier in voller Länge angesehen werden.
Tamara Lukasheva releases new single »Singet Leise«
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Tamara Lukasheva releases new single »Singet Leise«
NICA artist Tamara Lukasheva bringt vor der Veröffentlichung ihres neuen Solo-Albums »Gleichung« die Single »Singet Leise« heraus. Hier greift sie die Lyrik Clemens Brentanos auf und gibt dessen Gedicht »Wiegenlied« neues Leben.
The single will be released on 31/01/21 on the label wismArt, the album »Gleichung« will follow in March.
photo: © Harald Hoffmann
News from Pablo Held
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News from Pablo Held
There’s news from NICA artist Pablo Held:
His latest EP »Descent« has been released on Edition Records as a follow-up to his album »Ascent« from spring 2020.
Pablo Held also came out with some new merch: his »Investigation Notes« Notebook, for which he teamed up with a regional partner for an overall climate-neutral production. The 96 page book can be used as a notebook, a sketchbook or a journal.
ZEHN - Winterjazz Köln 2021 - January 8th & 9th
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ZEHN - Winterjazz Köln 2021 - January 8th & 9th
On its 10th anniversary on January 8th/9th, Winterjazz Köln Festival was presented in a very special format and, being a first, in cooperation with NICA. 10 artists from neighbouring European countries and from all over Germany were invited to contribute their music and perform in exclusive projects together with Cologne musicians – corona-proof and via livestream from the Stadtgarten. Participating NICA artists were Elisabeth Coudoux, Heidi Bayer, Leif Berger, Pablo Gīw, Janning Trumann, Laura Totenhagen and Philip Zoubek. Information about the programme is available at www.winterjazzkoeln.com.
The videos are available here.
New music by Philip Zoubek
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New music by Philip Zoubek
With different groups, NICA artist Philip Zoubek has released two new releases at once.
His project TAU 5 (with Philipp Gropper, Ludwig Wandinger, Petter Eldh und Moritz Baumgärtner) released their debut album »Kreise« on November 20, 2020 on the label Fun In The Church.
On October 19 he released »Torbid Daylight« with Frank Gratkowski, Robert Landfermann und Dominik Mahnig on IMPAKT veröffentlicht.
New remix by Sonae
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New remix by Sonae
On November 6, 2020 a new remix by NICA artist Sonae was released - she took on the piece »VHS«, originally published on Si Begg’s soundtrack to the movie »Peripheral«.
The remix was published on the label Noodles Recordings and is part of a remix album of the soundtrack »Peripheral Original Motion Picture Soundtrack : Remixed Volume 2« which features also features artists like Carl Finlow, Bass Kittens, Adam Schock and Militant Funk.
Tamara Lukasheva is awarded the WDR Jazzpreis 2021 for Composition!
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Tamara Lukasheva is awarded the WDR Jazzpreis 2021 for Composition!
Tamara Lukasheva, NICA artist since 2019, is awarded the WDR Jazzpreis 2021 in the category composition! Motivation: ‘Tamara Lukasheva, born in Odessa in 1988, has developed a distinct signature as a singer, and keeps on further expanding this style as composer and arranger into a profound tonal language with Eastern European hints, expressive and urban.’ A radio portrait of Tamara as well as information on other award categories are available here; and, she will be featured in detail during today’s programme on WDR 3 Jazz & World starting at 22:00: https://www1.wdr.de/radio/wdr3/programm/sendungen/wdr3-jazz-world/titelliste-jazz-world-784.html
Congratulations to all award winners!
Photo: Foto: WDR 3
NICA Magazine: New Portrait Series
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NICA Magazine: New Portrait Series
Today our NICA magazine starts with a portrait series in which we present the NICA Artists in short video clips. We start with a portrait of the cellist Elisabeth Coudoux, who moves at the intersection of different musical genres such as free improvisation, experimental music, new composed music and jazz. The portrait as well as all upcoming formats of the NICA Magazine can be viewed here.
The NICA Magazine is produced by an experienced editorial team - consisting of Martin Laurentius (Jazz thing, “Deutscher Jazzjournalisten Preis” 2017) and Felix Klopotek (Kölner StadtRevue) - in cooperation with Klangmalerei.tv.
Elisabeth Coudoux's Emißatett releases new CD »physis«
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Elisabeth Coudoux's Emißatett releases new CD »physis«
Elisabeth Coudoux’s quintet Emißatett has released its new CD »physis«.
Five outstanding musicians meet each other with high musical values such as equality, freedom, listening, and the common form of sound. The Emißatett is the realization of direct musical communication. A dense but transparent building of events is created, a complex structure. There is no intellectual definition for this experience. It is up to the listener’s state of mind whether he hears or thinks exclusively, whether he sinks into himself or looks, whether he analyses or swings into the music.
»The cello, otherwise better known as a slightly melancholic romantic, screeches, trembles and jumps into time. Together with the piano as spaceship, the snare as satellite, the bass as nutrient and the trombone as transducer they blow up the nothingness. Sounds rush by, take us with them and set us down again with stretched perception. Destination Multiverse.«
The Emißatett has existed since 2013 and was included in the 2019 funding programme of the Ministry of Culture and Science for professional, independent music ensembles.
The album is digital available at bandcamp.
NICA joins Stepping Stone Family
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NICA joins Stepping Stone Family
Introducing new community Stepping Stone
Stepping Stone is a new community aimed at empowering musicians towards sustainable international careers. The current music system has gradually lost its connection to the value of music and its creation. Stepping Stone enables an open dialogue with musicians and professionals: bottom-up, aimed at long-term relationships and committed to contribute and share.
During this year’s inJazz, Stepping Stone will be officially launched and opens a dialogue on a creator-centered approach. You are invited to step up and actively participate in this conversation together with Stepping Stone ’20 participants Berlinde Deman and Bram Stadhouders.
Stepping Stone is financially made possible by among others Grensverleggers – funding to support cultural collaborations between parties in Flanders, the province of Noord-Brabant, the province of Limburg and the province of Zeeland – and by Sabam for Culture. More information: Stepping Stone
With:
Berlinde Deman, artist-composer (BE)
Bram Stadhouders, artist-composer (NL)
Svenja Doeinck, project manager NICA, Stadgarten (DE)
Martel Ollerenshaw, Arts broker & creative producer, Sound Out (GB)
Sophie Blussé, Director, Jazz International Rotterdam (NL)
Host:
Sandra Gevaert, participatory leadership expert, coach, host, Morosoph (NL)
Lobke Aelbrecht, production manager, JazzLab (BE)
Rogier Telderman, artist, creative Powered by TINC (NL)
The online inJazz conference is English spoken.
This session takes place online via the platform NetworkTables. Please note that seats are limited and available on a first-come, first-serve basis. Save your seat now.
NICA streams
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NICA streams
In January this year the monthly series NICA presents at the Jaki started. Due to the current covid-19 situation the series cannot be continued for the time being. As long as this is the case, there will instead be »NICA streams« every Thursday, which will bring the artists of the free Cologne scene to life digitally, curated and recorded by the NICA artists Elisabeth Coudoux, Pablo Giw, Pablo Held and Tamara Lukasheva.
The first livestream will take place on Thursday, April 2 at 18:30: NICA streams Lukasheva/Gramss & Coudoux/Giw
to the livestream:
culture-stream.cologne/videos/nica-streams
Pablo Held releases new album »Ascent«
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Pablo Held releases new album »Ascent«
Pablo Held’s new album, Ascent, his second for Edition Records, is a collaboration between his long-running trio (with bassist, Robert Landfermann and drummer, Jonas Burgwinkel) and the great Brazilian guitarist Nelson Veras. Regarded as one of the most talented and adventurous pianists and improvisors in Europe, Pablo Held is building a formidable reputation, not only as a pianist of outstanding ability but also for his considerable musicality, energy and risk-taking. Ascent is highly anticipated new album, following their 10th album Investigations, praised internationally for its remarkable quality, deep communication and lyrical elegance, prompting All About Jazz to describe the group as »a world-class trio of exceptional talent«. The new album is a deeply satisfying fusion of the powerful and expressive music associated with Pablo Held’s trio and the fluid invention of Nelson Veras’s guitar stylings. Live, Pablo Held will present his new CD with two concerts on April 3 & 4, 2020 at Stadtgarten Cologne.
NICA presents: Coudoux, Giw, Held & Lukasheva - Artists in Residence 2020
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NICA presents: Coudoux, Giw, Held & Lukasheva - Artists in Residence 2020
Four Cologne musicians are the new Artists in Residence, who will help shape the programme in the Stadtgarten from 2020. On 17 December 2019, the four NICA Artists presented their current projects to the audience and invited organizers in a short performance at the Stadtgarten in Cologne. With NICA artist development, a pilot project launched this autumn by the Ministry of Culture and Science of North Rhine-Westphalia to promote jazz musicians at the European Centre for Jazz and Contemporary Music. Within a funding period of three years, it enables the selected artists to build up a professional, international network as well as a long-term presence at home and abroad, to sharpen their artistic profile and to provide them with the necessary knowledge for a successful career.
Album Release: Das Ende der Liebe "PERSIST"
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Album Release: Das Ende der Liebe "PERSIST"
Das Ende der Liebe releases the new album ‘PERSIST’ on 14 February
Together with his companions from Das Ende der Liebe, Thomas Sauerborn - NICA artist 2024 - will release the new album PERSIST on 14 February. Sauerborn and his three bandmates have been working on expanding their sound cosmos since 2014. Drawing on many years of musical cooperation, electronics, acoustics, improvisation, psychedelic and groove meet uninhibitedly. The band called their music ‘alien jazz’ on their last release Schne*e (2022), which was voted one of the top 20 albums of the year by GROOVE magazine.
For their new album PERSIST, the quartet expands into a quintet with dey non-binary, interdisciplinary artist:in su dance110: With effects and voice, dey complements the experimental sound palette of Das Ende der Liebe with familiar lightness.
Conceived as an alternative to our complicated relationship with time in the modern world, the music of Das Ende der Liebe addresses the tension between the increasingly demanding pace of modern life and our unconscious longing for moments of reflection and contemplation. Once again, Das Ende der Liebe on Persist allow the sounds of the individual to merge into a larger whole, playing with the listener’s perception: A saxophone turns out to be a voice, a percussion line slips out of the synthesis and a seeming choir proves to be not really of human origin.
If you would like to delve deeper into the band’s material, we recommend a visit to the band’s new homepage ‘DEDL Megaworld’. This is a digital and interactive archive that provides albums, live sets and also uncut studio material.
Addendum from May 15, 2025: The album PERSIST by Das Ende der Liebe was awarded the German Record Critics’ Award in the Best List 02/2025 and category “Electronic and Experimental”. Congratulations!
For a release concert, Das Ende der Liebe will be coming to NICA live on 5 June - accompanied by visual artist Lucas Grey for a fully immersive sound experience.
Listen and buy this album digitally or on Vinyl.
Line-Up:
su dance110 - Vocals, Electronics
Andreas Völk - Live Sampling, Barth Audios, Organs
Laurenz Gemmer - Yamaha CP70, Melodica, Ableton Live
Kenn Hartwig - Electric Bass, Sitar, Nintendo Gameboy
Thomas Sauerborn - Acoustic Drumset + FX Pedals, Drum Pads
•••
Released February 14th, 2025 with Anunaki Tabla
All Music composed by Das Ende der Liebe & su dance110
Recorded and Mixed by Ingo Krauss at Candy Bomber Studio
Mastered by Thomas Ölscher at Railroad Track Studios
Artwork by Eradj Yakobov
NICA live special 2025
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NICA live special 2025
NICA live special will take place for the third time on 10 January 2025!
For the third time, the concert evening NICA live special will take place on the eve of Winterjazz Köln at Stadtgarten Köln - this year at three different venues: in the concert hall and JAKI Klub in the Stadtgarten as well as in the Christuskirche, which is within walking distance.
Seven of the current thirteen NICA artists will present their current projects and music: Fabian Dudek, Felix Hauptmann, Thomas Sauerborn, Jonas Engel, Stefan Schönegg, Jorik Bergman and Emily Wittbrodt.
The partnership between Winterjazz Köln and NICA artist development has proven its worth in recent years: The two-day focus on the young, innovative improvising music scene is a further building block for the increasing visibility of musicians from North Rhine-Westphalia on national and international stages due to the creativity and commitment of its protagonists.
NICA live special is primarily organised for invited guests. Interested listeners can register for participation until January 7 at nica@stadtgarten.de.
Winterjazz Köln takes place on Saturday (11.1.) and, as always, is open to all music lovers. 14 bands with around 50 musicians will perform on three stages in Stadtgarten Köln and one in Club Zimmermanns to ring in the new concert year.
Admission to both evenings is free!
Further information about NICA live special can be found here.
Album Release: Stefan Schönegg “Enso: On a withered tree a flower blooms”
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Album Release: Stefan Schönegg “Enso: On a withered tree a flower blooms”
Stefan Schönegg’s new album “Enso: On a withered tree a flower blooms” released by impakt Records on December 13th
For his ensembles, all under the title Enso, the Cologne-based bassist, composer, and improviser Stefan Schönegg writes contemporary chamber music for various instrumentations.
Since 2016, Schönegg has focused on minimal material that allows for a patient exploration of timbres and melodic gestures and blurs the boundary between improvisation and composition. Enso has thus developed into a collective term for a growing number of participants who interpret Schönegg’s music.
“On the withered tree a flower blooms” is Enso’s 7th release and the second with Marlies Debacker on piano and Etienne Nillesen on snare drum. The almost 45-minute piece is drone music, a slow, subtle layering of meandering textures. While the previous album “A Simplified Space” was mainly about silence and expression of the moment, this album invites you to immerse yourself in a completely different way: Through the finest rhythmic and harmonic ramifications, the music develops an immediate pull, into its pure essence - the sound.
Line-Up:
Stefan Schönegg - double bass, composition
Marlies Debacker - piano
Etienne Nillesen - extended snare drum
•••
Recorded April 2023 at Chamber Music Hall Deutschlandfunk, Cologne
Released on 13th December by impakt Records
Producer – Thomas Loewner
Recording producer – Stephan Schmidt
Recording engineer – Hendrik Manook, Philipp Wissler
Recording technician – Jens Müller
Mastering – Giuseppe Ielasi
Cooperations in Focus: 2024 Review
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Cooperations in Focus: 2024 Review
Whether BIMHUIS, South Tyrol Jazz Festival Alto Adige or Kongsberg Jazz Festival. New international and national collaborations.
Creating spaces of exchange for a young, experimental generation of musicians and encouraging sustainable networking and creative exchange is one of the main focuses of NICA artist development. In the context of national and international collaborations, it is essential to initiate links with an audience that is eager to discover new things.
This year, we had the opportunity to cooperate with a number of European festivals and venues and offer opportunities for live experiences beyond the local scene.
Saxophonist and composer Fabian Dudek played a double concert with his quartet Almost at BIMHUIS in Amsterdam and at Stadtgarten Köln in June 2024. Both evenings they were accompanied by Dutch Mountain Tribe, the ensemble of Dutch saxophonist and composer Koen Boeijinga. Founded in 1974 and based at Piet Heinkade in Amsterdam since 2005, BIMHUIS is one of the most important venues for improvised music in the Netherlands.
The summer brought three international collaborations: singer and bandleader Rebekka Salomea played with SALOMEA (feat. Yannis Anft, Oliver Lutz and Leif Berger) at RADAR Festival in Varna, Bulgaria, where they gave a preview of their current album ‘Good Life’. Pianist Marlies Debacker gave a solo performance at the Kongsberg Jazz Festival, the most traditional jazz festival in Norway. With Day by Day, Fabian Dudek presented a band at the Südtirol Jazz Festival Alto Adige, which celebrated its premiere at the Cologne Jazzweek 2023.
There has been a close collaboration with Cologne Jazzweek since 2022. Theresia Philipp was commissioned to compose a piece for this year’s 4th edition of the festival, and the composer and saxophonist took the opportunity to form a new band. Seeds of Sweat performed for the first time on 4 September. Two Cologne Jazzweek concerts were curated by NICA in cooperation with the renowned Jazzfestival Saalfelden and the Jazzwerkstatt Bern, which will in turn offer a stage to the programme’s sponsored artists at their festivals in the future.
The collaboration with the Leipziger Jazztage, which began in 2023, was also successfully continued with the duo premiere of cellist and composer Emily Wittbrodt and US singer and guitarist Wendy Eisenberg.
Album Release: Totenhagen "Raw"
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Album Release: Totenhagen "Raw"
Laura Totenhagen’s new album “Raw” was released on November 8th
Improviser, singer, and composer Laura Totenhagen, NICA artist since 2020, released her new album ‘Raw’ on 8 November. The album is a compilation of five improvised duos between Totenhagen and selected musicians, with each of the duo recordings being released throughout 2025.
Having already released two albums with her a cappella quartet Of Cabbages and Kings in 2018 and 2023, Totenhagen is now continuing with her solo career. Her previous work also includes solo a cappella vocal performances, in which she uses a wide range of techniques and body movements to transform each song into a unique representation of music and expression.
Since 2020, Totenhagen’s vocal practice has undergone a radical transformation. Previously dedicated to contemporary jazz, Totenhagen can now be found in free improvisation formats with musicians such as Farida Amadou, Eve Risser or with her performative programme with solo voice. Four years ago, the Cologne-based musician embarked on a confrontational exploration of her previous work in an unconventional way. NICA artist development was able to provide support here. Totenhagen has been part of the musician development programme since 2020, which has accompanied her on her path to individualisation and further professionalisation: this leads to emancipated expression, free vocal improvisation, conceptual work, and the constant exploration of her stage presence. In her a cappella performances, as well as her work with various effects pedals, Totenhagen strives for liberation from conventional musical rules and patriarchal shackles. She explores the possibilities of her multi-faceted voice authentically, with a love of detail, humour, and a need for directness.
With her duo partners and instruments ranging from the traditional Korean gayageum to more modern FX and vocal pedals, Totenhagen explores the expression of her broad sound palette in her improvisations. With ‘Raw,’ Totenhagen and her collaborators DoYeon Kim, Sara Schoenbeck, Nick Dunston, Anton Kaun and Lucy Liebe lead the listener through a variety of ever-changing musical environments and soundscapes - a unique listening experience that constantly challenges the listener to confront change and emotion.
“This record is entertaining and leaves you hungry for more. A charming provocation that reverberates in our whirring minds – between beauty, the shadows, and (supposedly) grime.”
writes freelance curator Louis Rastig in his liner notes for the album. Talking about the development of Totenhagen’s career and style, he says:
“Nature does not deal in “too much.” Totenhagen is its medium, and Raw is Totenhagen in a nutshell. The artistic manifestation of the Divine Feminine, she distances herself from the normative baggage of her roots through collaborative works-in-progress, taking us on a journey to the evolution of her actual self.”
•••
Line-up:
Laura Totenhagen - Voice + FX
DoYeon Kim - Gayageum
Sara Schoenbeck - Bassoon
Nick Dunston - Double Bass
Anton Kaun - Noise-Art
Lucy Liebe - Guitar + FX
•••
Release: 8.11.2024
Recording:
Lily Wen (Track 1-4), Figure8 Recordings Brooklyn, NYC
Reinhard Kobialka (Track 5-6), TOPAZ - Audio Studios, Cologne
Daniel Door (Track 7), SVS Studios, Munich
Dominik Ehrl (Track 8), Watt Matters Studio, Bielefeld
Mixing:
Christian Heck (Tracks 1-6), Manu Rzytki (Track 7), Lucy Liebe (Track 8)
Mastering - Lukas Fehling
Cover:
Artwork photographies - Bảo Ngô
Bioplastic Rose, Bioplastic Water Bra and Single Row Tutu - Caroline Zimbalist
Nails - BarberSpa BK
Postproduction - Thomas Lambertz
Art direction - Laura Totenhagen
•••
The album has been released digitally and will be available on vinyl.
Album Release: SALOMEA "Good Life"
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Album Release: SALOMEA "Good Life"
SALOMEA’s new Album “Good Life” to be released on October 18th
Following the release of the three singles “Twirl Up”, “Obsessing” and “Layla Tov”, SALOMEA have released their third album “Good Life” on the Papercup Records/Rough Trade label. Four years after “Bathing In Flowers”, the new album by the versatile multi-genre band was eagerly awaited.
“Good Life” is an album that has emerged from a deep confrontation with grief and death and translates these themes into a plea for optimism, for the importance of love and hope for the future in poignant melodies and multi-faceted rhythms that demand movement. The band leader’s lyrics and melodies are characterized by the conviction and truth that through suffering, happiness and beauty can arise.
The band’s music combines the lyricism of German-American singer and composer Rebekka Salomea Ziegler with smooth, contemporary jazz production to create an enticing, multi-layered soundscape. Former NICA artist and drummer Leif Berger joins Yannis Anft on keyboards and Oliver Lutz on bass to form the rhythm section of the expressive band, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year with the release of the new album.
“Good Life” showcases the colorful range of Ziegler, who played the leading role in writing and producing the album. With the broad diversity of her formative influences, which Ziegler knows how to emphasize with loving clarity, SALOMEA creates a sound world that is both new and familiar, inviting listeners to explore.
An album with lyrics that break with hetero-normative narratives, focusing on the celebration of femmes* and mothers and an urgent appeal to listen and exchange. The immediate stories of diasporic displacement and separation, grief and finding solace, and the contrast of courage, kindness and hope inherent in the album make “Good Life” an extraordinary experience. An album as a place, a sound and a feeling of belonging and freedom.
The title track “Good Life” by SALOMEA:
Line-up:
Rebekka Salomea Ziegler - vocals
Leif Berger - drums
Yannis Anft - keyboard
Oliver Lutz - bass
•••
Release: 18.10.2024
Mix: Manu Schlindwein
Master: Zino Makorey
Artwork Photography: @fisch
Graphic Design: Hanna Osen
•••
The album will be released on CD and LP and will also be available digitally.
Theresia Philipp – seeds of sweat available to listen to on Deutschlandfunk
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Theresia Philipp – seeds of sweat available to listen to on Deutschlandfunk
The concert premiere from 4th September 2024 will be broadcast on “Jazz Live” in November
As a part of the Cologne Jazzweek 2024, Theresia Philipp presented her new band seeds of sweat and gave the first performance of her compositions especially for this line up. Parts of the concert will be broadcast on Deutschlandfunk’s “Jazz Live” on 19th November 2024. The Cologne-based saxophonist, clarinettist and composer Philipp has brought individually strong musicians together and laid foundations down for a collaboration which does not care for supposed genre boundaries, and lives up to Philipp’s claim to be a political subject as an artist. Texts by Philipp herself and other authors, including Ber Alena, Koleka Putuma and Katja Hummel, emphasise this.
This concert premiere was made possible by the co-operation between NICA artist development and Cologne Jazzweek under the title ‘NICA exchange’.
First broadcast: 19th November 2024 at 21:05 in the programme “Jazz Live” on Deutschlandfunk. Moderation: Sophie Emilie Beha
Line-up:
Theresia Philipp – saxophone, clarinet
Lynn Cassiers – vocals, efx
Shannon Barnett – trombone, vocals
Keisuke Matsuno – guitar
Robert Lucaciu – bass
Kresten Osgood – drums
Recording from 04.09.2024 at Cologne Jazzweek, Stadtgarten Köln
These are the NICA artists 2024!
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These are the NICA artists 2024!
After being nominated by selected North Rhine-Westphalian event organisers, music journalists and other cultural professionals, the artists living in NRW were selected by a jury of experts.
We are pleased to announce the following participants as NICA artists of the 5th funding generation:
- Jorik Bergman (flutist, *1996)
- Jonas Engel (saxophonist, *1990)
- Felix Hauptmann (pianist, *1993)
- Thomas Sauerborn (percussionist, *1987)
- Emily Wittbrodt (cellist, *1994)
Special features of NICA artist development are the funding period of up to three years and the individual adaptability of the funding programme to the needs of the specific NICA artist to enable them to position themselves as an established artist. Through residencies, masterclasses, concert and rehearsal opportunities, participants can develop further in a focused way as part of the funding programme. International projects are also intended to promote networking in the European music scene. Coaching sessions and workshops offer support in business topics such as marketing, project management and production. At concerts in the NICA live series - an experimental field for bringing together new band constellations, solo formats or curated programmes - at Stadtgarten Köln or at the venues and festivals of cooperation partners, the participants also gain experience in a professional event context.
The jury members are Friederike Darius, part of the Metropole Orkest management team, Prof Anette von Eichel from the Cologne University of Music and Dance, music journalist and WDR Cosmo presenter Uh-Young Kim, author, sound artist and performer Prof Dr Swantje Lichtenstein, double bassist and board member of the Kölner Jazz Haus e. V. initiative Ulla Oster, artistic director of Stadtgarten Köln Kornelia Vossebein and music journalist Christian Werthschulte. Thomas Baerens, Head of the Music Department at the Ministry of Culture and Science, chaired the jury for the last time this year.
Album Release: Luise Volkmann/ Kiko Dinucci "Enxame"
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Album Release: Luise Volkmann/ Kiko Dinucci "Enxame"
On their debut as a duo, Luise Volkmann on soprano saxophone and Kiko Dinucci on guitar create an atmosphere of sound that is as intense as it is intimate
The music of this duo has a special intimacy: the melodies of Luise Volkmann’s soprano saxophone strike a balance between fragility and something festive and life-affirming. The guitar playing has a special elegance that reveals the depth of the extensive musical knowledge of Kiko Dinucci, who works not only as a musician but also as an archivist of various musical styles.
Last spring, Cologne-based musician Luise Volkmann travelled to Brazil for the first time together with her saxophone, supported by NICA artist development. Since 2008, when she lived in the coastal city of Natal for a year as a pupil, she had returned again and again, but never to establish professional connections. Now, during her first artist residency in São Paulo, she met guitarist Kiko Dinucci. He has his musical roots in punk and rock on the one hand and in the Brazilian musical tradition of MPB (Musica Popular Brasileira) on the other. As an uncompromising composer and guitarist, he founded internationally renowned bands such as Metá Metá and Passo Torto.
Enxame emerged from this encounter: Improvised 30 minutes in which experimental - never avoiding rhythm - and powerful sounds of different musical traditions are fused. It is not for nothing that these cross-connections, which are condensed into expressive and moving music by this duo, bear the name ‘Enxame’ (meaning ‘swarm’): The knowledge of each other, the understanding of each other and the experience of each other is expressed here in the form of intelligent swarm music and Volkmann and Dinucci’s dense harmony impressively integrates the listener into this feeling.
•••
Release: 16.08.2024
Recorded March 2023 in São Paulo
Mix and Master: Julius Gass
Artwork: Nada Tshibwabwa
Graphic Design: Elsa Westreicher
•••
The album will be released digitally and on cassette.
Album Release: Tamara Lukasheva & INSO Lviv Orchestra "Anima"
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Album Release: Tamara Lukasheva & INSO Lviv Orchestra "Anima"
The German-Ukrainian singer and composer Tamara Lukasheva has released the album “Anima” on Tangible Music together with the International Symphony Orchestra Lviv.
“I don’t want to sing these songs with anger, hatred or aggression, instead I want to give something comforting. I want to bring us back to the state of humanity,” says Tamara Lukasheva about her newly released music. “Anima”, which means “soul” in Latin, reflects Lukasheva’s deep-rooted belief in the power of music to express emotions and unite people.
The German-Ukrainian artist, who grew up in a musical household and trained in classical piano, combines jazz, chanson and elements of classical music in her works without limiting herself to a specific genre. Her songs, some of which she composes and arranges herself, have a tender but untamed power, which is further enhanced by the participation of trumpeter Matthias Schriefl and INSO Lviv, especially during the war-related recordings in October 2023.
On “Anima”, Lukasheva dedicates herself to the representation of themes such as justice, democracy and human rights, which she defends through the power of her music and artistic expression. Her lyrics, some of which come from poets such as Theodor Fontane and Clemens Brentano, are of universal relevance and address global conflicts, but also offer personal insights into Lukasheva’s own experiences and feelings.
With “Anima”, Tamara Lukasheva reaches a new level of musical creativity that not only impresses but also inspires. Her songs are an appeal to humanity, a poetic counterweight to the challenges of our time. She combines her diverse musical influences to create an impressive overall picture that both reflects reality and offers a space for recovery and renewed vigour. This album is not just a collection of songs, it is a movement, a voice that needs to be heard to grasp the full depth of its message.
From 2019 to 2023, Tamara Lukasheva was supported by NICA artist development in her individual artistic profiling and professionalisation. We are delighted that we were able to accompany Tamara part of her journey with the opportunities offered by the programme and congratulate her on the release of “Anima”.
Further information:
Tamara Lukasheva & INSO Lviv: “Anima”
Tamara Lukasheva – Gesang, Komposition, Arrangement
International Symphony Orchestra Lviv Ltg.: Boris Kreslenko
Label: Tangible Music
Recorded at Philharmonie Lviv, October 18–20, 2023: Andrii Mokrytskyi & Assistent Oleksii Hrytsyshyn
Edits: Andrii Mokrytskyi
Mixing: Jonathan Hoffmann
Mastering: Alex Kloss
Photos: Harald Hoffmann & Patrick Essex
Artwork: Holger Risse
Produced: Tamara Lukasheva
Executive Producer: Janning Trumann
“Anima” ist digital, auf CD und als Vinyl erhältlich.
NICA x BIMHUIS: Dutch Mountain Tribe & Fabian Dudek / Almost
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NICA x BIMHUIS: Dutch Mountain Tribe & Fabian Dudek / Almost
NICA artist development and BIMHUIS Amsterdam cooperate
Two visionary bands in exchange: This double-concert is a cooperation between NICA artist development and BIMHUIS. Founded in 1974 and based at the Piet Heinkade in Amsterdam since 2005, BIMHUIS is one of the most important venues for improvised music in the Netherlands. The day before the concert at Stadtgarten Köln, Koen Boeijinga and Fabian Dudek will play with their bands at BIMHUIS.
•••
Dutch woodwind player, composer and improviser Koen Boeijinga presents his new project Dutch Mountain Tribe. The seven-piece collective consists of young pioneers as well as established virtuosos from the Dutch improvisation scene.
Dutch Mountain Tribe spins a web of idiosyncratic melodies, enchanting rhythms and fiery improvisations. Like folk songs from a mythical Dutch mountainside, they are coloured by an arsenal of percussion instruments, flutes, bagpipes and other objects from the immense collection of band leader Koen Boeijenga. This versatile wind player and composer includes both young and established players in his seven-piece band.
Last year, Dutch Montain Tribe was honoured with KEEP AN EYE The Records. The band’s debut album was released on 15 March 2024 on ZenneZ Records.
•••
On the road, somehow arriving somewhere. Concentrated on a destination with an uncertain outcome in mind: Almost. Four musicians focusing on Fabian Dudek’s unique and thoughtful compositions, with which the German saxophonist explores new sound spheres. Dudek has worked with pianist Felix Hauptmann for many years – Hauptmann plays in Dudek’s two main projects and contributes his voice to this constellation which premiered summer 2023. Like Dudek and Hauptmann, drummer Alex Parzhuber stands out with his attentive and energetic playing, whether on his releases under his own name or, for example, as a member of Dudek’s La Campagne or of Vagabond Souls.
These three are joined by London-based bassist, singer, and composer Ruth Goller, who is considered an important player in the English improvisation scene, who previously collaborated with, among others, Paul McCartney and Marc Ribot. A meeting of four individually strong musicians, who unite around Dudek’s music, which explores escapes from the world and leaves its listeners enough space for reflection.
Album Release: Fabian Dudek "Distant Skies, We Dream"
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Album Release: Fabian Dudek "Distant Skies, We Dream"
“Distant Skies, We Dream” released on Traumton Records
Nuanced to powerful, always extremely attentive in their interplay, a working band that has noticeably grown together, a dynamic spectrum ranging from quiet to passionately escalating passages, contrasts and condensations - that is Fabian Dudek’s quartet.
Dudek released his quartet’s debut album Creating Meaning (Fixcel) in 2019 and the follow-up album Isolated Flowers (Traumton) in 2022. Both productions and the band’s concerts met with an enthusiastic response, with the latter being nominated for the German Record Critics’ Award. Now Dudek’s quartet presents new works on „Distant Skies, We Dream“.
The already remarkably high quality has been raised even further through Dudek’s sophisticated compositions, whose rhythmic sophistication and precise detail set a striking mark in the contemporary jazz landscape. And through open spaces, which can be shaped by his fellow musicians and invite improvisations, on a terrain that is undoubtedly broader than before. For example, when pianist Felix Hauptmann references the aesthetic of modern Classical music four-minute intro to the opus magnum „The River Flows Everywhere” and later in the same piece plays in an almost impressionistic manner. The music also thrives on the fact that they can surprise each other. „To achieve this the pieces need to have a certain openness, perhaps even fragility, that allows different paths.”
The album, which was recorded as part of the „NICA live” concert series at JAKI, was released on 24 May 2024 by Traumton Records.
What was planned as a studio production surprisingly turned out to be a live recording in the end. „We had recorded the pieces in the Fattoria and actually thought the results were great,” says Dudek, “especially as we had already polished the repertoire in concerts beforehand.” Back in Cologne, the quartet gave a concert at JAKI, „which was actually a bit difficult. All the more we all played ‘on fire’ and the gig developed an extremely strong energy.” Due to the intensity of the interplay, it was decided quickly to use only the live recordings for the album, even though the piano in the club did not have the sound quality of the grand piano at the studio. „I look for and sometimes need a bit of dirt,” grins Dudek, who appreciates not only Coltrane, Feldman, Ives and Sakamoto, but also James Brown with Maceo Parker, Tom Waits and some hip-hop artists.
„This album is a milestone for me personally, because I’m now at a point that I’ve been striving for for a long time,”
summarises Fabian Dudek with contentment.
„I have been seeking to get a band to flow and at the same time integrate experimental aspects into the music. We’ve managed to do that really well and it’s extremely fun to play the pieces.”
For all its emotional power, the band is more pointed than ever, consistently realising small-scale structures and letting its expressiveness flare up in a targeted manner. Further facets of this impressive development are the expansion of the sound colour palette, above all through David Helm’s electric bass, but also the synthesiser, Dudek’s punctually shimmering flute and his extremely variable expression on the saxophone.
Line-up:
Fabian Dudek – alto-saxophone, flute, compositions
Felix Hauptmann – piano, synthesizer
David Helm – bass
Fabian Arends – drums
•••
Recording: Dirk Schmidt
Mixing & Mastering: Martin Ruch
Cover art and design: Benjamin Rueckert
•••
The album was released on CD and is also available digitally.
In his exhibition ‘bichrom’, photographer Patrick Essex shows pictures by NICA artists
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In his exhibition ‘bichrom’, photographer Patrick Essex shows pictures by NICA artists
Stadtgarten Köln and NICA artist development present Patrick Essex’s “bichrom” - New exhibition and new lighting concept in the concert foyer and restaurant
Photographer Patrick Essex has created the “bichrom” series especially for the Stadtgarten Köln, which presents musicians in shadowy two-colour images.
The seven musicians depicted are former and current participants of NICA artist development. Using light, transparencies and various glass filters, Essex created a visual framework in his photo studio, which Leif Berger, Elisabeth Coudoux, Marlies Debacker, Fabian Dudek, Pablo Gīw, Theresia Philipp and Rebekka Salomea Ziegler freely interpreted with or without instruments in motion.
Patrick Essex’s flair for light and colour has produced a series of photographs that accentuate the artistic individuality of those depicted and arouse curiosity about music through the dynamism of the images. Stylist Sabine Berlipp is responsible for the musicians’ strikingly vibrant outfits.
The exhibition opening will take place on 27th May 2024 from 6:30pm.
Afterwards, we look forward to a NICA live concert by singer-songwriter and producer RAY LOZANO and interdisciplinary musician douniah at JAKI.
Fabian Dudek's "an empty room, then smiling" broadcasted on Deutschlandfunk
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Fabian Dudek's "an empty room, then smiling" broadcasted on Deutschlandfunk
The concert premiere dudek carnival | an empty room, then smiling | from 14.08.2023 available for re-listening via the DLF Audiothek
Saxophonist and composer Fabian Dudek performed twice at Cologne Jazzweek 2023: With the premiere of his composition “Day By Day”, which he wrote for his Horst and Gretl Will Foundation Award Winners’ Concert, and with dudek carnival. An international line-up put together by Dudek especially for the Cologne Jazzweek, which corresponds to his idea of sound and artistic collaboration. ” Through the strength of the composition comes the freedom to play,” says Dudek. Giving his fellow musicians room to develop their individualistic spirit is particularly important to Dudek in all his compositional work. Dudek was commissioned to write this composition in cooperation between NICA artist development and Cologne Jazzweek.
A live recording of the concert is now available to listen to for 30 days in the DLF Audiothek.
•••
First broadcast: 12.03.2024, 09:05 pm “Jazz Live”
Between chaos and structure
dudek carnival
Line-up:
Sasha Berliner - vibraphone
Felix Hauptmann - piano
Fabian Dudek - saxophone, composition
Simon Jermyn - e-bass
Lesley Mok - drums
Recording from 14.08.2024 at Cologne Jazzweek, Stadtgarten Köln
Microphone: Thomas Loewner
Album release: Debacker | Javaid - Convolution
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Album release: Debacker | Javaid - Convolution
“Convolution” released by impakt Records
impakt Records presents the new album by Marlies Debacker (Piano, Clavinet) and Salim(a) Javaid (Saxophone) entitled “Convolution”.
Convolution is an attempt to fuse saxophone and piano into a meta-instrument. The music draws an inquisitive and melancholic portrait of shades reminiscent of the past – reverberations, echoes, resonances – and transforms them into musical material.
The musicians distil influences from contemporary (chamber) music, free improvisation and electronics into a dense, dark soundscape full of tension. Memories of different playing styles, aesthetics and atmospheres serve as the basis for the inherent mechanisms of the five individual parts of Convolution.
Despite numerous musical pauses, the music hardly contains any silence. A central material of the pieces with piano is working with reverberation and modulation of the internal resonances of the piano. These constantly changing shades of sound events become malleable material in the interaction of pianistic actions (such as pedalling and silently depressing keys) with the saxophone.
The saxophone plays in the range of the reverb‘s activation threshold, so that it is sometimes caught in the resonances and sometimes merges with them.
The way it is recorded draws the listener into this world of reminiscent shades and opens their ears to the nuances of sound.
“Debacker and Salim(a) Javaid make improvised contemporary music with liveliness and plenty of room for silence.“
Line-up:
Marlies Debacker - Piano, clavinet
Salim(a) Javaid - Saxophones
•••
Recorded January (live: 1, 4) & February 2023 at LOFT Köln, by Stefan Deistler
Mixed and mastered July 2023 Stefan Deistler
Cover art and design by Markus Dorninger, Stefan Schönegg
•••
The album was released on CD and is also available as digital version.
NICA live special 2024
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NICA live special 2024
NICA live special will take place for the second time on 5 January 2024!
For the second time, the concert evening NICA live special will take place on the eve of WINTERJAZZ Köln at Stadtgarten Köln. Six of the ten NICA artists will present current projects and music. Involved are: Laura Totenhagen, Fabian Dudek, Ray Lozano, Stefan Schönegg and Marlies Debacker.
The co-operation between WINTERJAZZ KÖLN and NICA artist development has worked well in recent years. With its two-day focus on the young, innovative improvised music scene, the start of the year in Cologne has become particularly attractive for an international audience of professionals.
NICA LIVE SPECIAL is mainly reserved for invited guests and professionals. Other interested visitors are welcome! To take part, please register by 4 January at nica@stadtgarten.de.
As always, the WINTERJAZZ evening on Saturday (6 January) is open to all music lovers. 11 bands will be performing on three stages, including NICA artist Theresia Philipp.
Admission is free on both evenings!
Record release: Stefan Schönegg / Enso: A Simplified Space
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Record release: Stefan Schönegg / Enso: A Simplified Space
“Enso: A Simplified Space” released on impakt Records
impakt Records presents the new album by Stefan Schönegg “Enso: A Simplified Space” with Marlies Debacker (piano), Stefan Schönegg (double bass) and Etienne Nillesen (extended snare drum).
Huge swaths of silence separate sounds on the latest album from Cologne bassist Stefan Schönegg’s long running project Enso. The absence frames each gesture - a surface rubbed, a string thwacked, and an expanse of wood struck - and frequently allows the listener to truly experience every utterance on its own, rather than as a component within a larger structure - even if that remains exactly what they are. Nearly all of the sounds produced by the bassist with his long-time collaborator, extended snare drum master Etienne Nillesen and pianist Marlies Debacker, deviate from what we expect from their respective instruments, but the various extended techniques at play aren’t the focus. Indeed, these musicians have all developed sophisticated, elusive languages over years of research and practice, yet they are merely tools in the context of this new transmission from Enso.
Line-up:
Marlies Debacker - Piano
Stefan Schönegg - Double bass
Etienne Nillesen - Extended snare drum
•••
Recorded April 2023 at Chamber Music Hall Deutschlandfunk, Cologne, Germany
Producer: Thomas Loewner
Recording producer: Stephan Schmidt
Recording engineer: Hendrik Manook, Philipp Wissler
Recording technician: Jens Müller
Mastering: Giuseppe Ielasi
Liner notes: Peter Margasak
Cover art and design: Markus Dorninger, Stefan Schönegg
•••
The album was released on CD and is also available as digital version.
Ray Lozano honoured with the Holger Czukay Prize 2023
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Ray Lozano honoured with the Holger Czukay Prize 2023
Congratulations!
Singer-songwriter and producer Ray Lozano - NICA artist 2023 - was honoured with the Holger Czukay Future Prize last night. The Holger Czukay Prize honours artists who have left their mark on Cologne or who have influenced and helped shape current developments.
The jury’s statement said, among other things:
“Ray Lozano demonstrates an outstanding flair for innovative and forward-looking sounds. […] Ray Lozano’s self-determined yet quirky soul sound, somewhere between indie, low-fidelity pop and hip-hop, has the potential to reach many people far beyond the borders of Cologne.”
The award ceremony was hosted by Mayor Henriette Reker at Club Bahnhof Ehrenfeld. The “Holger Czukay Prize for Pop Music of the City of Cologne” 2023 was awarded to the band KLEE. To honour their life’s work, the Holger Czukay Honorary Award was given to the band Floh de Cologne. This year, the Future Prize, awarded to Ray Lozano, was presented for the first time.
As part of the concert evening NICA live special on Friday 5 January 2024, the evening before WINTERJAZZ Köln, Ray Lozano will perform alongside five other NICA artists at Stadtgarten Köln/ JAKI. NICA live special is not open to the public and is primarily reserved for national and international professionals. The interested public will be able to register in advance. Further information will follow soon.
NICA x Tampere Jazz Happening 2023
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NICA x Tampere Jazz Happening 2023
Four NICA artists present their bands at the Finnish festival
On 2 November 2023, Kira Hummen, Fabian Dudek and Rebekka Salomea and their bands will kick off the International Tampere Jazz Happening in Finland. Janning Trumann closes the festival on 5 November with his new project NOSACRUM.
The artistic director of the festival, Juhamatti Kauppinen, became aware of the four musicians during the concert evening “NICA live special” in Cologne at the beginning of the year.
Instrumentalist, singer and composer Kira Hummen presents her latest band with Valentin Brummer on drums and Karla Lee on vocals and synthesiser. Saxophonist and composer Fabian Dudek will come to Finland together with pianist Felix Hauptmann, Ruth Goller on bass and drummer Leif Berger. Rebekka Salomea presents her band SALOMEA and trombonist Janning Trumann plays with Florian Zwissler on electronics and Berlin drummer Oli Steidle.
The Tampere Jazz Happening was first held in 1982 and has been part of the city’s cultural events calendar in southern Finland every year since. The festival has been organised since 1990 by Tampere Music Festivals, which is part of the cultural department of the city of Tampere.
NICA artist development is cooperating with the international festival for the first time this year.
»Night of Surprise« at Stadtgarten Köln
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»Night of Surprise« at Stadtgarten Köln
NICA artist Sophie Emilie Beha is part of the »Night of Surprise« programming team.
On Saturday, 14 October, »Night of Surprise« takes place for the tenth time at Stadtgarten Köln. Since 2013, the one-night festival brings music on stage in all rooms of the venue with free admission, explicitly inviting people to leave their listening habits or genre labels at home and discover something new.
The artistic director is curator Thomas Gläßer. Since last year’s edition of the event, curator and music journalist Sophie Emilie Beha is also part of the Night of Surprise programme team. Starting in late 2022, she has been supported as a curator as part of NICA artist development and this year, for example, she was artistically responsible for »Houbara - Resonanzen Iran«, a two-day festival at the concert hall and Klub Jaki at Stadtgarten. Also involved in the programming of this experimental night on Saturday this week are Meryem Erkus, Friedemann Dupelius and Kieran Kaul.
On the tenth anniversary, »Night of Surprise« spreads her wings and starts on October 12 with Catherine Lamb’s Descensus Trio at Christuskirche and continues tomorrow evening with a concert by Trickster Orchestra at Stadtgarten.
»Night of Surprise« is an event of the European Centre for Jazz and Contemporary Music Stadtgarten Köln in cooperation with the Centre for Contemporary Music ZAM.
Record release: Fabian Dudek / La Campagne
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Record release: Fabian Dudek / La Campagne
“Protecting A Picture That’s Fading” published on Traumton Records
In the past four years, Fabian Dudek has received a lot of attention, especially with his quartet (featuring Felix Hauptmann, Fabian Arends, David Helm). Their debut from 2019 already received an enthusiastic response.
The album released today on Traumton Records was recorded with the formation La Campagne, which was founded around two and a half years ago. From the end of 2020 to August 2022, the ensemble met again and again for intensive rehearsal phases to fill Dudek’s given framework with a collective vision. His compositions became the basis for creative developments, a kind of stimulus for all participants to contribute their own thoughts. “During the recordings, something new kept happening from take to take,” says Dudek, “we only got to this particular point through the many rehearsals. We play with the material and in the process loosen rules; these are personal and collaborative processes.”
Dudek and his alto saxophone become audible after about a quarter of an hour, in the second half of the second piece: “I have fun listening to the others play my music,” says Dudek calmly, “I’m interested in what’s good for the music, not in my ego as an instrumentalist.
Line-up:
Fabian Dudek – alto saxophone, composition
Pauline Turrillo – flute
Berthold Brauer – trumpet
Felix Hauptmann – piano, synth
Roger Kintopf – double bass
Alexander Parzhuber – drums
•••
Recording: Martin Ruch
Mixing & Mastering: Martin Ruch
•••
The album was released on CD and is also available in digital format.
Philip Zoubek Trio Extended releases »Mirage«
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Philip Zoubek Trio Extended releases »Mirage«
Philip Zoubek presents breathtaking new album
With his trio with double bassist David Helm and drummer Dominik Mahnig, pianist Philip Zoubek has once again inscribed unexpected facets and forms into perhaps the most classical jazz format - with remarkably conclusive results. Seamless transitions between composition and improvisation characterise the albums released so far, »Outside« (2016), »Nonplaces« (2020) and »Labyrinthus« (2022). Between contemplative calm, repetitive and high improvisational intensity, the musicians also create atmospheres beyond the usual by incorporating electronics, preparations of the grand piano and extended techniques.
For their new album »Mirage«, the trio has grown: expanded to a sextet, it presents its most radical work to date. With the addition of cello, woodwinds and percussion, the sextet creates luminous and sometimes orchestrally charged character pieces between jazz, new music, electronics and ambient. Kaleidoscope-like, this music shimmers in many colours that emerge from and merge into each other. The result is a trenchant ensemble music, a group sound that is originally unspent - full of tension and elasticity.
“»Mirage« is the result of an organic unity, a condensation of rhythms into sounds and sounds into structure, which is indeed breathtaking,” writes music journalist Felix Klopotek in the magazine Stadtrevue.
»Mirage« is released on 15 September 2023 on the Austrian label Boomslang Records and is available as CD, LP and download.
•••
Line-up Philip Zoubek Trio Extended:
Philip Zoubek - (prepared) piano, synthesizer, composition
David Helm - bass
Dominik Mahnig - drums
Elisabeth Coudoux - cello
Leonhard Huhn - woodwinds
Shiau-Shiuan Hung- vibraphone, cello
These are the NICA artists 2023!
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These are the NICA artists 2023!
After being nominated by selected North Rhine-Westphalian event organisers, music journalists and other cultural professionals, the artists living in NRW were selected by a jury of experts.
We are pleased to announce the following participants who will start as 4th generation NICA artists in September this year:
- Marlies Debacker (pianist, *1992)
- Ray Lozano (Singer-Songwriter, *1989)
- Theresia Philipp (saxophonist, *1991)
- Stefan Schönegg (Bassist, *1986)
All those supported since 2022 - Sophie Emilie Beha (curation), Fabian Dudek (saxophone), Kira Hummen (vocals), Luise Volkmann (saxophone) and Rebekka Salomea Ziegler (vocals) remain part of the programme. So does Laura Totenhagen (vocals), part of the second supported generation of 2020. NICA artist development enters the new funding year with a total of ten NICA artists. NICA artist development wishes all the musicians who will be leaving in autumn - after completing their full funding period - Heidi Bayer (trumpet), Janning Trumann (trombone), Philip Zoubek (piano), Pablo Gīw (trumpet) and Tamara Lukasheva (voice) - all the best for their future careers.
Read the full press release on our website.
NICA exchange trifft Cologne Jazzweek 2023!
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NICA exchange trifft Cologne Jazzweek 2023!
The concert series with a focus on international networking is part of the festival in Cologne for the second time
After a successful start of the concert series “NICA exchange” in cooperation with the Cologne Jazzweek (12 - 18 August 2023) in the previous year and its successful start in the regular programme of Stadtgarten Köln, the cooperation will be continued with three concerts under the title “NICA exchange x CJW” at this year’s festival.
The cooperation project enables up-and-coming national and international musicians, especially from the fields of jazz and improvised music, to play on the stages of the Cologne Festival. The main focus of the concert series is to create spaces of exchange for a young, experimental generation of musicians, to encourage sustainable networking and creative exchange and, in the context of the festival, to initiate a connection with an audience eager to discover new things.
This year, France and Finland are participating. The artists were selected in cooperation with the NICA partner organisations there (AJC Jazz and We Jazz), who in turn invite NICA artists and support them in their research, networking and presentation.
In addition to international acquaintance, the project focuses on the stage as a place of encounter and at this point the festival premiere dudek carnival [an empty room, then smiling] can be highlighted. NICA artist Fabian Dudek was commissioned by NICA artist development and Cologne Jazzweek to compose a piece and has put together an international band for it, including the two up-and-coming New York-based musicians Sasha Berliner (vibraphone) and Lesley Mok (drums).
An overview of all “NICA exchange x CJW” projects:
- 14.8. 21:00 Stadtgarten: dudek carnival | an empty room, then smiling |
- 14.8. 22:30 Jaki: Superposition
- 18.8. 18:30 Green Room: Nefertiti Quartet feat. Frederik Köster
Cologne Jazzweek has been taking over Cologne’s city centre in August since 2021. For a full week, the varied programme offers its listeners a cross-section of the Cologne, German and international music scene. In addition to the stages in the Stadtgarten Köln, concerts also take place in the WDR Sendesaal, CBE, Loft Köln and Philharmonie Köln, among others.
Fabian Dudek receives Horst and Gretl Will Scholarship for Jazz and Improvised Music 2023
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Fabian Dudek receives Horst and Gretl Will Scholarship for Jazz and Improvised Music 2023
Congratulations!
Saxophonist and composer Fabian Dudek - NICA artist 2022 - receives the Horst and Gretl Will Scholarship for Jazz and Improvised Music 2023, which is awarded to promote contemporary music and the free artistic development of young musicians.
The prize-winner’s concert will take place as part of the Cologne Jazzweek in the concert hall of the Stadtgarten Köln. This means that Fabian will be performing live on two following days with two new line-ups featuring national and international colleagues and new compositions.
14 August // 21:00 // Stadtgarten Köln
NICA exchange x CJW: dudek carnival | an empty room, then smiling | feat. Sasha Berliner, Felix Hauptmann, Fabian Dudek, Simon Jermyn, Lesley Mok
15 August // 20:00 // Stadtgarten Köln
Horst and Gretl Will Scholarship - Prize Winner Concert feat. Fabian Dudek, Roger Kintopf, David Helm, Felix Hauptmann, Kirke Karja, Alexander Parzhuber, Leif Berger
NICA Backstage: Introducing the project management team
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NICA Backstage: Introducing the project management team
Esther Weickel and Ella O’Brien-Coker started working with the NICA artists a year ago.
One year ago, Esther Weickel (head of project) and Ella O’Brien-Coker (project coordination) took over the management of NICA artist development.
For both of them, communication and trust are the key to identify, formulate and realise the needs of NICA artists for their professional development. Their main concern is to work together with the NICA artists on individual ways of support and at the same time to promote the further possibilities of NICA artist development.
What the two did before NICA, what motivates them, more about the possibilities of NICA and the connection of the support programme to the Stadtgarten Köln - Thomas Venker sat down with Ella and Esther to talk about this and more with them.
The whole interview online in kaput magazine (only available in German).
NICA artist Heidi Bayer wins German Jazz Award 2023
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NICA artist Heidi Bayer wins German Jazz Award 2023
This year’s award ceremony took place on April 27 at the Metropol Theater in Bremen.
At the award ceremony of the third edition of the German Jazz Prize 2023, trumpeter and composer Heidi Bayer - NICA artist since 2020 - won in the category “Composition of the Year” for the piece “Cookie Dough” from her album and eponymous project KORSH, released in April 2022.
The prize for “Festival of the Year” was given to Cologne Jazzweek. Delighted for the KJK (Kölner Jazzkonferenz) is, among others, managing director Janning Trumann, also NICA artist since 2020.
Special congratulations also go to other award winners from Cologne, such as the Loft, which received the award for “Venue of the Year” for the second time. The versatile multi-instrumentalist Matthias Schriefl, who frequently graces the stages of the Stadtgarten, was also able to bring the “Brass Player of the Year” award back to Cologne. And the prize for the best “Album Vocal” went to the trio LUAH.
Congratulations to all nominees and winners of the German Jazz Award 2023!
Albumrelease: Luise Volkmann's »Rites de Passage«
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Albumrelease: Luise Volkmann's »Rites de Passage«
What is more alive - the ghost ship that comes to mind when listening to »Rites de passages« or the world of consumer goods in which we ascribe a life of its own to dead things? And what is more eerie - the prevailing conditions or ghostly music that takes on the real spook in all urgency?
Luise Volkmann’s »Rites de passage« is music of resistance and transition. It contrasts the life in which we settle with a utopian space that has yet to be established. The musical transformations take their cues from the concept of ritual. But Volkmann’s artistic “rituality check” is also a political reality check that evokes the question of how we can overcome walls that actually exist in fact? Walls in the minds of hard heads. Concrete walls at borders. She neither adheres to preconceived genres nor does she stop at crossing the last threshold of existence - the preoccupation with death.
Luise Volkmann sees herself as an artist with a social idea of music. This self-conception expresses itself through the pieces of »Rites de passage« - performatively. They are the first songs she has published under her own name exclusively. Her starting point was the idea of foregrounding compositional experimentation over improvisation. At the same time, there is personal history in the collectivist spirit of the album, which is released in two slightly different versions on vinyl and CD on nWog Records. The recordings, made with varying ensembles over the last few years in different places, reveal a clear signature. They are the soundtrack of a period of life.
The cover photo shoot with Thekla Ehling was supported by NICA artist development. So is the live premiere of »Rites de passage« with the participation of 18 musicians on the 15th of April 2023 at Stadtgarten Köln.
»Rites de passage« was released via the label nWog Records and is available on bandcamp.
Pilot project 'Constellations' starts
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Pilot project 'Constellations' starts
NICA artist Pablo Gīw takes part in first edition of the european exchange
Together with nine other organisations of the Europe Jazz Network (EJN), NICA artist development (as part of Stadtgarten Köln) is launching the pilot project ‘Constellations’ in 2023.
The collaborative exchange programme aims to revive and expand the international ambitions and networks of musicians and professionals after a long period of pandemic restrictions. This is done through research stays of the participants in one of the European partner locations each, through meetings, networking and exchange of professional know-how and contacts. Constellations’ aims to set the foundation for a better networked and more sustainable music scene.
All partner organisations involved in ‘Constellations’ run their own musician support programmes. In organising and implementing ‘Constellations’, they draw on existing infrastructures and contacts. The participating artists and cultural workers benefit from these competences not only during their respective research stays, but also at joint meetings such as the European Jazz Conference in Marseille this autumn.
For NICA artist development, trumpeter and improviser Pablo Gīw is taking part in ‘Constellations’. He will spend seven days in Paris and Lyon at the end of March, building on his existing interest in the improvised music scene in France. Paris-based pianist Delphine Deau has been through the Jazz Migration programme of the Association Jazzé Croisé (AJC). For her further musical career, she wishes to gain new insights and perspectives, which she hopes to find in Germany and especially in the Cologne scene, supported by NICA artist development.
The pilot edition of ‘Constellations’ runs until November 2023. ‘Constellations’ is funded by the European Union and supported by MusicAire as part of the Music Moves Europe programme.
Pablo Gīw and Mariel Roberts release their album "Kryo"
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Pablo Gīw and Mariel Roberts release their album "Kryo"
Listen in to sweeping landscape music, huge horizontal lines and tiny sounding mountains.
NICA artist Pablo Gīw and New York cellist Mariel Roberts release their duo record „Kryo“ today!
The album is available on all streaming platforms, as well as on a limited tape edition which is available through Bandcamp.
”Kryo” is a spacious landscape music, creating huge horizontal lines and tiny sounding mountains, a melancholic cosmos that gathers in the corner of a frozen creek. Trumpeter Pablo Gīw from Cologne, Germany and Mariel Roberts extend their instruments sound capabilities with a versatile palette of extended playing techniques as well as effect pedals, to create a calm yet complex improvised music. Kryo is the duos first release.
NICA LIVE SPECIAL w/ WINTERJAZZ
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NICA LIVE SPECIAL w/ WINTERJAZZ
NICA LIVE SPECIAL on 6th January 2023
WINTERJAZZ Cologne, organised by Stadtgarten Cologne and NICA artist development, will finally take place live and with an audience again in 2023: We celebrate the 12th edition of this brilliant music festival on the three stages of the Stadtgarten! The focus is on the vital, creative and diverse scene of Cologne and North Rhine-Westphalia and its networks, which extend beyond the region to international collaborations.
New this year is NICA LIVE SPECIAL on Friday, 6th January: Seven NICA artists present an insight into their current artistic work: The musicians Janning Trumann, Kira Hummen, Pablo Gīw, Luise Volkmann, Philip Zoubek, Laura Totenhagen and Fabian Dudek will present their highly diverse projects - from solo performances to 13-piece ensembles.
NICA LIVE SPECIAL is mainly reserved for invited guests and professionals. Other interested visitors are welcome! To participate, please register by 5th January at nica@stadtgarten.de.
The WINTERJAZZ evening on Saturday (7th January) is, as always, open to all music lovers. 10 bands with a total of 36 musicians will perform on three stages, including NICA artist Rebekka Salomea Ziegler.
Free entrance on both evenings!
•••
PROGRAMME 6.1.
Laura Totenhagen Solo
Pablo Gīw & Mariel Roberts
La Campagne
Été Large
Gratkowski – Zoubek – Landfermann – Mahnig »Torbid Daylight«
Kira Hummen
Janning Trumann X NOSACRUM
PROGRAMME 7.1.
Katrin Scherer’s CLUSTER Quartett
Jan Lukas Roßmüller Trio
Marlies Debacker Solo
Christian Lorenzens „Silver Motion“
h i l d e
Yaroslav Likhachev Quartett
MOLASS
Raissa Mehner Deviation
The Human Element
SALOMEA
More info about the bands on www.winterjazzkoeln.com
Meet the NICA artists 2022!
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Meet the NICA artists 2022!
Boost for the independent music scene: NICA artist development starts 3rd funding round in September with five new artists and a new management team.
After being nominated by selected North Rhine-Westphalian organizers, music journalists and other cultural entrepreneurs, the artists living in NRW were selected by a jury of experts.
We are pleased to announce the following participants who will start this September as 3rd generation NICA artists:
• Sophie Emilie Beha (Curation, *1997)
• Fabian Dudek (Saxophone, *1995)
• Kira Hummen (Voice, *1994)
• Luise Volkmann (Saxophone, *1992)
• Rebekka Salomea Ziegler (Voice, *1991)
Since spring this year, a new management team for NICA artist development has been formed: Esther Weickel (head of project) and Ella O’Brien-Coker (project coordination) have taken over the funding program from Kornelia Vossebein, who is the new artistic director of Stadtgarten Cologne since July 1st, 2022. For Weickel and O’Brien-Coker, communication and trust are key to ensuring that the needs of NICA artists for their professional development can be identified, articulated, and consequently realized.
They are excited to begin this process in 2022 with the 3rd funding round, working together with the new NICA artists and those who remain in the funding program to explore thoughtful ways to support them individually, while at the same time advancing the possibilities of NICA artist development.
More information in the official press info.
For general information about NICA artist development.
»NICA exchange« at Cologne Jazzweek
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»NICA exchange« at Cologne Jazzweek
European exchange project by NICA artist development / Stadtgarten Cologne in cooperation with Cologne Jazzweek 2022
This summer, »NICA exchange« will take place for the first time as part of Cologne Jazzweek at Stadtgarten Köln. The cooperation project between the NICA artist development program and Cologne Jazzweek 2022 enables European musicians, especially from the fields of jazz and improvised music, to perform on the stages of the Cologne festival. The focus of the concert series is to create spaces of exchange for a young, experimental generation of musicians, to encourage sustainable networking and creative exchange, and at the same time, in the context of the festival, to initiate a connection with an audience open to new discoveries.
This year the countries involved are France, the Netherlands, Poland, and Belgium. The selected artists for »NICA exchange« were chosen in cooperation with local NICA partner organizations (Bimhuis Amsterdam, RAUW Festival Rotterdam, JazzLab Belgium, INTL Jazzplatform Poland and AJC Jazz France), which in turn invite NICA artists and support them in research, networking and presentation.
The project focuses, in addition to international acquaintance, the stage as a place of encounter. This is the case with the concert Deman meets Coudoux/Muche on August 15th in the Green Room of the Stadtgarten, where the Belgian musician Berlinde Deman (tba/srp) meets the German musicians Matthias Muche (trb) and NICA artist Elisabeth Coudoux (vclo).
Cologne Jazzweek has been taking place in downtown Cologne since 2021. For a full week, the diverse program offers its audience a cross-section of the Cologne, as well as German and international jazz scene. In addition to the stages at Stadtgarten Köln, concerts will also take place at the WDR Sendesaal, CBE, Sartory Saal and Open Air at Ebertplatz.
- 15.08. 18:00 Green Room Deman meets Coudoux/Muche (DE/BE)
- 15.08. 19:00 Green Room Bonsai Panda (NL)
- 17.08. 22:30 JAKI Sun-Mi Hong Quintet (NL)
- 19.08. 18:00 Green Room Charley Rose Trio (FR)
- 19.08. 19:30 Green Room Amalia Umeda Quartet (PL)
Official press release
Fotocredits:
Elisabeth Coudoux © Nadine Heller-Menzel
Berlinde Deman © Jan Rouwens
Matthias Muche © Lutz Voigtlaender
New Artistic Director at Stadtgarten Cologne
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New Artistic Director at Stadtgarten Cologne
An era comes to an end: Forty-four years after the foundation of the Initiative Kölner Jazz Haus (IKJH) and after 36 years as Head Curator of the concert programme at Stadtgarten Köln, the ‘European Centre for Jazz and Contemporary Music’, Reiner Michalke passes the baton to his successor Kornelia Vossebein, who will take over as Artistic Director of this internationally renowned venue as of 1 July 2022.
More Info www.stadtgarten.de
Here you will find the complete press release.
Deutscher Jazzpreis 2022 verliehen – NICA artists ausgezeichnet
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Deutscher Jazzpreis 2022 verliehen – NICA artists ausgezeichnet
Deutscher Jazzpreis 2022 in Bremen
At this year’s German Jazz Award ceremony, the joy on the part of Stadtgarten and NICA artist development was great on several occasions:
The Stadtgarten Cologne is pleased to receive the German Jazz Award 2022 in the category “Venue of the Year”!
NICA artist Pablo Held was awarded in the category “Piano/Keyboards”!
Other NICA artists nominated were: Heidi Beyer (brass instruments) and Tamara Lukasheva as part of the ensemble Hard Boiled Wonderland - Music Resistance (Album Vocal of the Year). Congratulations for the nominations and winning the award!
Further information, as well as the official press release of the Stadtgarten Köln can be found here.
Click here for the official website of the Deutscher Jazzpreis.
Danksagung - свобода і мир - Freiheit und Frieden // Solidaritätskonzertes
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Danksagung - свобода і мир - Freiheit und Frieden // Solidaritätskonzertes
Danksagung
Die Stimmung des свобода і мир - Freiheit und Frieden // Solidaritätskonzertes hallt nach. Es war ein bedeutender Abend, mit schmerzvollen Momenten. Doch in allem steckte auch Trost und “Heilung”, wie die mitwirkende ukrainische Musikerin Mariana Sadovska es sagte. Und dies war mit Sicherheit einer der bewegendsten Momente an diesem Abend, bewies er doch, dass das Ziel, den Betroffenen zu helfen, erreicht worden ist.
Und nicht nur das. Allein an diesem Abend sind über 20.000.- Euro durch Eintrittsgelder, Spenden und Senderechte zusammengekommen. Und es ist weiterhin möglich über unser Spendenkonto finanziellen Beistand zu leisten.
Wir möchten uns von ganzem Herzen bei allen bedanken, die diesen Abend möglich gemacht haben. Aber der Krieg ist noch nicht vorbei. Jetzt geht es darum, den Menschen in der Ukraine mit all unseren Möglichkeiten weiterhin zur Seite zu stehen.
Besonders freuen wir uns, dass neben Tamara Lukasheva auch NICA artist Janning Trumann am Solidaritätskonzert mitgewirkt hat.
Video von Tamara Lukasheva: Erste Gelder schon ausgezahlt!
Video des Konzerts:
Interview mit Tamara Lukasheva über die aktuelle Lage der Kriegsopfer in der Ukraine vom 28.02.2022
Foto: Mariana Sadovska, Tamara Lukasheva (Initatorin des Solidaritätskonzerts) und Taya Chernyshova (vlnr)
© Niclas Weber
свобода і мир - Freedom and Peace // Concert in solidarity with Ukranian musicians
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свобода і мир - Freedom and Peace // Concert in solidarity with Ukranian musicians
Tuesday, 01 March 2022, 20.00 h, Stadtgarten Cologne
On the initiative of the Ukrainian NICA artist Tamara Lukasheva, who lives in Cologne, and under the patronage of the Mayor of Cologne, Henriette Reker, we are organizing a solidarity concert for the musicians living and working in Ukraine upcoming Tuesday.
We share the deep dismay that Russia’s aggressive belligerent invasion of Ukraine has caused and stand in solidarity with all people living in Ukraine, here especially with the musicians. To support msuicians directly, we not only want to stand in solidarity with them, but also provide them with money as soon as possible.
So, together with NICA artist Tamara Lukasheva, we will find a way to pass all the income generated from this concert and other actions (entrance fees, donations, fee for WDR broadcasting rights, etc.) directly to those affected.
We would like to see a strong participation as a sign of our solidarity with Ukraine.
You can still donate for musicians in the Ukraine here
More information
Winter Jazz in Space: New Webisodes Series
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Winter Jazz in Space: New Webisodes Series
The 11th edition of the “Winterjazz Köln” festival, which was to take place from January 7 to 8, 2022 with NICA artist developemtn in Stadtgarten Köln, unfortunately had to be canceled due to the current Corona situation. Since then, we have been working at full speed to make the music of the program audible to the public in its freshness and spirit of exploration, despite the circumstances.
This resulted in the new webisodes series “Winterjazz in Space”, which will be available with a total of 6 broadcasts each 3 bands from 7 to 12 January 2022 on www.stadtgarten.de and the Facebook channels of the Stadtgarten. The premiere will take place on the first day actually scheduled for the festival, Friday, January 7, at 8 pm.
PROGRAM
Friday, Jan. 7, 8 pm
Matthew Halpin - Frown Town
Elisabeth Coudoux - Violoncello solo
RE: CALAMARI
Saturday, January 8, 8 pm
NAU Trio
Giw & Kilonzo SUM
LARIZA
Sunday, January 9, 7 pm
Janning Trumann 4
Laura Totenhagen solo
Roger Kintopf STRUCTUCTURE
Monday, January 10, 7 pm
BÖRT
Leif Berger “The Noise Trumpets of Nothing”
Daniel Tamayo Quintet
Tuesday, January 11, 7 pm
TAU5
Heidi Bayer KORSH
Lukoshko
Wednesday, January 12, 7 pm
Barbara Barth ALL OR NOTHING AT ALL
THE RESONATORS
Luciel
*All information is subject to change. Program may be subject to change at short notice.*
More information: www.winterjazzkoeln.com
Sonae & Trees SUMMER unter den Top 10 der besten Musikvideos 2021
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Sonae & Trees SUMMER unter den Top 10 der besten Musikvideos 2021
SUMMER, ein kollaboratives, audio-visuelles Werk der Komponistin und Produzentin Sonae und der Videokünstlerin Jennifer Trees ist von A Closer Listen in die Top-10-Liste der besten Musikvideos 2021 aufgenommen worden.
Das 90-minütige Werk SUMMER feierte am 4. September 2021 Premiere im Stadtgarten Köln. Die beiden Künstlerinnen beleuchten darin das Thema Klimawandel.
Sonaes dazugehörige Album »Summer« ist am 4. Oktober 2021 bei laaps erschienen.
Cancelled: Winterjazz Köln 2022
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Cancelled: Winterjazz Köln 2022
Due to the current pandemic situation, the Winter Jazz Festival 2022 unfortunately has to be cancelled without replacement. More information about this can be found here.
NICA presents "Imaginarium": Transcontinental multimedia concert with Hong Kong
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NICA presents "Imaginarium": Transcontinental multimedia concert with Hong Kong
On Sunday, 31 October 2021 at 1 pm, a joint multimedia concert by musicians in Hong Kong and Cologne will take place in real-time collaboration for the first time. “Imaginarium”, which will be held as part of the Freespace Jazz Festival in Hong Kong, invites selected musicians in Hong Kong to perform live in front of an audience in interaction with artists from the NICA artist development programme who will be connected from Stadtgarten Cologne.
The German artists Elisabeth Coudoux (cello), Pablo Giw (trumpet) and Philip Zoubek (piano) will perform at Stadtgarten Cologne. Their counterparts at Freespace Jazz Fest Hong Kong, will be the artists Nelson Hiu (multi-instrumentalist), Charles Ng (saxophone), Simon Hui (double bass) and Fiona Lee (sound art).
The result is a multimedia virtual and real free improvisation jam that encourages new encounters, modes of communication and forms of musical and visual experimentation. The event will be available to watch via live stream at www.stadtgarten.de.
The technical challenges involved in the implementation could only be realized with the flexibility and great support of NetCologne.
Imaginarium - HK/Cologne is co-presented and co-produced by Freespace Jazz Fest HK, Goethe-Institut Hong Kong and NICA artist development / Stadtgarten Köln, and is part of the mission to establish international platforms and initiate long-term artistic collaborations.
New exchange project between Rotterdam, Nijmegen and Cologne
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New exchange project between Rotterdam, Nijmegen and Cologne
This autumn ‘The Rotterdam Nijmegen Köln Exchange’ will kick off – the exchange project between RAUW Festival Rotterdam, Festival Jazz International Nijmegen and NICA artist development / Stadtgarten Köln. The aim is to give selected artists from Rotterdam, Nijmegen and Cologne the opportunity to exchange ideas about performing at the participating partner organisations and to get to know the respective music, music scene and professional network in the other cities during their short stay. Joining us in this first edition are Heidi Bayer (NICA), Jo Goes Hunting and Bonsai Panda.
Dates:
19.10.21 / NICA presents: Jo Goes Hunting, JAKI in Stadtgarten Köln
28.10.21 / Heidi Bayer (VIRTUAL LEAK), RAUW Festival, Rotterdam
30.10.21 / Heidi Bayer (VIRTUAL LEAK), Festival Jazz International Nijmegen
17.01.22 / NICA presents: Bonsai Panda, JAKI in Stadtgarten Köln
You can find more information here.
Multimedia-Instellation SUMMER
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Multimedia-Instellation SUMMER
SUMMER is a collaborative audio-visual work by composer and producer Sonae and video artist Jennifer Trees. The walk-through multimedia constellation will be shown for the first time at Stadtgarten Cologne. Tickets can be purchased for 7 p.m., 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. here.
Climate change today poses an imminent threat to life on our planet. SUMMER stages a revealing confrontation with this provocative truth in a floor-to-ceiling A/V installation consisting of two screens placed opposite each other; the audience is positioned in between. The installation creates a space in which to feel honest, perhaps difficult emotions such as fear for the environment and grief for our changed planet. Or to indulge in denial, because the installation also offers the possibility to close one’s eyes. The two screens show different perspectives. In this way, SUMMER places its audience at the center of the problem, forcing them to make a decision at that moment and highlighting their respective active roles in the current climate crisis.
SUMMER was produced with the support of NICA Artist Development and the European Center for Jazz and Contemporary Music at Stadtgarten Cologne. Sonae’s eponymous album will be released on 04.10.2021 by LAAPS.
Sonae & Trees SUMMER © Katja Ruge
Pablo Held releases first solo album on own label
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Pablo Held releases first solo album on own label
NICA Artist Pablo Held will release “Embracing You”, his first solo album on his own new label “Hopalit Records” on October 1, 2021. After 13 albums on Pirouet Records & Edition Records, Held now wants to document his work on his own, entering into a more direct exchange with his audience. The album can be pre-ordered here.
The album features eleven tracks, including eight compositions penned by Held and three interpretations of works by his musical heroes John Taylor, Wayne Shorter &Thelonious Monk. For the production of the vinyl album Hopalit Records collaborates with Green Vinyl Records.The Dutch pressing plant is currently causing a sensation with a revolutionary environmentally friendly pressing method.
“Embracing You” is special for Held in many ways: it is not a classic piano solo album, but also features Mellotron, Celestaand synthesizers in addition to the grand piano. The recording process took almost a year, with several recording sessions in different studios and some creative changes of direction. Above all, “Embracing You” is dedicated to his family, which was the main source of inspiration for his music, especially during the Corona period.
Press release: Thomas Kemp (in excerpts)
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
NICA Sommerspecial
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NICA Sommerspecial
Es ist Sommerpause!
Ab September meldet sich das NICA Magazin mit neuen Formaten zurück. Um die Wartezeit zu verkürzen, präsentieren wir im Juli und August ausgewählte Highlights aus vergangenen NICA Konzerten im Stadtgarten Konzertsaal und Green Room. Den Anfang machte Elisabeth Coudoux mit ihrer Band Emiszatett – hochkonzentrierte Improvisationen auf dem schmalen Grat zwischen Struktur und Auflösung.
Am 30.07. folgt dann Pablo Giw mit Salomea und Kelvin Kilonzo – in dieser spannenden Dreier-Konstellation werden Improvisationen in Worte und Bewegungen übersetzt, während Jazz sich in Beat Music und dekonstruierten HipHop verwandelt.
Photo: Pablo Giw by Nathan Ishar / Pramudiya
Elisabeth Coudoux's Emiszatett releases new CD »Earis«
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Elisabeth Coudoux's Emiszatett releases new CD »Earis«
Elisabeth Coudoux’s Emiszatett are releasing their new CD »Earis« on Impakt Records on May 14, 2021.
With Pegelia Gold (voice), Elisabeth Coudoux (violoncello), Matthias Muche (trombone), Robert Landfermann (bass), Philip Zoubek (prepared piano, synth) und Etienne Nillesen (extended snare drum).
In November 2020, stuck in cologne, Elisabeth composed these pieces – more close to her own intuition. These ideas are a direct result of a conceptual processes that matured over the span of many years, shaped by the individual sound and the personalities of the musicians involved. 12 short sonic islands teem with abstract, experimental sounds that don’t shy away from melody or formal play. EARIS - The ear behind the iris - the idea of seeing without words, of forming a musical poem from the inner emotional landscape, which needs no words.
Die 12 new pieces are available on Bandcamp and can be downloaded or bought as a CD.
Pablo Gīw's quartet Stellar Banger releases new EP "Data Is"
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Pablo Gīw's quartet Stellar Banger releases new EP "Data Is"
On May 21, 2021 NICA Artist Pablo Giw is releasing the new EP »Data Is« on Ruptured Records with his electro-acoustic quartet Stellar Banger, which is composed of Lebanese musicians Ali Hout and Abed Kobeissy and German musicians Pablo Giw and Joss Turnbull.
The roots of this unique collaboration were laid down during the 2019 iteration of Irtijal Festival in Beirut, when the four men played together for the first time following their respective festival sets. The next year, right before the eruption of the Coronavirus pandemic, they set about working on a set of concrete recordings, from their homes in Beirut, Berlin, Köln and Turin. The resulting, freeform pieces were reworked, stretched and recomposed under varying states of lockdown, over the course of six months and 28 highly kinetic Zoom meetings.
The approach behind Stellar Banger is one of complete musical freedom, away from pre-assigned functions of instrumental / cultural roles, oblivious to the borders separating acoustic and digital media. At the heart of the quartet’s creative process is the notion of instant composing; improvisation with an experimental mindset, drum machines and electronic beats used in an open and intuitive manner, creating an identifiable sonic identity and structure.
The EP can be pre-ordered here. For more information, visit https://giwmusic.com/stellar-banger.
Photo: Stellar Banger by Niclas Weber
New concert series at Stadtgarten Cologne: »NICA live«
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New concert series at Stadtgarten Cologne: »NICA live«
From June 2021, the artists of the NICA artist development programme will present their musical ideas and visions at »NICA live« every Monday at 8 p.m. in the open-air concert space of the »Green Room« in Cologne’s Stadtgarten.
Tickets are available here.
For more information on the NICA Artist Development Programme and its artists click here.
Photo credits: Tamara Lukasheva © Annette Etges
New Streaming Series: "NICA Magazine presents"
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New Streaming Series: "NICA Magazine presents"
We are launching a new streaming series with “NICA Magazine presents”: every Monday at 8pm Stadtgarten Köln will show a new episode with magazine features and previously unreleased concert recordings of NICA Artists. Each show will consist of three parts: A short interview, followed by concert recordings and “High Five” with spontaneous improvisations. Singer Laura Totenhagen kicks things off.
The NICA magazine is produced by an experienced editorial team - consisting of Martin Laurentius (“Jazzthing” and others), Felix Klopotek (Kölner Stadt-Revue and others) and Kornelia Vossebein (NICA) - in cooperation with Klangmalerei.tv.
WDR Jazzpreis 2021 - Preisträgerkonzert von Tamara Lukasheva
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WDR Jazzpreis 2021 - Preisträgerkonzert von Tamara Lukasheva
Die NICA-Künstlerin Tamara Lukasheva ist die Gewinnerin des WDR Jazzpreis 2021 Komposition. Ihr Preisträgerkonzert mit der WDR Big Band kann jetzt hier in voller Länge angesehen werden.
»WE ACTUALLY MAKE MUSIC«: podcasts by Sonae and soundartist Philipp Höning
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»WE ACTUALLY MAKE MUSIC«: podcasts by Sonae and soundartist Philipp Höning
WE ACTUALLY MAKE MUSIC:
four podcasts by sonae and soundartist philipp höning made for ON - Neue Musik Köln
»we’ve been thinking about how to create a format that contributes to current thinking processes as much as it allows us to be what we are: artists, and to speak in our own language, in this case: music.«
4 reasons to shut up and play
a podcast in four parts by HÖNING + SONAE:
Tamara Lukasheva releases new single »Singet Leise«
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Tamara Lukasheva releases new single »Singet Leise«
NICA artist Tamara Lukasheva bringt vor der Veröffentlichung ihres neuen Solo-Albums »Gleichung« die Single »Singet Leise« heraus. Hier greift sie die Lyrik Clemens Brentanos auf und gibt dessen Gedicht »Wiegenlied« neues Leben.
The single will be released on 31/01/21 on the label wismArt, the album »Gleichung« will follow in March.
photo: © Harald Hoffmann
News from Pablo Held
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News from Pablo Held
There’s news from NICA artist Pablo Held:
His latest EP »Descent« has been released on Edition Records as a follow-up to his album »Ascent« from spring 2020.
Pablo Held also came out with some new merch: his »Investigation Notes« Notebook, for which he teamed up with a regional partner for an overall climate-neutral production. The 96 page book can be used as a notebook, a sketchbook or a journal.
Philip Zoubek releases solo CD »Vortex«
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Philip Zoubek releases solo CD »Vortex«
On December 11, 2020 NICA Artist Philip Zoubek released his new solo CD »Vortex« on WhyPlayJazz. On Vortex, which was recorded at LOFT in Cologne, Philip Zoubek turns his traditional instrument into an orchestra:
»Fascinating new music, eventful, alert, detailed and conscious of forms: Philip Zoubek makes long process in a precisely reflected and yet spontaneously developed flow of events. Thus, in his new solo program, he layers strange sounds into a surprising, strikingly plausible and, in its urgency, convincing sound journey into open terrain, which he paces out powerfully and nuanced (…)«.
The CD, with about 50 minutes of playtime full of sounds modulated with pieces of wood, e-bows, rubber, a wide variety of plastic and metal screws, is available on WhyPlayJazz.
ZEHN - Winterjazz Köln 2021 - January 8th & 9th
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ZEHN - Winterjazz Köln 2021 - January 8th & 9th
On its 10th anniversary on January 8th/9th, Winterjazz Köln Festival was presented in a very special format and, being a first, in cooperation with NICA. 10 artists from neighbouring European countries and from all over Germany were invited to contribute their music and perform in exclusive projects together with Cologne musicians – corona-proof and via livestream from the Stadtgarten. Participating NICA artists were Elisabeth Coudoux, Heidi Bayer, Leif Berger, Pablo Gīw, Janning Trumann, Laura Totenhagen and Philip Zoubek. Information about the programme is available at www.winterjazzkoeln.com.
The videos are available here.
Livestream: »Früchte des Zorns« am Schauspiel Köln mit Musik von Pablo Giw
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Livestream: »Früchte des Zorns« am Schauspiel Köln mit Musik von Pablo Giw
Die Dekonstruktion des amerikanischen Traums steht im Mittelpunkt des mit dem Pulitzerpreis gekrönten Romans FRÜCHTE DES ZORNS. John Steinbeck erzählt darin die Geschichte der Farmerfamilie Joad aus Oklahoma, die nach Jahren der Dürre ihr altes Leben aufgibt und sich auf die Reise entlang der Route 66 macht. Ihr Ziel: Kalifornien. Doch der Californian Dream rückt in immer weitere Ferne, als die Migrierenden im Westen bloß auf Schwindler*innen, Ausbeutung und Ausgrenzung stoßen. Ein Stoff der Stunde, der die Zusammenhänge zwischen Wirtschaftskrise, Migrationsbewegung und Klimawandel aufdeckt.
Die Musik für dieses Stück wurde komponiert von dem NICA-Artist Pablo Giw, der diese ebenso live auf der Bühne spielen wird. Die digitale Online-Premiere findet am 20.12.2020 von 17:00 - 19:00 statt.
Foto aus den Proben © Krafft Angerer
New music by Philip Zoubek
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New music by Philip Zoubek
With different groups, NICA artist Philip Zoubek has released two new releases at once.
His project TAU 5 (with Philipp Gropper, Ludwig Wandinger, Petter Eldh und Moritz Baumgärtner) released their debut album »Kreise« on November 20, 2020 on the label Fun In The Church.
On October 19 he released »Torbid Daylight« with Frank Gratkowski, Robert Landfermann und Dominik Mahnig on IMPAKT veröffentlicht.
New remix by Sonae
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New remix by Sonae
On November 6, 2020 a new remix by NICA artist Sonae was released - she took on the piece »VHS«, originally published on Si Begg’s soundtrack to the movie »Peripheral«.
The remix was published on the label Noodles Recordings and is part of a remix album of the soundtrack »Peripheral Original Motion Picture Soundtrack : Remixed Volume 2« which features also features artists like Carl Finlow, Bass Kittens, Adam Schock and Militant Funk.
Philip Zoubek's Trio releases new CD »Nonplaces«
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Philip Zoubek's Trio releases new CD »Nonplaces«
The three extraordinary musicians Philip Zoubek, David Helm and Dominik Mahnig take an unconventional approach to the conventional format of the piano trio on their new CD.
On »Nonplaces«, the Philip Zoubek Trio captivates the listener with enticing sounds. The pianist Philip Zoubek has further developed his playing on the prepared grand piano and this time he also uses synthesizers. The fast music is full of imagination and challenging but fascinating urgency. It is complex and simple at the same time, inviting the listener on a creative journey to something new - something that one would not expect from a conventional piano trio. »Nonplaces« is an album of inspiring musical dialogues between composition and improvisation and a departure from the tried and tested.
»Most of the pieces are permanent shape-shifters, a kaleidoscope of bouncing melodies and subtle changes in rhythm and style, structurally held together and controlled by the phenomenal sense of tempo that the three musicians let you hear. A format-forming, extraordinary recording: the album of the year for me!«
Achim Doppler, CONCERTO
The Philip Zoubek Trio performed together for the first time in 2018.
»Nonplaces« is the second album of the formation; it is available on bandcamp and whyplayjazz.
Tamara Lukasheva is awarded the WDR Jazzpreis 2021 for Composition!
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Tamara Lukasheva is awarded the WDR Jazzpreis 2021 for Composition!
Tamara Lukasheva, NICA artist since 2019, is awarded the WDR Jazzpreis 2021 in the category composition! Motivation: ‘Tamara Lukasheva, born in Odessa in 1988, has developed a distinct signature as a singer, and keeps on further expanding this style as composer and arranger into a profound tonal language with Eastern European hints, expressive and urban.’ A radio portrait of Tamara as well as information on other award categories are available here; and, she will be featured in detail during today’s programme on WDR 3 Jazz & World starting at 22:00: https://www1.wdr.de/radio/wdr3/programm/sendungen/wdr3-jazz-world/titelliste-jazz-world-784.html
Congratulations to all award winners!
Photo: Foto: WDR 3
2nd generation has started!
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2nd generation has started!
The 2nd generation has started!
Another six outstanding musicians* have been selected as the 2nd generation to receive NICA funding for their careers. They were nominated by selected promoters and music journalists. The final selection of the ‘NICA artists 2020’ was the responsibility of an expert jury. The six artists are:
Heidi Bayer (trumpet, *Lichtenfels)
Leif Berger (percussion, *Münster)
Sonae (producer/DJ, *Köln)
Laura Totenhagen (vocals, *Bergisch-Gladbach)
Janning Trumann (trombone, *Uelzen)
Philip Zoubek (piano, *Tulln, Austria)
Click here for the press release.
Further information about the artists is available here.
NICA Magazine: New Portrait Series
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NICA Magazine: New Portrait Series
Today our NICA magazine starts with a portrait series in which we present the NICA Artists in short video clips. We start with a portrait of the cellist Elisabeth Coudoux, who moves at the intersection of different musical genres such as free improvisation, experimental music, new composed music and jazz. The portrait as well as all upcoming formats of the NICA Magazine can be viewed here.
The NICA Magazine is produced by an experienced editorial team - consisting of Martin Laurentius (Jazz thing, “Deutscher Jazzjournalisten Preis” 2017) and Felix Klopotek (Kölner StadtRevue) - in cooperation with Klangmalerei.tv.
Elisabeth Coudoux's Emißatett releases new CD »physis«
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Elisabeth Coudoux's Emißatett releases new CD »physis«
Elisabeth Coudoux’s quintet Emißatett has released its new CD »physis«.
Five outstanding musicians meet each other with high musical values such as equality, freedom, listening, and the common form of sound. The Emißatett is the realization of direct musical communication. A dense but transparent building of events is created, a complex structure. There is no intellectual definition for this experience. It is up to the listener’s state of mind whether he hears or thinks exclusively, whether he sinks into himself or looks, whether he analyses or swings into the music.
»The cello, otherwise better known as a slightly melancholic romantic, screeches, trembles and jumps into time. Together with the piano as spaceship, the snare as satellite, the bass as nutrient and the trombone as transducer they blow up the nothingness. Sounds rush by, take us with them and set us down again with stretched perception. Destination Multiverse.«
The Emißatett has existed since 2013 and was included in the 2019 funding programme of the Ministry of Culture and Science for professional, independent music ensembles.
The album is digital available at bandcamp.
Pablo Held starts new podcast series
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Pablo Held starts new podcast series
In his interview series »Pablo Held Investigates«, Pablo Held has been talking to his musical idols and companions since 2018. Some of the interviews from the successful series can be read in JazzThing magazine. Wayne Shorter, Joey Baron, Dave Holland, Bill Stewart, John Scofield, Norma Winstone, Larry Goldings or Dave Longstreth already talked to Pablo Held about their music and creative process.
After Pablo Held tried out something new on the occasion of his new album »Ascent« and published a audio commentary about the inspirations and working method for this album, the idea for a new podcast series was born.
His plan is to publish an audio commentary for each of his albums. In the current episode he talks about his album »The Trio Meets John Scofield«, which was released in 2014 by Pirouet Records.
NICA joins Stepping Stone Family
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NICA joins Stepping Stone Family
Introducing new community Stepping Stone
Stepping Stone is a new community aimed at empowering musicians towards sustainable international careers. The current music system has gradually lost its connection to the value of music and its creation. Stepping Stone enables an open dialogue with musicians and professionals: bottom-up, aimed at long-term relationships and committed to contribute and share.
During this year’s inJazz, Stepping Stone will be officially launched and opens a dialogue on a creator-centered approach. You are invited to step up and actively participate in this conversation together with Stepping Stone ’20 participants Berlinde Deman and Bram Stadhouders.
Stepping Stone is financially made possible by among others Grensverleggers – funding to support cultural collaborations between parties in Flanders, the province of Noord-Brabant, the province of Limburg and the province of Zeeland – and by Sabam for Culture. More information: Stepping Stone
With:
Berlinde Deman, artist-composer (BE)
Bram Stadhouders, artist-composer (NL)
Svenja Doeinck, project manager NICA, Stadgarten (DE)
Martel Ollerenshaw, Arts broker & creative producer, Sound Out (GB)
Sophie Blussé, Director, Jazz International Rotterdam (NL)
Host:
Sandra Gevaert, participatory leadership expert, coach, host, Morosoph (NL)
Lobke Aelbrecht, production manager, JazzLab (BE)
Rogier Telderman, artist, creative Powered by TINC (NL)
The online inJazz conference is English spoken.
This session takes place online via the platform NetworkTables. Please note that seats are limited and available on a first-come, first-serve basis. Save your seat now.
NICA streams... International Jazz Day
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NICA streams... International Jazz Day
In January this year the monthly series NICA presents at the Jaki started. Due to the current situation the series cannot be continued for the time being. As long as this is the case, there will instead be »NICA streams« every Thursday, which will bring the artists of the free Cologne scene to life digitally, curated and recorded by the NICA artists Elisabeth Coudoux, Pablo Giw, Pablo Held and Tamara Lukasheva.
On the occasion of the International Jazz Day, »NICA streams…« will network with the three clubs Moods (Zurich), Porgy&Bess (Vienna) and Victoria (Oslo) to create a joint programme. The programme will start at 19:00 in Cologne, continue at 20:00 at Victoria and continue at 20:30 at Porgy & Bess.
In Cologne, NICA Artist Pablo Held will host the evening. Due to the occasion, he will be supported by Mascha Corman, who will conduct interviews with the three above-mentioned venues as NICA foreign correspondent. Pablo Held has invited the following two duos as musical program points:
Landferman / Ramond
With Christian Ramond and Robert Landfermann, two generations of Cologne double bassists meet for discourse. Both are connected by a Bonn past and early lessons with the great German jazz personality Gunnar Plümer. As a duo, they weave together standards of the American jazz tradition with European improvisational music.
Simon Seidl / Veronika Morscher
Austrian-born songwriter Veronika Morscher presents a program from her own pen in a rare duo performance with jazz pianist Simon Seidl. The vocalist’s passion for storytelling and her penchant for poetry are shown to advantage in a very special way in the reduced setting and through the characterful and expressive accompaniment of the Ingolstadt-born pianist.
NICA streams
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NICA streams
In January this year the monthly series NICA presents at the Jaki started. Due to the current covid-19 situation the series cannot be continued for the time being. As long as this is the case, there will instead be »NICA streams« every Thursday, which will bring the artists of the free Cologne scene to life digitally, curated and recorded by the NICA artists Elisabeth Coudoux, Pablo Giw, Pablo Held and Tamara Lukasheva.
The first livestream will take place on Thursday, April 2 at 18:30: NICA streams Lukasheva/Gramss & Coudoux/Giw
to the livestream:
culture-stream.cologne/videos/nica-streams
Pablo Held releases new album »Ascent«
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Pablo Held releases new album »Ascent«
Pablo Held’s new album, Ascent, his second for Edition Records, is a collaboration between his long-running trio (with bassist, Robert Landfermann and drummer, Jonas Burgwinkel) and the great Brazilian guitarist Nelson Veras. Regarded as one of the most talented and adventurous pianists and improvisors in Europe, Pablo Held is building a formidable reputation, not only as a pianist of outstanding ability but also for his considerable musicality, energy and risk-taking. Ascent is highly anticipated new album, following their 10th album Investigations, praised internationally for its remarkable quality, deep communication and lyrical elegance, prompting All About Jazz to describe the group as »a world-class trio of exceptional talent«. The new album is a deeply satisfying fusion of the powerful and expressive music associated with Pablo Held’s trio and the fluid invention of Nelson Veras’s guitar stylings. Live, Pablo Held will present his new CD with two concerts on April 3 & 4, 2020 at Stadtgarten Cologne.
Monthly concert series »NICA presents«
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Monthly concert series »NICA presents«
Starting in January, the four artists in residence Elisabeth Coudoux, Pablo Giw, Pablo Held and Tamara Lukasheva will regularly present their musical ideas, visions, cooperations or discoveries in the monthly concert series »NICA presents« on a Monday evening under their names in the JAKI Club of the Stadtgarten.
Tamara Lukasheva will start on 27 January 2019 with her new project Lukoshko.
Mon 27.01.20
20:00 JAKI
entrance free
more infos about concert
NICA presents: Coudoux, Giw, Held & Lukasheva - Artists in Residence 2020
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NICA presents: Coudoux, Giw, Held & Lukasheva - Artists in Residence 2020
Four Cologne musicians are the new Artists in Residence, who will help shape the programme in the Stadtgarten from 2020. On 17 December 2019, the four NICA Artists presented their current projects to the audience and invited organizers in a short performance at the Stadtgarten in Cologne. With NICA artist development, a pilot project launched this autumn by the Ministry of Culture and Science of North Rhine-Westphalia to promote jazz musicians at the European Centre for Jazz and Contemporary Music. Within a funding period of three years, it enables the selected artists to build up a professional, international network as well as a long-term presence at home and abroad, to sharpen their artistic profile and to provide them with the necessary knowledge for a successful career.