The 19th International Jazz Workshop will take place in Saarwellingen from August 14th to 20th 2023 with top-class concert series in the rustic ambience of the old factory hall on the Nobel campus.
This year there is a new addition to our lecturers - Carlo Nardozza (trumpet). There will also be a reunion with Randolph Matthews (vocals, beatboxing) and John Turville (piano). In 2021, the two did not make it across the canal due corona. Giorgos Kontrafouris from Athens on the piano and the singer Marta Capponi from Rome are back this year, they were celebrated by the audience last year! Kontrafouris, who commutes between Greece and Finland, is considered one of the most famous Greek jazz musicians, who has taught master classes worldwide and worked with international stars. The singer Marta Capponi, who comes from Rome, surprises her audience with her huge, stylistically very different repertoire, which moves between pop, folk, Latin and jazz standards. The critics are enthusiastic about her stage presence and her album.
Admission to the campus area starts at 6 p.m., so that you can enjoy the delicious wines and spirits from Pinard de Picard and fresh food from the Tunis Food Truck before the concerts. The concert hall will only be opened for admission after the sound check.
Due to Corona, we can only allow ticket holders to enter the site and only a limited number of them. At the moment it is envisaged that all visitors will have to present either their vaccination certificate or a negative test.
further concert informations coming soon...
The opening concert gives an insight into the skills of the various lecturers. In very different formations, they present the respective focal points of their approach. All possible jazz styles can be heard on this evening - bebop, Latin, modern, swing, from traditional to contemporary: look forward to a varied jazz evening.
The Ensembles are with:
Gilad Atzmon (art director, saxophone)
Barbara Bürkle (vocals)
Marta Capponi (vocals)
Ulrich Glaszmann (bass)
Jim Hart (vibraphone, drums)
Giorgos Kontrafouris (piano)
Claus Krisch (piano)
Nicolas Meier (guitar)
Johannes Müller (saxophone)
Yaron Stavi (bass)
Thilo Wagner (piano)
Enzo Zirilli (drums)
Randolph Matthews (vocals, beatboxing)
John Turville (piano)
Carlo Nardozza (trumpet)
Spyros Rogiannis (saxophone)
International Jazzwerkstatt All Stars 2017
Gilad Atzmon (saxophone)
John Turville (piano)
Thilo Wagner (piano)
Yaron Stavi (bass)
Enzo Zirilli (drums)
Corinna Hentschel-Stavi (violin)
Solveigh Röttig (violin)
Johanna Vogler (viola)
Lutz Schindeldecker (cello)
When Charlie Parker first went into the studio with a string orchestra plus jazz trio in 1949, critics feared an "artistic sell-out" for the alto saxophonist. You should be wrong: the album not only turned out to be a commercial success, but also met the highest musical standards. Its charm lay precisely in the contrast between the arranged passages for the string orchestra and the ingenious improvisational lines of the saxophone soloist.
Together with his jazz trio Turville (piano) / Stavi (bass) / Zirilli (drums) and a string quartet, Gilad Atzmon follows in Parker's footsteps and leaves his own footprints in the process. Or, as music critic Phil Johnson writes: "While most jazz tribute projects are bone dry, Gilad Atzmon's wonderful evocation of Charlie Parker's legendary 1949 Verve recording with strings somehow manages to convey Bird's odd genius and showcase just that , which is considered some of the most beautiful music ever made."
Gilad Atzmon is the artistic director of the festival. He tours worldwide and loves to push genre boundaries. With his collage of bebop and Middle Eastern sounds, the jazz musician and composer tries to push the boundaries of all worldviews.
Fans of the International Jazzwerkstatt will look forward to Atzmon playing with Thilo Wagner again. The musical "battles" between the king of swing, Thilo Wagner and the bebop player Gilad Atzmon are legendary.
left:Carlo Nardozza, right: Johannes Müller
Carlo Nardozza (trumpet)
Johannes Müller (saxophone)
Barbara Bürkle (vocals)
Marta Capponi (vocals)
Randolph Matthews (vocals)
Giorgos Kontrafouris (piano)
John Turville (piano)
Nicolas Meier (guitar)
Ulrich Glaszmann (bass)
Jim Hart (vibraphone, drums)
Enzo Zirilli (drums)
"I've revolutionized music four or five times. And why are you here?" For example, he once squeezed a white banker's wife who had wondered why he was invited to the US President's banquet - read about Miles Davis on laut.de. Born in 1926, he reinvented himself several times before his death in the early 90s, creating new directions in jazz - he countered the stormy bebop of his mentor Parker with his lyrical play and invented cool jazz, with his fellow musicians in the mid-60s modal jazz , in the late 60s and early 70s, the rhythm section in his bands emancipated itself from their role as accompanist and began to improvise, in the 70s, with Chick Corea and John McLaughlin, he finally devoted himself to rock jazz.
Lots of material for Carlo Nardozza, who is attending for the first time this year and is putting together the evening's program together with Johannes Müller. Nardozza's aim is to see more happy people during and after performances, more smiles and fewer niches, more openness between musical styles. In an interview he demands "Let music be music and let it touch you without judging." Johannes Müller has been part of the International Jazzwerkstatt from the very beginning. "For me, Johannes Müller's saxophone playing is the epitome of elegance. He has an incredible sense of form," writes Peter Kleiss about his playing. Nardozza is the trumpet on "Johannes Mueller Jazz Mile", the two musicians have been working together for years. It will be interesting to hear where the two focus on Miles Davis.
Barbara Bürkle (vocals)
Marta Capponi (vocals)
Randolph Matthews (vocals)
Tali Atzmon (vocals)
Gilad Atzmon (saxophone)
Johannes Müller (saxophone)
Carlo Nardozza (trumpet)
Thilo Wagner (piano)
Giorgos Kontrafouris (piano)
Nicolas Meier (guitar)
Ulrich Glaszmann (bass)
Yaron Stavi (bass)
Jim Hart (vibraphone, drums)
Marta Capponi, Barbara Bürkle, Randolph Matthews
Billie Holiday endured a difficult childhood of poverty before becoming the jazz singer of the 1930s and 1940s. Although she had no musical training, she possessed an incredible ability to "hear" rhythm, syncopation and cadence and developed her own unique improvisational style. With the mesmerizing intensity and emotionality of her singing, Holiday influenced jazz and pop music for years to come. The woman, who was enthusiastic about Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith as a child, eventually sang with almost all the great musicians of the swing era. Frank Sinatra hailed Holiday as his main musical influence.
The last lecturers' concert in 2022 is dedicated to this extraordinary singer with the expressive voice. In her songs and lyrics she rebelled against the ubiquitous oppression and discrimination of women and especially "colored people" in the first half of the last century. Four singers will deal with Billie Holiday this evening. The four are characterized by a very different approach to the topic of jazz interpretation. Everyone brings their own sound color and technique. While Randolph Matthews works a lot with loops, Barbara Bürkle sometimes whistles a title instead of using her warm, clear and touching voice, Marta Capponi loves to play with rhythms and Tali Atzmon sometimes sounds a bit like Nico with the Velvet Underground . Even if the approach is different, the courage, the anger, the desperation but also the irrepressible desire to survive ring through every interpretation of Billie Holliday's music.
Final concert 2017 at the old factory hall on campus nobel
For almost a week, the workshop participants are taught by their tutors. What they have worked out as a combo in this period, you show this evening. The combos are each coached by two lecturers - and it is always surprising how diverse the results of this "work phase" are. And one more thing becomes clear - the combos are the heart of this event, here meet the lecturers and students, here everyone wants to show what he can. And the joy of playing, the joy of music usually leaps over the audience as a spark.
Jailhouse Bigband 2018
This year the last concert evening of the International Jazz Workshop is again a big band meeting with two big bands from the region, the "Jailhouse Big Band" and the "Silent Explosion Orchestra". The evening will be opened by the Jailhouse Big Band conducted by Thomas Graf. With around 20 musicians, the big band has once again put together a varied program this year. Jazz standards, works from the fields of funk and Latin as well as pieces of modern big band music will be heard.
Silent Explosion Orchestra
With his Silent Explosion Orchestra, founded in 2014, drummer Kevin Naßhan from Saarland brings together some of the most talented young jazz musicians on the south-west German music scene. The big band not only feels committed to traditional swing music, but also likes to cross borders with other genres. Special projects and concerts with constantly changing themes and guests show the diversity of the formation. In its young band history, the orchestra has already performed with well-known musicians such as Dusko Goykovich, Christopher Dell, Jörg Achim Keller, Johannes Müller, James Morrison and many more.