Berlin Solo Impro

In the organizer's words:

One of the few festivals for solo improvisation worldwide is now in its eighth year. Curator and organizer Volker Meitz has succeeded in establishing a regular forum for this special and intimate form of musical performance - and what German city would be more fitting than Berlin, which is considered one of Europe's centers not only for experimental forms of music.

A total of 15 artists who are at home in very different musical universes can be experienced over three days at Berlin's Acker Stadt Palast. Although Meitz could draw on the full potential of the local line-up alone, he also invites national and international performers, such as vocal artist Marcela Lucatelli (DK), pianist Stefan Schultze (CH), trumpeter Birgit Ulher (Hamburg) and saxophonist Angelika Niescier (Cologne). Other musicians such as drummer Maria Portugal (BR), percussionist Evi Filippou (GR) and pianist Kit Downes (UK) have only recently moved to Berlin.

Each evening begins with an introductory panel discussion with the five musicians, after which they give solo performances of around 20 minutes each. The contrasting finale of each evening is the collective finale: Here, all five participants deliver a collective improvisation in which they have to react to each other, while in the solo context they were still alone with themselves and the audience. In this way, we get to know the musicians from different angles, which promises an evening that is as artistically valuable as it is entertaining.

The stylistic framework of the festival is broad: from real-time music, jazz, new music and electronics , the invited musicians play their instruments purely acoustically, through amplifiers or through chains of electronic effects - all the way to a computer-controlled hammer mechanism for piano with Stefan Schultze. Anything between experimental noise and melodious harmony is possible here, integrated by the bracket of solo improvisation as the festival's core concept. There is also a connection or two to popular music, for example through Dirk Berger, who plays guitar in the instrumental hip-hop band Lychee Lassi and has produced albums by Marteria and Peter Fox .