Female Cadence. Hommage an Pia Beck (Niederlande) mit dem Olga Reznichenko Trio

In the organizer's words:

Saturday, November 15, 2025, 20h, Kubiz Raoul Wallenberg, Bernkasteler Str 78, 13088 Berlin, admission 18-12 Euro. Box Office from 19.30h (cash only), advance sale via Eventbrite.

PIA BECK

presented by

OLGA REZNICHENKO TRIO

Olga Reznichenko - piano

Lorenz Heigenhuber - bass

Maximilian Stadtfeld - drums

The Dutch pianist and singer Pia Beck (1925-2009) was one of the most popular jazz musicians in Europe in the 1950s. Born in The Hague in 1925, she began playing the piano as a child. After her first performances during the war years, she became a pianist and singer in the Miller Sextet in 1945, with whom she toured Europe and Indonesia. In 1949, she founded her own trio and landed a hit with Pia's Boogie, which sold hundreds of thousands of copies and became her trademark.

In the following years, Beck toured throughout Europe, played regularly in the Netherlands at "De Vliegende Hollander" and also performed in the USA from 1952 - for example at the famous Birdland in New York. There she met many jazz greats, received much recognition and even became an honorary citizen of New Orleans and Atlanta. In 1956, Time magazine dedicated a portrait to her and gave her the nickname "The Flying Dutchess".

Beck was a brilliant pianist with great stage presence who combined jazz, swing and boogie with ease and humor. She sang in several languages, loved the show, drove fast cars and presented herself confidently as a star. At the same time, her style remained accessible: as she said herself, she wanted to "entertain and play for the people".

In the mid-1960s, she retired to Spain with her partner Marga Samsonowski and their children. There she ran a piano bar, hosted radio shows, worked as a real estate agent and wrote travel guides. Nevertheless, she remained committed to music and returned to Dutch stages in the 1970s - with major concerts, new records and tours, including with the Dutch Swing College Band. She also performed at the North Sea Jazz Festival.

Beck's stance as an openly lesbian musician was particularly significant at a time when homosexuality was still very much a taboo. Together with Samsonowski, she lived this partnership without secrecy. In 1977, she took part in the protest concert "Miami Nightmare" at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, which was directed against the homophobic campaign by US singer Anita Bryant. Beck never wanted to be seen exclusively as a symbolic figure of the movement, but she made an important statement by getting involved openly and visibly.

Even though her popularity in the 1980s and 1990s was mainly nostalgic, Pia Beck remained active well into old age. In 2000, she celebrated her 75th birthday and 60th anniversary on stage with a big anniversary concert. Three years later, she retired from the stage for good.

Pia Beck died in Torremolinos in 2009, a few months after the death of her partner. She left behind a rich musical oeuvre and the memory of an extraordinary woman who set standards as a musician, entertainer and personality - and who was also a pioneer for visibility and self-determination.

OLGA REZNICHENKO

Olga Reznichenko is a pianist and composer from Russia who now lives in Leipzig and is part of the younger German jazz scene. Her music combines influences from classical music, contemporary improvisation and jazz. She leads her own ensembles and is also active as a sought-after side musician. https://www.olgareznichenko.com/

LORENZ HEIGENHUBER
Lorenz Heigenhuber is a German jazz bassist (double bass and electric bass) who belongs to the younger generation. He was a member of the Bavarian State Youth Jazz Orchestra between 2008 and 2011. He later studied in Munich and, from around 2017, in Leipzig. He collaborates with bands such as the Olga Reznichenko Trio (album Somnambule, 2022) and plays on Moritz Stahl's album Traumsequenz (2024). In 2019, he received the Jazz Young Talent Award of the City of Leipzig with the trio Heuken / Stadtfeld / Heigenhuber. https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorenz_Heigenhuber

MAXIMILIAN STADTFELD

Maximilian "Max" Stadtfeld is a German drummer from Constance. He lives and works in Leipzig, where he has been working as a freelancer since graduating in 2018. In 2019, his debut album Stax was released on the ACT label, followed by Suboptimal in 2022, and further projects have been announced. He often plays with his band STAX and is active in various young formations in southern and eastern Germany. Website:https://maxstadtfeld.com/

Background:
Female Cadence: Women in European Jazz around 1960 (October 2025 - January 2026) is dedicated to forgotten female musicians who had a decisive influence on jazz in Europe. The focus is on artists such as Lolita Garrido (Spain), Pia Beck (Netherlands), Colette Magny (France), German Tülay (Turkey), Kathy Stobart (Great Britain) and Ewa Wanat (Poland).

The project brings these artists back into the public consciousness by Berlin musicians such as Olga Reznichenko, Mathilde Vendramin, Lucia Boffo, Pinar Tatlikazan, Birgitta Flick and Ola Blachno and their ensembles reinterpreting and transcribing works by these women and combining them with their own artistic positions. The result is a dialog between past and present, between politically motivated music history and today's jazz avant-garde.

In addition to six concerts in venues such as the Brotfabrik and Kubiz Raoul Wallenberg, the series includes lectures and a program booklet. A podcast will be produced afterwards. This will make female jazz history visible in the long term and at the same time open up a discourse on the social conditions of those musicians - focusing on patriarchal structures and authoritarian regimes. The aim is also to take a look at today's conditions in jazz and to present current artistic positions of female jazz and improvisational musicians.

The concert series sees itself as a contribution to making forgotten female biographies visible and as a reflection on the extent to which artistic expression and social protest intertwine then and now.

Supported by Musikfonds e.V. with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.
Idea and realization: Regina Câmara