Event information

Lively lightness meets gentle longing, a concert full of tonal finesse and emotional depth.
Following their award-winning albums "Sunlit" and "Movimento", the ensemble now presents the music from their new work "Equilibrio" live - a multi-layered interplay of contrasts and harmonies.

In their current programme, the three singers Elsa Johanna Mohr, Lena-Larissa Senge and Ula Martyn-Elis combine a wide variety of styles and moods to create a balanced whole. Not only are their voices closely interwoven in a creative exchange, but also their musical ideas - a rich eclecticism that never ceases to surprise.

LUAH sings in English and Portuguese, venturing into playful, dreamy and at the same time daring worlds of sound. Sometimes delicate and reduced, sometimes full of energy and experimentation, her songs unfold like a colourful wildflower meadow - multi-faceted, organic and full of life.

Band: Savoy Satellites
DJ: Tobias Stoeber

Swing is the music of the 30s and 40s, when jazz was still pop, when film was black and white and life was colourful. The Savoy Satellites have been on the road since 2012, mainly in Berlin and Germany. The Savoy Satellites have and always will put you in a good mood. They play energetic rhythms that will delight every jazz fan and lindy-hop lover. The quartet around singer Siri Svegler is inspired by the Nat King Cole Trio and brings the songs of Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and of course Nat King Cole back to life. The Savoy Satellites not only play swing classics, but also original compositions and pop adaptations. Because swing is a living culture and not a museum artefact. Swing at its finest - positive escapism for pleasure-seekers.

Tobias Stoeber: Originally from Wuppertal, Tobi started dancing in Cologne in 2007. With his talent for selecting the perfect swing music and creating an energetic atmosphere on the dance floor, Tobi's events soon became some of the most popular in the region.

The Jazz-Schmiede is transformed into a ballroom on this evening. Lindy Hop is the dance to swing music that found its namesake in the late 1920s in Charles Lindbergh, who crossed the Atlantic in 1927. The headline of the day back then was: "Lucky Lindy Hops the Atlantic". Today, this dance is back on the dancefloor.

The art of travesty

www.travestie-goldengirls.de

Gahler / Böbel / Feske / Brandenburg / Schneider
»Acoustic Stories«

Every Tuesday: Jam Session in the Jazz-Schmiede. The evening always starts at 8pm with an opener concert set with different bands every week. Afterwards, from around 9pm, there is an open jam session - anyone can come and join in to jam with other musicians and the opening band. Admission is free, so the sessions are also a great opportunity to get to know the Schmiede in an uncomplicated way.

Mystical folk and ballads from the land of fairies and volcanoes ( Iceland)

The Icelandic ensemble Umbra was founded in 2014 by four musicians who share a passion for old and new music: From the very beginning, their vision was to create their own musical world with a distinctive sound and the combination of old, traditional and new music. The ensemble's repertoire includes spiritual and secular medieval melodies from Iceland as well as traditional songs performed to the ensemble's original arrangements. They have also performed Icelandic contemporary music by some of the country's most prominent composers.

Umbra (= island) has been hailed by critics as "one of the most interesting ensembles" in Iceland, praised above all for its musical ambition and "outstanding arrangements" of early and traditional music.
The ensemble has created its own musical sound world with clear and unique tones and melodies. They are inspired by various sources: historical tape recordings of Iðunn from the archives of the Icelandic Rímur Society and the Icelandic National Museum, as well as recordings from the Árni Magnússon Institute; private collections; the folk song collection of Reverend Bjarni Þorsteinsson and Vésteinn Ólason's book on folk ballads.
Umbra has performed at numerous concerts and festivals throughout Iceland and Europe.
Her album "Solstitium" was honoured as CD of the Year at the Icelandic Music Awards 2018. "Llibre vermell" (2019) was also nominated for the IMA.

www.umbra-ensemble.com

The "Basel 2025" edition

When the Eurovision Song Contest came to Düsseldorf in 2011, it was no longer a question for Mayo Velvo, as a die-hard "Grand Prix" fan, to turn the long-cherished idea of a 'Eurovision' programme into reality.

Since then, the Velvo team - splendidly accompanied or supported by Thomas Möller on the piano or with his recordings - has presented a new edition of "VELVO sings EUROVISION" every year in the weeks shortly before the main ESC event.
Velvos serves up a musical journey through eight decades of Eurovision history with polyglot pathos hits, combined with illustrious stories and dazzling background knowledge, which always add glamour but also unintentional comedy to this largest popular music festival.
The focus of the programme changes with each edition, as Mayo Velvo focuses its dramaturgical attention on the ESC history of the previous year's winning country.

And so in 2025, the focus is on "Switzerland" (with contributions from Lys Assia, Esther Ofarim to Céline Dion), which won the ESC crown for the third time last year (with Nemo "The Code") and is now inviting the ESC circus to Basel.
Even if they usually only perform with vocals and piano, the Velvo team gets to the heart of many a dramatic Eurovision production and, with unerring instinct, sometimes even includes a supposed favourite for the next ESC victory in the programme even before the Grand Final ("Rise like a Phoenix" (2014) - "Heroes" (2015) - "Amar pelos dois" (2017).

And so, every year, an ever-growing audience enjoys a varied evening of songs with well-known Grand Prix hits, almost forgotten losers and many an uncrowned Eurovision classic - lovingly arranged, commented on and garnished with occasional surprise guests.

The perfect way to get in the mood for the annual Eurovision Song Contest before it's time to say... "12 points go to..."!

The sound is more interesting and colourful than ever!
Jens Düppe is back with original ideas and a new album, the fourth of his quartet. He conceives the compositions on the new album for ever-changing line-ups of his award-winning fellow musicians. The result is a captivating flow of ever new sounds and structures. Timeless music, says the press.

The band around the Cologne drummer and WDR Jazz Prize winner has now been in existence for ten years and has been convincing right from the start. Even their first album elicited reactions such as "A leading light for modern jazz" (Midwest record) or "best European jazz" (Jazzpodium). in 2018, Düppe was nominated for the ECHO Jazz award for "Best National Drummer". Together with his colleague Frederik Köster (trp), Lars Duppler (p) and Christian Ramond (b), the band performs so strongly as a whole that the live press cannot help but describe the concerts as "breathtaking sound adventures" (Holsteinischer Courier) or simply as "happenings" (Westfälische Nachrichten).

www.jensdueppe.de

Promoting young jazz talent in German-speaking countries is a particular concern of the initiators of the Young Jazz Talent Award. the Ringbeck Foundation launched the award in 2022: Young, not yet established jazz musicians between the ages of 16 and 23 are to be given special support in their career development. Each year, the focus is on a selected instrument/element.

In 2023, the focus was on the piano ... 'Piano Only'. This year, the competition will focus on vocals as a complementary and at the same time dominant element of jazz ... 'Vocals Only'. The Young Jazz Talent Award 2024 is again endowed with €5,000.00. It is aimed specifically at young, not yet established jazz singers. The award winner is expected to have a special command of their voice, musical interplay, playful creativity and talent for improvisation. A concert tour with his/her own band will be organised for him/her in four renowned German jazz clubs in the autumn of the competition year. The prize money will be used to realise this tour.

Jury
Ella Zirina . Jazz guitarist and composer from Latvia
Philipp van Endert . Guitarist, composer and assistant professor for jazz and electric guitar at the Institute for Music and Media at the Düsseldorf University of Music
Peter Weiss . Initiator and organiser of the YOUNG JAZZ TALENT AWARD . Jazz drummer
Jürgen Ringbeck . Initiator and organiser of the YOUNG JAZZ TALENT AWARD . Jazz enthusiast
the audience at the "Jazz-Schmiede Düsseldorf" on the evening of the competition event

https://jazztalentaward.de/

The Kultur(r)etten have been organising the Culture Club, the only LGBTQ show in the state capital Düsseldorf, under the motto "Stars, starlets and sluts" or "Without rehearsals all the way to the top" for 30 years, since 1993. Everyone is welcome to enjoy a cheerful, wild but also trashy show, which often surprises the performers and is constantly being reinvented.

Every Tuesday: Jam Session in the Jazz-Schmiede. The evening always starts at 8pm with an opener concert set with different bands every week. Afterwards, from around 9pm, there is an open jam session - anyone can come and join in to jam with other musicians and the opening band. Admission is free, so the sessions are also a great opportunity to get to know the Schmiede in an uncomplicated way.

Jazz City Bilk! 2025 from 15 to 18 May.

The internationally acclaimed piano virtuoso and Grammy winner Marian Petrescu and his congenial fellow musicians Joel Locher on bass and Felix Schrack on drums will be travelling back in time to one of the greatest heroes of jazz music: Oscar Peterson! The influence of the great Canadian master on the insanely virtuosic Marian Petrescu cannot be ignored. But this concert will not be a mere homage to Oscar Peterson - Petrescu and his trio add their own artistic touch to the style and finesse of Peterson or Art Tatum, but also have a sense of the modern, for example by including Pat Metheny's "Always And Forever" in their repertoire as well as Marian Petrescu's own compositions.

The trio's unbridled joy of playing and virtuosity is like a pianistic firework display, presenting versions of classics from the American Songbook with strokes of genius.

www.joel-locher.de

Neighbourly encounter: Jazz City Bilk meets Ballett am Rhein

Venue:
Balletthaus am Steinberg
Merowingerstraße 88, 40225 Düsseldorf

On 17 May, the Balletthaus on Merowingerstraße will become a meeting place for dance and jazz: Neshama Nashman, freelance choreographer and dancer with the Ballett am Rhein company, will present a world premiere that will enter into a dialogue with the jazz music that will also be performed live.

The four musicians of the evening are a reflection of the rich jazz scene in NRW: Mathias Haus and Peter Weiss represent the Düsseldorf scene, Genevieve O' Driscoll the Essen scene, Wolfgang Schmidtke the Wuppertal scene, all of whom know each other from other productions.

The right timing plays a decisive role in dance and music. Time and space determine our existence just as much as they characterise a choreography or a piece of music. When dance and music come into contact with each other live, they determine and influence each other, shaping space and time together.

In Neshama Nashman's creation "The Question of Time", two individuals meet in four short episodes. How they interact and perceive each other, whether they find each other or how their relationship with each other develops is a question of their environment and the right timing. In today's world of sensory overload and uncertainty, the free spirit of jazz music, improvisation and playing together is an attractive alternative to fear, restriction and control mania.

Especially in jazz music, the theme of time is particularly appealing due to improvisation. The musicians create a large part of the sound at the exact moment it is heard. The great American saxophonist Steve Lacy formulated this wittily and aptly:

"If you need to create 16 bars of classical music, you have all the time in the world- if you need to create 16 bars of jazz, you have 16 bars."

But jazz can also be composed, because tone formation, rhythm and harmony also retain their jazz character when they are predetermined, i.e. composed.

For "Die Frage der Zeit", Wolfgang Schmidtke, musician, composer and curator, has composed a four-movement suite and named it the "Bilk Suite" after its local destination. In this approx. 20-minute composition, the written part is quantitatively much larger than the improvised part. The performance in the context of dancers encouraged the use of different metres and tempi, even in the individual movements. The improvisational freedom also allows the artists dancing and making music to influence each other directly.

In a playful dialogue with each other, dance and music create a plea for more confidence and devotion. A liberation based on trust in impermanence and the power of constant change.

About the choreographer Neshama Nashman
Canadian Neshama Nashman studied at the Evelyn Hart Conservatory in Toronto, Canada, and honed her skills in courses at the Paris Opera, the Ellison Ballet and the Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet. in 2019, she became a semi-soloist at the Krakow Opera Ballet in Poland. Here she danced "The Nutcracker" by Marius Petipa and Monika Strzepka's "Joan of Arc at the Stake" as well as the leading role of Helena in Giorgio Madia's world premiere of "A Midsummer Night's dream".

Neshama Nashman has been a company member of Ballett am Rhein since the 2020/21 season and has since danced the role of Grandmother in Demis Volpi's choreography "The Nutcracker", in which she also worked as a choreographer. She has also performed in "Carmen" by Roland Petit, "Baal" by Aszure Barton, "Salt Womb" by Sharon Eyal, "Phlegmatic Summer" by Michèle Anne De Mey, "Le sacre du printemps" by Marcos Morau, "Don't look at the jar" by Gil Harush and "The Four Temperaments" by George Balanchine.

Neshama Nashman also works as a choreographer and created "A Little Woman" based on Franz Kafka's short story of the same name for the Ballett am Rhein in the 2022/23 season and "And my beloved" to music by David Lang in the following season. As part of Noverre: Young Choreographers, she presented her creation "And so am I" in Stuttgart in 2024.

Neighbourly encounter: Jazz City Bilk meets Ballett am Rhein

Venue:
Balletthaus am Steinberg
Merowingerstraße 88, 40225 Düsseldorf

On 17 May, the Balletthaus on Merowingerstraße will become a meeting place for dance and jazz: Neshama Nashman, freelance choreographer and dancer with the Ballett am Rhein company, will present a world premiere that will enter into a dialogue with the jazz music that will also be performed live.

The four musicians of the evening are a reflection of the rich jazz scene in NRW: Mathias Haus and Peter Weiss represent the Düsseldorf scene, Genevieve O' Driscoll the Essen scene, Wolfgang Schmidtke the Wuppertal scene, all of whom know each other from other productions.

The right timing plays a decisive role in dance and music. Time and space determine our existence just as much as they characterise a choreography or a piece of music. When dance and music come into contact with each other live, they determine and influence each other, shaping space and time together.

In Neshama Nashman's creation "The Question of Time", two individuals meet in four short episodes. How they interact and perceive each other, whether they find each other or how their relationship with each other develops is a question of their environment and the right timing. In today's world of sensory overload and uncertainty, the free spirit of jazz music, improvisation and playing together is an attractive alternative to fear, restriction and control mania.

Especially in jazz music, the theme of time is particularly appealing due to improvisation. The musicians create a large part of the sound at the exact moment it is heard. The great American saxophonist Steve Lacy formulated this wittily and aptly:

"If you need to create 16 bars of classical music, you have all the time in the world- if you need to create 16 bars of jazz, you have 16 bars."

But jazz can also be composed, because tone formation, rhythm and harmony also retain their jazz character when they are predetermined, i.e. composed.

For "Die Frage der Zeit", Wolfgang Schmidtke, musician, composer and curator, has composed a four-movement suite and named it the "Bilk Suite" after its local destination. In this approx. 20-minute composition, the written part is quantitatively much larger than the improvised part. The performance in the context of dancers encouraged the use of different metres and tempi, even in the individual movements. The improvisational freedom also allows the artists dancing and making music to influence each other directly.

In a playful dialogue with each other, dance and music create a plea for more confidence and devotion. A liberation based on trust in impermanence and the power of constant change.

About the choreographer Neshama Nashman
Canadian Neshama Nashman studied at the Evelyn Hart Conservatory in Toronto, Canada, and honed her skills in courses at the Paris Opera, the Ellison Ballet and the Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet. in 2019, she became a semi-soloist at the Krakow Opera Ballet in Poland. Here she danced "The Nutcracker" by Marius Petipa and Monika Strzepka's "Joan of Arc at the Stake" as well as the leading role of Helena in Giorgio Madia's world premiere of "A Midsummer Night's dream".

Neshama Nashman has been a company member of Ballett am Rhein since the 2020/21 season and has since danced the role of Grandmother in Demis Volpi's choreography "The Nutcracker", in which she also worked as a choreographer. She has also performed in "Carmen" by Roland Petit, "Baal" by Aszure Barton, "Salt Womb" by Sharon Eyal, "Phlegmatic Summer" by Michèle Anne De Mey, "Le sacre du printemps" by Marcos Morau, "Don't look at the jar" by Gil Harush and "The Four Temperaments" by George Balanchine.

Neshama Nashman also works as a choreographer and created "A Little Woman" based on Franz Kafka's short story of the same name for the Ballett am Rhein in the 2022/23 season and "And my beloved" to music by David Lang in the following season. As part of Noverre: Young Choreographers, she presented her creation "And so am I" in Stuttgart in 2024.

Jazz City Bilk! 2025 from 15 to 18 May.

Canadian jazz guitarist Jocelyn Gould, the shooting star of the American and international jazz scene, presents her fourth album "Portrait of Right Now".
With her swinging playing and joyful energy, she has already captivated audiences around the world. Her passion for music is as infectious as her unique ability to connect with her listeners. Jocelyn has taken the influences of the jazz guitar greats and woven them into an exciting personal sound, citing Wes Montgomery, Grant Green, Joe Pass and Kenny Burrell as major influences on the guitar.

jocelyngould.com/

Every Tuesday: Jam Session in the Jazz-Schmiede. The evening always starts at 8pm with an opener concert set with different bands every week. Afterwards, from around 9pm, there is an open jam session - anyone can come and join in to jam with other musicians and the opening band. Admission is free, so the sessions are also a great opportunity to get to know the Schmiede in an uncomplicated way.

Improvisation theatre with all means

Everything happens in the moment, just like in everyday life, and the Frizzles love to create new things and surprise each other and the audience. The focus is on the creativity of the moment and humour. "We are often asked: How do you do it? Don't you have any stage fright? The answer is: No, we never know what's coming, so we can't forget any lines." The art of improvisation is to keep a clear head and be ready for whatever comes. At Frizzles, comedy, music, acting, singing and movement theatre come together. It's the mix that makes it work. Lights on, music off! From current events, the interjections and ideas of the audience and the interplay between colleagues, "Frizzles" conjure up a top-class evening of theatre for you. The world has never seen or heard anything like it - the acting, rhyming, dancing and, above all, singing is absolutely spontaneous. No task is too difficult, no path too far - the Frizzles perform in all emotional and weather conditions. They use every known genre - or they simply invent something completely new together with our audience... Frizzles love music more than any other ensemble. From A for aria to I for Indian fertility dances, F for fan choirs, M for moon music and Z for circus tunes. They plunge headlong into unknown adventures and make music in all registers. No two evenings are the same, and we are delighted to have a growing fan base that never misses one of them!

An exploding microverse: the free improvising trio RGR creates intense moments of fragile beauty. No compositions, no agreements - the starting point is a musical understanding that has grown together. The three musicians playfully combine different influences and soundscapes: Rustling, stroking, plucking, whispering hissing or singing. From quiet sounds and broken beats, the trio develops filigree melodies that draw their irrepressible power from spontaneous emergence.
Saxophonist Inga Rothammel, pianist Jan Lukas Roßmüller and drummer Jakob Görris belong to a young Cologne jazz generation that moves between experimental richness of sound and disarming simplicity. Octopetala is the name of their debut album, which will be released in March 2024 on Boomslang Records. It is named after the polar rose.

"Nuestra Tierra" Album Release Concert

With their unmistakable blend of styles and cultures, Los Pipos have quickly made a name for themselves in the Latin fusion scene. The musicians from Peru, Cuba, Mexico, Germany, Chile and the Netherlands have a unique ability to combine tradition and modernity into a dynamic sound while preserving their musical roots.

Since their formation in 2017, Los Pipos have built up a loyal fan base across Europe with their energetic live performances. Their music is an exciting fusion of Latin American melodies, jazz and modernity. They know no stylistic boundaries and experiment with rhythms that are both familiar and surprising to the ear.

Highlights of the band's career include performances at the North Sea Jazz Festival (NL) and the Festival Da Jazz in St. Moritz (CH). Winning the Dias Latinos Award 2021 in Amersfoort (NL) confirms their position as one of the most exciting bands on the Latin fusion scene. Anyone who hears (and sees!) them perform will quickly understand why they are considered one of the most indicated bands of their kind.

So don't miss the opportunity to experience Los Pipos live. On 31 May, they will be presenting their latest album "Nuestra Tierra" at the Jazzschmiede. Let their great music transport you to a world full of colour, sound and joie de vivre.

By attending the concert, you will be supporting FUTUROSI e.V. and thus children's projects in Latin America.

Creole island music (Mauritius, Reunion, Comoros, Madagascar)

Four artists from the islands of Madagascar, Comoros, Mauritius and La Réunion in the western Indian Ocean will present a special concert programme together: each of the musicians in the quartet is a strong voice for the protection of nature and for sustainable development in this important cultural area with its diversity of musical styles, Creole languages and instruments. Their activities are viewed in the context of colonialism here and there and gain new significance through the topicality of their repertoire. The threat posed by the acute climate crisis is also highly topical on the islands and in the large, fragile marine and coastal areas, as the abundance of endemic plants and animals is severely threatened and has a dramatic impact on people's everyday lives.

The quartet develops new pieces of music in the oral tradition and collectively, which they arrange for playing together on their almost 20 different instruments. To accompany this music, they create their own original texts on current issues on the islands, in particular the consequences of climate change and colonialism, which also reflect the ethnic and spiritual diversity of the musicians' perspectives: Elements of Indian, Chinese, African, Arabic and European influences will be heard. They pray to Christ, Allah, Shiva, saints and gods, whose rituals are musical references. Sega, the blues of the Indian Ocean, will be played, as well as Maloya, music from the highlands of Madagascar, Twarab, Mgodro, Shigoma and much more.

There will be a reunion with Rakotonirina Jean a.k.a. Bosco from Madagascar, who was a guest at Klangkosmos in 2013 with his Sammy & Bosco Trio. Eliasse Ben Joma from the Comoros also made a lasting impression in NRW in 2013 with the Elisouma Trio . The artistic director of the quartet is Percy Yip Tong from Mauritius, who is one of the most important ambassadors and creative minds of Creole music from the Indian Ocean worldwide and has provided numerous insights into the diversity of musical cultures in this cultural area here in Europe over the last 10 years. These three heroes are complemented by two equally impressive women and multi-instrumentalists: Sarasvati Mallac from Mauritius and the great Christine Salem from the French overseas territory of La Reunion.

Betrayers of Babylon combine the sound of Seeed, Vulfpeck and Cat Empire to create an energetic mix of reggae and global groove. Their humorous and playful lyrics radiate optimism and cosmopolitanism. Since 2011, the band from Essen has been touring from festival to festival to dispel bad moods with their music. With strong vocals, infectious grooves and crisp brass sections, they create pure feelings of happiness.

https://www.lovebird-festival.de/line-up-2025/betrayers-of-babylon

Omer Klein's work covers a broad spectrum, from solo piano to big band, from song to symphony orchestra. He composes for his own jazz trio, for string quartet as well as for theatre, dance and film.

In the 2024/2025 season, Omer Klein is Artist in Residence at the Alte Oper in Frankfurt, where he will present his new sextet on 29 April. He has released ten albums, five of them on the renowned Warner Music label. He has won numerous awards, including the ECHO Jazz, and has been nominated three times for the German Jazz Award in various categories in recent years. He also received a nomination for the German Jazz Award in 2025 with his Omer Klein Trio as "Live Act of the Year".

Omer Klein also plays at renowned festivals and concert halls, including the North Sea Jazz Festival, Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Elbphilharmonie, the Bremen Musikfest, the Berlin Philharmonie, the Vienna Konzerthaus, the London Jazz Festival and more. Omer Klein was born in Israel in 1982 and studied in Boston and New York.

https://www.lovebird-festival.de/line-up-2025/omer-klein-trio

Franzl & Robert
Schumann's "Dichterliebe" with a portion of Schubert as an appetiser

The American baritone Bryan Benner dares to take a cheeky look at the art song with 3 top musicians. The quartet with Thomas Toppler, Simon Teurezbacher and Ivan Turkalj shows the vitality and charm of this genre, which has sometimes been declared dead, but also its depth and weight of meaning. 200-year-old songs enter our hearts, make us dance or cry, touch our minds. Whether in Vienna or London, young or old, classical music fan or pop freak: excitement and joy are guaranteed with THE ERLKINGS, German Lied at its very best.

The jazz group at St Ursula Grammar School in Düsseldorf has been in existence since 1992. In addition to real jazz standards such as So What, Blue Bossa and Freedom Jazz Dance, the programme also includes current pop songs by Adele and Ed Sheeran. The line-up of the Jazz-AG typically consists of the rhythm section (drums, bass, piano and guitar), a few wind instruments and a singer, although the actual line-up varies from year to year. Sebastian Gahler, head of the Jazz-AG, places great emphasis on teaching improvisation techniques and honing the skills of playing together.