Gong and Circumstance

(December 2024 only:) Theo Altmann (born 2001) grew up in Stuttgart Bad Cannstatt and studied jazz trumpet in Stuttgart, Paris and Berlin, where he will graduate in 2025. Concerts have taken him not only to Germany but also to international stages, such as France and Vietnam. He has shared the stage with musicians such as Wanja Slavin, Lucia Cadotsch, Sebastian Gille, Christian Weidner, Doug Weiss, Kathrin Pechloff, Peter Evans and Uli Kempendorff. In addition to his work in jazz and improvised music, he has participated in world premieres of new music, plays and performances. His compositions range from chamber music with an affinity to jazz tradition to electroacoustic settings. Since 2023, he has led a trio together with Gal Golob (double bass) and Stevie Moser (drums).

(March 2024 only:) Adrián Artacho is a composer and an artistic researcher at the crossroads between movement and sound. He completed his master’s degree at Music and Arts Private University of Vienna with a thesis of Form Spaces, followed by a postgraduate course on Electroacoustic composition at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. As a PhD candidate at the Institute for Composition and Electroacoustics, he researches the use of technology to augment performer capabilities. Additionally, Artacho holds a BA in translation, and as a certified cultural mediator he develops science communication projects on behalf of the University of Vienna. Artacho is currently working as artist researcher in the artistic research project “Atlas of Smooth Spaces” funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) and is a lecturer for Transmedial Performance at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna.

The Berlin-based musician, percussionist and healing artist with roots in Syria creates lively rhythms, both as a solo artist and with groups such as the Pulsar Collective and a dabke group invited by Sasha Waltz & Guests. He is co-founder of the first Arabic library BAYNATNA, for which he received awards such as “THE POWER OF THE ART 2020. transforming society.” Ali’s rhythmic art reverberates throughout Europe and has been recognised in the international press. He is a founding member of the Resident Music Collective at the Humboldt Forum and is curating a concert evening for the Airing Out festival in 2024.

(March 2024 only:) Jakob Dinkelacker grew up in a musical household, learned French horn as well as classical percussion and gained his first stage experiences in orchestras and theater. In 2014, he completed his music studies (jazz and popular music) at the HfMdK Mannheim. Since then he has worked mainly as a theater musician and performer in about 30 productions so far. As a drummer he plays with Fabian Simon&The Moon Machine, Hotel Rimini, Bayuk, and others. In the “silent period” of the pandemic between 2020 and 2022, he was increasingly involved in the hybridization and preparation of electroacoustic instrumental setups and continued his education in the field of sound design. Dinkelacker is interested in sounds that are different but can be aestheticized into something that has already been there. In this search he builds or prepares instruments experimentally and intuitively. Most recently, this resulted in a drum and string construct made of metal and wood.

Gal Golob finished his studies at the Conservatory for Music and Ballet Ljubljana as a classical cellist and jazz double bassist and continued his studies at the renowned Jazz Institute Berlin. He has performed at many competitions (most recently he was awarded 2nd place at Jazzon 2022) and festivals such as Jazzopen Stuttgart, Druga Godba, Jazz Festival Ljubljana, Bayerisches Jazzweekend, Futurum Festival Leipzig, Festival MENT and others. He regularly performs with bands such as Fabia Mantwill Quintett, Nomadia, Gugutke, Kerida.

Ganna Gryniva is a Ukrainian jazz singer who came to Germany from Ukraine with her parents in 2002 at the age of 13. In her music she unfolds her different cultural roots: in her ethno-jazz quintet GANNA, performing for “Airing Out” in the Schlüterhof,  and solo with loops/electronics she combines Ukrainian folklore with jazz and improvised music. Inspired by research trips to different regions of Ukraine, Ganna is committed to spreading Ukraine’s cultural heritage internationally. Her new album HOME was celebrated by the music press as “Album of the Year” (Ulrich Habersetzer, DLF Kultur) and “Jazz Highlight of the Year” (Roland Spiegel, Bayerischer Rundfunk).

Currently Ganna Gryniva lives in Berlin and tours regularly in various European countries with her own bands, as a sidewoman and as a lecturer for jazz and improvised voice.

www.ganna-gryniva.de

The saxophonist Leonhard Huhn (born 1986 in Berlin) is active across genres in the German and European music scene and is well connected. His flexible, experimental and melodious approach to playing and performance combines jazz, contemporary music, electroacoustic sound performance, improvisation and Krautrock. He leads his own trio DIE FICHTEN, tours regularly internationally with, among others, the band C.A.R., composes for many ensembles and theatres. Huhn developed a new electronic, modular saxophone set-up and is part of the young music movement ‘Krautjazz’. As a sought-after sideman and guest musician, he works in many ensembles such as Fo[u]r Alto, Stefan Schultze Large Ensemble, Colonel Petrovs Good Judgement, among others, and he leads the collectives Impakt Köln and Headless Society. He graduated from the HfMT Cologne in 2012 and has been awarded the Horst and Gretl Will Scholarship of the City of Cologne in 2015 and the scholarship of the SK Stiftung of the Sparkasse Köln/Bonn in 2018, among others. He has toured several times with the Goethe-Institute, including to India, Pakistan, China and Russia. He has worked with Simon Nabatov, Jürgen Friedrich, Frank Gratkowski, Morton Subotnick, Max Loderbauer, David Helm, Philip Zoubek, Stefan Schultze, Niels Klein, Steffen Schorn, Hayden Chisholm, Robert Landfermann, Carl Ludwig Hübsch, Florian Rynkowski and many others.

(December 2024 only:) Xavier Kaeser is a Swiss drummer, composer and lives in Berlin. He gained his first musical experiences in jazz big bands, before taking a deeper musical direction at university. He completed a master’s degree in jazz performance at the Bern University of the Arts, where he perfected his instrument under the tutelage of Dejan Terzic, Julian Sartorius, Jim Black and Jeff Ballard. Xavier Kaeser has already performed on numerous European stages, including the More Than Jazz Festival (Udine), Philly Joe’s (Tallinn), Auditori Casa Cultura (Calp), Cully Jazz Festival (Cully), Jazz Onze + (Lausanne), Moods (Zurich), AMR (Geneva), BeJazz (Bern). He has already played live or recorded in the studio with artists such as Enrico Pieranunzi, Ralph Alessi, Django Bates, Bert Joris, Andreas Schaerer, Colin Vallon, Ronny Graupe, Rudi Mahall, Domenic Landolf, Moncef Genoud, Letieres Leite and Alexandra Grimal.

Aly Keïta descended from a family of musicians as he grew up surrounded by traditional instruments like the djembe and the kora. But his favorite instrument became the balafon, which he made with his own hands as a young man, and which he has played ever since. Aly Keita earned worldwide renowned for his mastery of the balafon. While rooted in tradition, Keita’s Afro-pop, funk-fueled rhythm section and taste for complex jazz-oriented arrangements set him far apart from most balafonists.  At the Humboldt Forum Aly Keïta has performed on numerous occasions as part of the Resident Music Collective or as act at Durchlüften, the annual summer festival.

Bo-Sung Kim was born in Seoul, South Korea and grew up in Berlin. She discovered her passion for Korean percussion as a child and went to Korea after finishing school to study traditional performing arts at the Korean National University of Arts in Seoul, with a focal point on percussion, mask dance and shamanic ritual music. She has played in various formations such as Ensemble AY, which is dedicated to discovering new worlds of sound through free improvisation, Ensemble GaMuAk with traditional Korean music and dance repertoires, Ensemble INklang, which develops new interpretations of traditional Korean music in a contemporary context, and Ensemble ~su, and works currently with musicians such as Laura Robles, Sol-I So, Gunda Gottschalk, Saadet Türköz, Peter Ehwald, Matthias Mainz, Oliver Potratz and others. Bo-Sung Kim teaches Korean percussion at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg and the Korean Cultural Center Berlin, among others.

Shih-Che Lee is a classical and jazz musician. He was born in Taiwan and initially studied trombone with Prof. Ehrhard Wetz at the Mannheim State University of Music and Performing Arts. He then moved to the Jazz Institute Berlin, a cooperation between the Berlin University of the Arts and the “Hanns Eisler” Academy of Music. He has performed at international festivals such as the Fusion Festival and the International Trombone Festival. He has played in the Deutsche Oper Orchestra and the Jeju City Orchestra, Korea. He has been working with media artists Lien-Cheng Wang and Diana-Elena Păun since 2023, including in the project “Architectures of Hearing”.

Khadim Ndome is an Italo-senegalese Vibraphonist and percussionist , currently based in Berlin, Germany. His musical journey starts with west-african percussions in his early childhood.

The love for percussions led him then to pursue classical and orchestral studies at the Conservatory of Bolzano(Italy) meanwhile developing  a strong interest for the world of improvisation in the jazz genre, which then brings him to further develope in this direction by studying jazz vibraphone at the Jazz Institut of Berlin with David Friedman and Julius Heise. He is currently active as a vibraphonist, timpanist and percussionist both in jazz bands, contemporary music projects as well as in classical orchestras.

(March 2024 only:) Born and raised in Granada, Spain, Joan Osca realized at an early age that music would play an important role in his life. He got his first saxophone at the age of seven and began to take an interest in improvised music. After leaving school, he moved to Berlin and completed a preparatory year at the Steglitz-Zehlendorf music school. In 2019, he won first prize for Best solo, composition and ensemble at the StuVo JazzContest with the Osca-Gottlob Standards Duo. In the same year, he began his bachelor’s degree at the Jazz Institute Berlin, where he has since been taught by Prof. Peter Weniger and Prof. Heinrich Köbberling, among others. He plays in various bands of different styles such as DaddyLongLegs Big Band or Lars Töpperwien Sextett. He is currently devoting a lot of time to his new project “Joan Osca Quartet”, which plays exclusively his own compositions. He has also played under the direction of Randy Brecker and Dick Oatts and has performed on various stages such as the Berlin Philharmonie, A-trane Jazz Club and Jazztage Leipzig 2022.

(March 2024 only:) Hanne Pilgrim is a rhythmician, pianist and performer who is currently focussing on her work as project leader and principal artistic investigator in the artistic research project “Atlas of Smooth Spaces” funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF). After her studies of piano and eurhythmics at the Universität der Künste in Berlin and further education in contemporary dance practices, Hanne Pilgrim has worked in various artistic contexts in the fields of experimental music, music choroegraphy and chamber music. She was a lecturer at the Universität der Künste Berlin and the Franz Liszt Hochschule in Weimar between 2007 and 2017 and subsequently professor for Music and Movement/ Eurhythmics at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna where she lead the department of Music and Movement Education/ Eurhythmics from 2017 to 2022.

Born in Isla de la Juventud, Cuba, Ernesto Robles is a passionate musician currently immersed in the world of jazz. He is dedicated to his craft, studying full-time at the EUJAM program at the Jazz Institute Berlin and currently participating in an Erasmus program at the Conservatory of Amsterdam. As a guitarist and tresero, Ernesto combines technical skill with a deep appreciation for musical expression, continually exploring new avenues of creativity and collaboration.

Laura Robles is an award-winning improviser, composer, multi-instrumentalist and researcher born in Eswatini and raised in Lima. She studied traditional Afro-Peruvian and Cuban music and shared a stage with renowned artists such as Amador Ballumbrosio, Juan Medrano Cotito, Nilo Borges, Laureano Rigol, Roberto Borrell, Susana Baca among others. Considered one of the most accomplished Cajón players in the world, she has dedicated her career to the analysis of Folk rhythms with a strong focus on Afro-Peruvian folklore. Robles has continued experimenting and with rhythm and possibilities of expression in modern jazz and improvised music. In the last few years she has worked with artists and groups as diverse as American composer and Grammy Award winner Maria Schneider, Petros Klampanis, Bodek Janke, Lauer Large Orquestra, Pablo Held, Niels Klein, Ensemble Neue Musik Zürich, WDR Big Band, Wanja Slavin, Steffen Schorn among others. Robles lives in Germany and is currently working on her first solo album.

Clemens Rynkowski is a composer, thereminist and musical director. He lives in Berlin and works transdisciplinary for orchestra, chamber ensembles, film, dance, theater and music theater. Previous positions: Berliner Ensemble, Bavarian State Opera Munich, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe, Saarländisches Staatstheater Saarbrücken, Nationaltheater Weimar, Staatstheater Braunschweig, Goethe-Institut Ramallah. He is lecturing at the art universities of Berlin (Ernst Busch), Weimar, Rostock, Erfurt. In addition to being the musical director of the Resident Music Collective, he is also the musical director for “Build up! Tear down! Theatre Spectacle about the Palace of the Republic” at the Humboldt Forum.

Florian Rynkowski, born in Dresden and raised in Weimar, studied electric bass, double bass and composition in Weimar, Helsinki, Ghana and Cologne.
He is a member of various ensembles that move between jazz, early music, minimal music and pop. In his work, he primarily pursues interdisciplinary and programmatic approaches. For his project momentum, he brings together new and old instruments, improvisations and compositions in the church space. Since 2012, he has arranged, composed and rehearsed numerous stage scores for various theatres and opera houses. He writes film scores and works with dance and light art. Preparing and building instruments is a recurring theme in his work.
In 2017, he won the New German Jazz Award as the bassist of the Philipp Brämswig Trio.
In 2019, he was nominated for the German Record Critics’ Award with “Luciel – …and that’s all I remember”.

www.florianrynkowski.de

(March 2024 only:) Junjian Wang is a dancer, choreographer and dramatic actor. After having completed his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance at Shaanxi Normal University China, he went on to complete a master’s degree in Performance Practices at De Montfort University, England. Currently, he is dedicated to movement and dance research as part of the MA in Movement Research at the Institute of Dance Arts in Linz. In this project he cooperates with the choreographer and dance researcher Rose Breuss. Junjian has worked as a dancer and choreographer in numerous dance companies and institutions, including the Ballet Department of the Xi’an Academy of Music and Dance, the Xi’an Meilitong Drama Company, the Xi’an Tang Dynasty Body Theatre Modern Dance Troupe, Beijing International Dance Camp among others.