Category Archives: Jazzinstitut

Roots | Heimat: Wie offen ist der Jazz? (blog)

Jazzinstitut

Some further thoughts on the topic of the 17th Darmstadt Jazzforum

12 August 2020:

As if he read our call for papers, Ethan Iverson has devoted one of his latest blog entries to a discussion of Eurocentric perspectives in music and has linked to some of his own earlier posts relevant to the subject (Do the Math). Iverson gives one aspect of what we are interested in to discuss at our conference in the fall of 2021. Norman Lebrecht highlights another aspect, explaining details of a current debate regarding the music theorist Heinrich Schenker and music theory “historically rooted in white supremacy” (Slipped Disc). Jacqueline Warwick discusses how music education in the USA is dominated by a focus on Western European art music, summarizes the Schenker discussion, and asks for music programs that are relevant to actual musicians wanting a higher education (The Conversation). Finally, we read Howard Reich’s tribute to Charlie Parker’s upcoming centennial in which the author uses a number of cliches, first comparing Bird’s impact on music to Mozart, Chopin and Gershwin, then referring to him (and the others named) as “revolutionaries” (Chicago Tribune).

At our conference, we might ask whether such cliches informed by a “genius” aesthetic the roots of which can be found in 19th century Europe do the music any justice. These, though, are just some of the topics we might talk about at the Darmstadt Jazzforum next year, and in the next editions of JazzNews we will provide further examples of where Eurocentric perspectives shape our view of jazz. In all of this, we are interested in a leveled discussion about the subject, not in a demonization of the European perspective. We are looking to discuss the reality, then, in which power structures, both within the industry and the aesthetic discourse, have favored a specific worldview, and how artists, scholars, critics and fans have developed different levels of awareness for this reality. We have issued a Call for Papers (deadline: 31 December 2020) and are looking forward to diverse approaches, perspectives and proposals.

26 August 2020:

“Eurocentrism in Jazz”? … some more thoughts

At the Jazzinstitut, we continue to discuss the topic of our next Darmstadt Jazzforum conference, while the first proposals for papers, panels and artistic interventions are already arriving. One of the subjects about “Eurocentism” we discuss, for instance, is how the Goethe-Institut has been using jazz as an example of German musical discourse since the early 1960s, and how that official seal of approval has changed the self-image of many musicians who partook in Goethe tours over the years. We like to speak of jazz as (Afro-)America’s biggest gift to the world, precisely because it is so inclusive, asking musicians from everywhere to add their own personal influences to the mix. Yet, what if the acception of this invitation is overdone to the extent that the African American origins of the music are being neglected? Do we, then, need a constant reminder of the roots of jazz? Isn’t it enough that jazz as a musical language to this day inspires so many young musicians in their creativity? Might this be a question of respect vs freedom of the arts, freedom from the need to refer to traditions, that is. Or, to get back to the Goethe example: If there is a form of jazz that is being sold as a German art form, do we meet our responsibility of respecting the musical idiom as an originally African American art form? Are we at all aware of the appropriation process that happened during the global spread of jazz?

While we invite historical papers for our Jazzforum conference that look at how jazz has earned the status it holds today, we also hope for panel discussions and musical interventions offering artists’ perspectives on the subject. Let us know what you think. We are happy for any suggestions! The deadline for all proposals is: 30 November 2020.

9 September 2020

“Eurocentrism in Jazz?”(!)

It’s a bit like when you buy a new car and suddenly see the same model or color everywhere even though you never noticed it before. Since we started announcing the subject of next year’s Darmstadt Jazzforum conference, “Eurocentrism in Jazz”, we realize the many different perspectives this topic involves. One recent reminder was an exhibition shown at Frankfurt’s Museum for Applied Arts, called “German Museum for Black Entertainment and Black Music”. Kurt Cordsen talks to Anta Helena Recke, one of the curators, about the idea behind the exhibition which focuses on stereotypes about black people in the German entertainment industry and the narrative they informed (BR, DMfSUuBM).

Giovanni Russonello’s New York Times essay about jazz as protest music, on the other hand, is an example of how political jazz (music? the arts?) may have become once more in the current political climate in the United States. However, after reading Russonello’s piece, Michael Rüsenberg points out that there are other perspectives on what jazz stands for. We summarized all of this in our entry on “protest music” above (6 September).

Like the (short-lived, so far) German Museum for Black Entertainment and Black Music, the focus on jazz as a political tool has implications that are both based in the music’s history as an African American art form and a European understanding of art pointing to something beyond what can be seen, heard, read, an ulterior purpose, motive, or goal. The differences are deep, and they are far from just being cultural. “Community building”, for instance, has far more importance in a country that depends on market and self-responsibility when it comes to the wellbeing of its citizens than is the case in a social welfare system. Art reflects reality: thus, let us analyze, not judge (!) what influence the manifold Eurocentric perspectives have had on the reception and the development of jazz both in its understanding as an African-American and a creative world music.

If you’ve followed our short introductions to what the Darmstadt Jazzforum might be about, you already recognize the diversity of possible topics. But it’s up to you, as well:

— Call for papers —

We invite you to send us proposals for papers, panels, artistic interventions that look at any of these (or other) topics from your perspective. We also ask you to share our Call for Papers with others interested, colleagues, artists, journalists, activists. We will (within limits) be able to help with travel expenses. The deadline for all proposals is: 30 November 2020.

23 September 2020

“From the New World”?

Ever heard of George Bridgetower? Chances are you haven’t. Well, he was a virtuoso violinist whom Ludwig van Beethoven originally dedicated one of his most famous pieces to which later became known as the Kreutzer Sonate. Patricia Morrisroe tells the story of Bridgetower, born in Poland to a father of African descent and a German-Polish mother, who lived in Mainz with his parents for a while, and soon, managed by his father and billed as a “young Negro of the Colonies” performed a violin concerto in Paris in 1789. In 1803 he met Beethoven in Vienna who then dedicated his “Mulatto sonata composed for the mulatto Bridgetower, great lunatic and mulatto composer”, a decication he took back after Bridgetower purportedly made a rude commend about a woman the composer admired. Beethoven later dedicated the piece to the French violinist Rudolphe Kreutzer who, though, never played it. You can read Morrisroe’s fascinating story here (New York Times).

So what does this have to do with jazz? Well, it is an early example of a different kind of Eurocentrism which we will be discussing at the 17th Darmstadt Jazzforum conference in October 2021. While Eurocentrism can easily be seen as a term describing a racist worldview, one might more easily understand it as a worldview of “I explain the world by what I see and know”. Beethoven’s decision to change the dedication of his sonata probably had nothing to do with Eurocentrism or racism. But the fact that George Bridgetower was completely forgotten, even though he had admirers in the highest circles of the classical world,has to do with a view on history that tends to write the story of the male hero, bot not his female, Black, gay, lesbian or in whatever other way “different” colleague.

Oh, and while we’re at classical music, Zachary Woolfe and Joshua Barone asked conductors, musicians and arts managers about the problems of blind auditions and talk about how difficult it is to guarantee diversity in American orchestras (New York Times). It’s a discussion also about cultural access, about extramusical meanings of music, about the need to claim quotas, but also for a diversification of the repertoire. How about a diversification of approaches, though, one might ask. The sound, the hierarchic structure, the whole concept of the classical orchestra is one deeply connected to a European concept. There are ensembles meanwhile that have tried to change those structures, string quartets playing without music in front of them, wind ensembles performing standing instead of sitting, ensembles which shift the responsibility for a conductor from a real one (in front of the orchestra) to ensemble members and much more. We are, remember, still talking about classical music. We are, though, also talking about performance practices much more connected to jazz and improvised music. Changing performance approaches might support efforts to get away from those Eurocentric conventions. Whether the result is great music… depends on the musicians. However, why not challenge traditions for a more diverse future?

— Call for papers —
We invite you to send us proposals for papers, panels, artistic interventions that look at any of these (or other) topics from your perspective. We also ask you to share our Call for Papers with others interested, colleagues, artists, journalists, activists. We will (within limits) be able to help with travel expenses. The deadline for all proposals is: 30 November 2020.

7 October 2020

“Eurocentrism”: a problematic term…

If jazz was a gift to the world, as is often said, and if the music literally demands of anybody playing it to “play themselves”, i.e. to add their own cultural influences to the idiom, how does such a mix of information, attitudes and approaches influence the discourse about the music? If jazz still functions as a tool for identification within the African American (arts) community, how do we deal with the fact that the music has become part of a global music industry, less controlled by community than commercial ideals, or with the fact that jazz has been adopted by many national or regional scenes around the world as a valid idiom for the local artists’ expressive needs? “Eurocentrism” is a loaded term, often linked to cultural dominance and a colonialist past. Is it possible to talk about it more neutrally, as an account of reality, of an artistic discourse that jazz has been part of since the early 20th century, not as a moral but a descriptive instance?

— Call for papers —

Those are questions we will ask at the 17th Darmstadt Jazzforum conference, to be held 30 September – 2 October 2021. We invite you to send us proposals for papers, panels, artistic interventions that look at any of these (or other) topics from your perspective. We also ask you to share our Call for Papers with others interested, colleagues, artists, journalists, activists. We will (within limits) be able to help with travel expenses. The deadline for all proposals is: 30 November 2020

21 October 2020:

Musical Gentrification

Kai Bartol writes about “musical gentrification” in The Michigan Daily, asking how jazz became popular with a white audience in the US while at the same time the musical innovators were never granted a proper place in their society. He talks to cultural historian Ed Sarath about differences in the reception of Black music depending on whether one is part of the African American community or not. “The Eurocentric framework”, says Sarath, “that governs how music is taught in schools works to whitewash Black music and separates it from its Black roots.”

Food for thought, and another aspect of the topic of the 17th Darmstadt Jazzforum conference, to be held 30 September – 2 October 2021. (More aspects from quite different perspectives were mentioned in our last newsletters, and you can find them all on the Jazzforum’s webpage linked to below.) We invite you to send us proposals for papers, panels, artistic interventions that look at any of these (or other) topics from your perspective. We also ask you to share our Call for Papers with others interested, colleagues, artists, journalists, activists. We will (within limits) be able to help with travel expenses. The deadline for all proposals is: 30 November 2020.

4 November 2020:

“Decolonization”

Due to Covid-19 the 2020 Summer Courses for Contemporary Music (Ferienkurse für Neue Musik) in Darmstadt had to be canceled (postponed until next year), but our colleagues have started a podcast series of dialogues between artists about a variety of subjects. The latest of them has the Chinese-born composer, multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and performer Du Yun converse with the composer Raven Chacon about their joined opera production “Sweet Land”, but also about current discussions on “decolonizing” contemporary music a term Chacon calls “overused” in conferences or concert series because the topic is much more complex. He argues that “an indigenous artist or a minoritized artist does not want to be the text book to a group of people about their own history. What would be interesting or what could be appealing is, if one gets asked: Well, tell us your thoughts on time, tell us your thoughts on spacialization of  sound, or tell us your thoughts on audible sounds, or tell us your thoughts on … whatever: frequency, light, universe” [from 49:08], to which Du Yun replies that many of these factors are still being looked upon from a Eurocentric perspective, but they who come from other traditions might not see it that way (Ferienkurse Darmstadt). All of which is a call for respect to other views of the world, a respect that should be reflected in the words we use as well, or at least in an awareness for how we use words and how they are or could be understood.

Food for thought, and another aspect of the topic of the 17th Darmstadt Jazzforum conference, to be held 30 September – 2 October 2021. (More aspects from quite different perspectives were mentioned in our last newsletters, and you can find them all on the Jazzforum’s webpage linked to below.) We invite you to send us proposals for papers, panels, artistic interventions that look at any of these (or other) topics from your perspective. We also ask you to share our Call for Papers with others interested, colleagues, artists, journalists, activists. We will (within limits) be able to help with travel expenses. The deadline for all proposals is: 30 November 2020.

18. November 2020:

“Afro Modernism in Contemporary Music”

The Frankfurt-based Ensemble Modern organized a symposium about “Afro-Modernism in Contemporary Music” which focused on contemporary composition. However, as that field is currently being redefined itself (as are other genres, including jazz), the conference made a lot of points that might be relevant for the Darmstadt Jazzforum as well, planned for October 2021.

The participants, among them the symposium’s initiator George E. Lewis in conversation with Harald Kisiedu, talked about the fact that just because a certain repertoire of music is not being heard, programmed, or curated doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Another aspect discussed was the labeling of music which usually tends to be exclusive, or as one of the commentators in the live-chat summarized:  “The obsession with definition is an attempt to control and erase.” And yet, George Lewis explains that he continues to use a label such as “contemporary classical music”, however he will not accept that this term is only applied to a pan-European music idea. Realizing faults at programming, he suggests, can be a chance, an opportunity to get to know other music, composers or musicians, other perspectives. The Frankfurt symposium can be re-viewed online (Ensemble Modern).

During the summer, George E. Lewis also took part in a panel about “Decolonizing the Curating Discourse in Europe”, and in his opening statement he summarizes possible steps for opening up the concert and festival repertoire, emphasizing that the mental envelop of what he calls creolization might “allow contemporary music to move beyond its Eurocentric conception of musical identities towards becoming a true world music, and by Eurocentric I don’t mean ‘Eurological’ [a term coined by Lewis himself and juxtaposed to ‘afrological’] (…) The Eurocological could become a part of decolonization; Eurocentric: never. Simplistic, hegemonic, closed, and ethnically essentialist” (21:05-20:40). (Academy of Arts, complete statement from 5:30 to 23:30).

Again, watching these panels, we realize how many of such aspects might be discussed at the 17th Darmstadt Jazzforum conference as well, to be held 30 September – 2 October 2021. (Other aspects from quite different perspectives were mentioned in our last newsletters, and you can find them all on the Jazzforum’s webpage linked to below.) We invite you to send us proposals for papers, panels, artistic interventions that look at any of these (or other) topics from your perspective. We also ask you to share our Call for Papers with others interested, colleagues, artists, journalists, activists. We will (within limits) be able to help with travel expenses. The current deadline for all proposals is: 30 November 2020; there may be an extension to the deadline until the end of the year; we will report about that in our next newsletter.

2. December 2020
What about cultural appropriation?

In a recent article the German journalist Georg Spindler argues that “music does not belong to anybody, it is free” (Mannheimer Morgen). Cultural appropriation, he writes, can also be understood as progress, for which argument he cites examples from classical music to jazz. He then focuses on debates in the USA about “whites” having taken “everything but the burden” from the Black community (quoting a book title by writer Greg Tate). Using music from other cultures as a starting point for the creative process is not plagiarism, though, says Spindler, but a usual cultural practice. One aspect Spindler neglects in his argument is that any material “borrowed” from other cultures should always be used with respect to their origin, and that once we use material from other cultures, it will automatically mix with our own aesthetic approach, thus, we should be aware that our growing familiarity with such material might make us transfer our own aesthetic values back to the source material and its culture.

LEONEsauvage

Darmstadt Jazzforum, Jazzinstitut, Dates, , , ,

1 October 2021, 8:00pm
Concert at Bessunger Knabenschule (Ludwigshöhstraße 142, 64285 Darmstadt)
This concert is part of the 17th Darmstadt Jazzforum about “Roots | Heimat: Wie offen ist der Jazz?”

LEONEsauvage

Uplifting words, dreams of the collective, life-affirming, combative hymns and a dazzling mixture of spectacle, ritual and sprawling bluster trumpeted out by Luise Volkmann and her free jazz big band LEONEsauvage.

The ten-piece ensemble LEONEsauvage is indeed a wild one. Dreaming of a world where music gives its listeners what they lack in life: a moment of freedom, a ritual of letting go and letting loose, a celebration of creativity and inventiveness, all of this a remedy against the harsh reality. And of course, community, which helps against the loneliness of the individual. Together we are strong!

Line-up: Luise Volkmann | altosax, leader, Jan Frisch | voice, guitar, Sebastian Gille | tenorsax, Connie Trieder | flute, Florian Walter | baritonsax, Matthias Muche | trombone, Heidi Bayer | trumpet, Keisuke Matsuno | guitar, Florian Herzog | bass, Dominik Mahnig | drums

Luise Volkmann is a Cologne-based saxophonist and composer who now presents LEONEsauvage, her second large ensemble in the free jazz tradition. Quite different from her thirteen-piece ensemble Été Large, LEONEssauvage’s music is largely based on collective improvisation. Their compositions bear titles such as “Preacher” or “The Cool”, thus pointing to the different characters in the band, which Volkmann deliberately stages theatrically. It is about the personality of the individual player and how these individual colors come together to form a common sound. A sound peppered with hymns that proclaim: Dreams To Come.

Volkmann got the idea for the LEONEsauvage project in Paris in 2016. “Paris is a tough place: There is a lot of homelessness on the streets. In 2016, large boulevards were also repeatedly flooded with refugees camping out in the middle of the city. The city is expensive, space is scarce, opportunities to create are scarce, people work hard and become lonely. That’s why I wanted to establish a moment that would free Parisians from their daily lives, and if only for a short time. To briefly escape, to be free, and to gather strength in community, to confront the harshness of everyday life.” These ideas, then made her found the first version of LEONEsauvage with young musicians from Paris. Inspired by Sun Ra’s Arkestra, the ensemble worked out a rousing stage performance: the musicians worked with movement cues, eye-catching make-up and had actors coach them several times. On stage they were always accompanied by different dancers from the field of contemporary dance or street dance.

“I wrote my bachelor’s thesis on Sun Ra and was impressed by how holistically he worked. He managed, in my opinion, to build a whole construct of an alternative world. It is an achievement I wanted to show solidarity with by forming LEONEsauvage as an ensemble that could also make political and social statements.”

The ensemble certainly has a wider attitude: In the piece “Hymne pour LEONEsauvage”, the young musicians scream at the listener: “Kill your darlings, live the kitsch. We dance down our creed. There’s too many walls ’round here. Dreams to come, dreams to come. Wild and untamed blowers, yarning, fragile heads. All to make, all to give. Free the music we give.” The song encourages being fragile, being authentic, dissolving external constraints in ourselves and becoming freer with the help of music”. Hymne pour LEONEsauvage” was, so to speak, the founding piece of the band.

In the track “Preacher”, the singer sings “Let us live an innocent thought of companionship” or “Revolt against the negation of love” and thus addresses a topic that is very close to Volkmann’s heart: Community. “As I said, the intense loneliness in Paris has always made me sad. I’ve always learned that you’re stronger together. We also tried to organize the ensemble LEONEsauvage as a collective. Sometimes it worked better, sometimes not so well. But in any case, the concerts have always unfolded an incredible power. I always had the feeling that the whole band had been longing to play for weeks. You could always feel the power of community and the audience was carried away. I always joked and called it ‘my free jazz dance band'”.

Until 2018, the ensemble played in Paris almost on a monthly basis. When Volkmann moved to Copenhagen that same year, she formed the second lineup of LEONEsauvage there, with whom she also recorded the album. In Copenhagen, she met a colorful and international conglomeration of musicians at the Rhythmic Music Conservatory. The two singers on the CD are Portuguese jazz and pop singer João Neves and Icelandic rocker Hrafnkell Flóki Kaktus Einarsson. Together they form an atmospheric duo that allows enough edge and fuzziness that this music needs. The ensemble’s four saxophonists come from Poland, Germany and Argentina, and together they form a formidable body of sound. The rhythm section consists of jazz and improvisational musicians from France, Italy, Poland and Norway. An international troupe that invites you to dance and go wild.

In fact, this year, to coincide with the release of the album, there will also be the German version of the ensemble. “I think with the project extra megalomaniac. The idea of LEONEsauvage is to infiltrate the world.” Luise Volkmann won the Jazzinstitut Darmstadt’s Kathrin-Preis in 2020 and, with the help of the award, could form a third lineup of musicians mainly living in Northrhine-Westfalia. But not only that: she could also continue her research on the topic, on free jazz and on Sun Ra during a residency in Darmstadt. “As a German jazz musician, how do I deal with the heritage of African-American culture? I think there is far too little discourse on this question. I am very touched by the form of the music of Sun Ra or also the Art Ensemble of Chicago and want to show solidarity, want to learn from it and maybe even want to continue a part of this tradition. It’s not so easy to strike the right note for that.” The Jazzinstitut’s fall conference in 2021 focuses on “Roots | Heimat”, and at the conference Luise Volkmann will have the opportunity to present her many years of work with the ensemble as well as her research on free jazz and African-American music.

The album “Dreams To Come” comes just at the right time, countering the difficult and complex times that lie behind us with optimism and activism. “I see music at the heart of society. I believe that creativity is the means by which you can master upheavals and with which life becomes even more livable and colorful.”

 

 

Conference:
From, Thursday, 30 September, through Saturday, 2 October 2021, we will be discussing about “Roots | Heimat: Wie offen ist der Jazz? (more…)

Exhibition:
From 4 October 2021 the gallery of the Jazzinstitut shows the exhibition “Jazz Stories in Red and Blue” with posters created by Swiss artist and jazz promoter Niklaus Troxler. Some posters will be shown at the conference venue during the Jazzforum. (more…)

If you have any further questions, fee free to write us at jazz@jazzinstitut.de

Jazz Stories in Red and Blue

Jazzinstitut

Niklaus Troxler / Graphic art

Willisau is a small Swiss town in the center of Europe. It is also the place where the pioneering international jazz avant-garde has been meeting since the mid-1960s.

Swiss graphic designer Niklaus Troxler is the name behind the concerts and the legendary Willisau Jazz Festival. Beyond the program design, he has given jazz in Willisau its unique artistic face, especially with his world-famous poster designs. It is a global/cross-cultural shaped synthesis of music, art and performing that Niklaus Troxler has developed in Willisau since the mid-1960s.

The exhibition “Jazz Stories in Red and Blue” uses graphic works to focus on Niklaus Troxler’s aesthetic understanding of jazz as a stimulus for innovative graphic approaches. For this exhibition, he has provided the Jazzinstitut with many rarely shown posters, in bigger as well as in smaller formats.

Niklaus Troxler’s posters stand for commercial art with cult character. He translates jazz and the encounters with the musicians into his own visual world, which is characterized by colors, shapes and typography. In countless variations of his varied visual language, he tries to capture what is typical for him in the music. Thus instruments become symbols, letters become outlines, shapes and colors become patterns of movement. The reason behind this: everything that Niklaus Troxler finds exciting about jazz also fascinates him about the picture: the mixture of composition and openness and thus also improvisation and chance.

It is precisely his close personal contact with the musicians and the music that inspires him time and again to create in differerent styles. Thus, there is no typical “Troxler style”. Perhaps it is this fact that makes his art timeless and special.

And so, in his œuvre, his small hometown of “Willisau” naturally forms an artistic unity with the New York free music scene.

Exhibition

30 September through 2 October 2021 during the conference at the conference venue

4 October through 31 December 2021 at the Jazzinstitut Darmstadt’s gallery
open: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday 10am-5pm, Friday 10am-2pm

Conference:
From, Thursday, 30 September, through Saturday, 2 October 2021, we will be discussing about “Roots | Heimat: Wie offen ist der Jazz? (more…)

Concert:
On Friday evening, 1 October 2021, Luise Volkmann and LEONE sauvage at Bessunger Knabenschule. (more…)

If you have any further questions, fee free to write us at jazz@jazzinstitut.de

Jazz Conceptions (small print)

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Sorry, this content is only in German.

Contact:

Kulturzentrum Bessunger Knabenschule, Bernd Breitwieser, Ludwigshöhstraße 42, 64285 Darmstadt, Tel. (06151) 61650, Fax (06151) 661909, e-mail: knabenschule@t-online.de, Internet: www.knabenschule.de

Jazzinstitut Darmstadt, Arndt Weidler, Bessunger Straße 88d, 64285 Darmstadt, Tel. (06151) 963700, Fax (06151) 963744, e-mail: weidler@jazzinstitut.de, Internet: www.jazzinstitut.de

Back to main page 29. Darmstädter Jazz Conceptions 2020!

Jazz Conceptions

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Summer courses for jazz

The Darmstadt Jazz Conceptions, founded in 1992, have become a major German jazz workshop. The workshop’s success is based both on its concept and its unique atmosphere. Instead of masterclasses the students work in ensembles from the start and rehearse pieces chosen by the respective teacher (or composed or improvised during the week). They learn the secrets of improvisation, the planning of musical processes and arrangements, and thus the philosophy of jazz and improvised music. The workshop takes place at Bessunger Knabenschule, a former boys’ school which has been transformed into a socio-cultural center and which, for one week each year, becomes a home for jazz. During this week the music fills each room, and in between the students meet in the courtyard for breakfast or to share lunch cooked on the premises, and to chat about their experiences or plans for further musical activities.

Artistic director: Uli Partheil | piano

What are the Jazz Conceptions?The Darmstadt Jazz Conceptions workshop is a unique opportunity to work with professional musicians and to discover some of the secrets about the making of jazz. During the ensemble sessions the musicians rehearse pieces, learn about how to practise correctly, discuss the finer points of harmony, rehearse and analyze solo or group improvisation. In the late afternoons, an orchestra workshop brings most of the students together for an unusual orchestra of up to 40 instruments. Between ensemble sessions there is plenty of opportunity for individual practice with other students, or for relaxed conversation in the Jazz Conceptions’ cafeteria. Also on the agenda are also a number of theoretical or jazz-historical items (the latter in combination with an obligatory visit to the Darmstadt Jazzinstitut). Every evening, at one of the many Darmstadt clubs, students can show the results of their day’s work to an audience or just jam.

The Darmstadt Jazz Conceptions are popular not only with the participants, many of whom have been coming back for years, but also with the teachers who appreciate the creative atmosphere which fills the Bessunger Knabenschule with jazzy music for six days. At the 28th Jazz Conceptions once again we plan to invite some excellent teachers, each of whom has developed his or her own concept as a soloist or in a group, individually or collectively.

For participation in the Jazz Conceptions it is not necessary to speak perfect German, but you should have basic skills of the language. The registration formalities (below) are  in German. If you need any assistance to understand, please don’t hesitate to call or email us.

If you want to apply to our workshop, please switch to the German site, where you will find an online application form.

The Jazz Conceptions are a joint project organized by the cultural center Bessunger Knabenschule and the municipal Jazzinstituts Darmstadt.

All teachers of the Jazz Conceptions since 1992

Felix Astor, Peter Back, Johannes Bauer, Harry Beckett, Han Bennink, Karl Berger, Élodie Brochier, Rüdiger Carl, Graham Collier, Marty Cook, Thomas Cremer, Christopher Dell, Erwin Ditzner, Axel Dörner, Silke Eberhard, Reimer von Essen, Johannes Fink, Jörg Fischer, Martial Frenzel, Christina Fuchs, Valentin Garvie, Peter Giger, Rachel Gould, Sebastian Gramss, Carola Grey, Michael Griener, Gerhard Gschlößl, Gunter Hampel, Gabriele Hasler, Allen Jacobson, Ute Jeutter, Nicole Johänntgen, Sven-Ake Johansson, Llewellyn Jones, Ekkehard Jost, Wollie Kaiser, Kalle Kalima,Anna Kaluza, Günter Klatt, Morris Kliphuis, Richard Koch, Hans Koller, Peter Kowald, Steve Lacy, Tony Lakatos, Detlef Landeck, Ingrid Laubrock, Christoph Lauer, Hazel Leach, Martin LeJeune, Kathrin Lemke, Rudi Mahall, Emil Mangelsdorff, Lucía Martínez, Stefan Meinberg, Krzysztof Misiak, Frank Möbus, Mani Neumaier, Angelika Niescier, Tom Nicholas, Uwe Oberg, Uli Partheil, Michel Pilz, Elvira Plenar, Wolfgang Puschnig, Gerd Putschögl, Adam Pieronczyk, John-Dennis Renken, Wolfgang Reisinger, Bertram Ritter, Michael Sagmeister, Heinz Sauer, Ack van Rooyen, Joe Sachse, Jon Sass, Uli Scherer, Ulli Schiffelholz, Daniel Schmitz, Johannes Schmitz, John Schröder, Matthias Schubert, Henning Sieverts, Thomas Siffling, Günter ‘Baby’ Sommer, Janusz Stefanski, Oliver Steidle, Norbert Stein, John Tchicai, Christof Thewes, Gebhard Ullmann, Philipp van Endert, Felix Wahnschaffe, Peter Weiss, Jürgen Wuchner … (to be continued)

JazzNews 2021

Jazzinstitut

We read the morning paper for you!       

The Jazzinstitut’s JazzNews keeps you up-to-date with news of the jazz world, which we collect, summarize, and issue via e-mail about once a week. This service can also be accessed on our website (www.jazzinstitut.de), where it is updated on a daily basis. If you need bibliographies of the musicians named in our JazzNews, please click on our website’s Jazz Index page. This is a bibliographical reference to jazz-related books, magazines, journals and other sources that you can access without charge. If you don’t find the name(s) you’re looking for, feel free to e-mail us! We will send you Jazz Index digests of articles about musicians as they make the news.

Autohr of the JazzNews (German as well as Elish version): Wolfram Knauer

You can subscribe to our JazzNews on our website. Just enter your e-mail on the bottom right of our website (www.jazzinstitut.de) and select the newsletter(s) you want to receive. Each newsletter will contain a link allowing you to manage your subscriptions. Our newsletter are always free of charge.

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