I’m extremely looking forward to the ninth edition of the Jazzwerkstatt festival which starts this Wednesday, February 24. It’s more than a festival. Marc Stucki, Benedikt Reising and Andreas Schaerer started this adventure, building a young jazz community here in Bern, gathering musicians from all over the world sharing music and the same passion about it. The festival offers a lot to discover every year, bands you actually should have known before and also projects becoming reality during the festival for the first time.
I was lucky to get the chance to compose a few times for the “Ballbreaker Ensemble” in the past. Having your music played by 13 great musicians was always a lot of fun. Last year we started Sylvie Courvoisier‘s Large Ensemble where I played trumpet. We hope to continue with this band some day soon.
This year I was offered a spot with my own project. So I invited seven outstanding musicians and good friends. We’ll be rehearsing this week and play some of my music and compositions by trombonist Jörn Marcussen-Wulff and my brother Gregor. The concert will be on Saturday, February 27 at 8pm at the Turnhalle in Bern.
This project is called “High Striker” and will feature Julian Hesse (tp), Nicole Johänntgen (as), Gregor Frei (ts), Jörn Marcussen-Wulff (tb), Marc Unternährer (tuba), Martina Berther (eb) and Mathias Künzli (dr).
For more information about the festival please visit the website www.jazzwerkstatt.ch