background 2012

“Winterjazz Köln”  2012 was an unbelievable success. Many thanks to the fairytale-numbers-audience and all the participating musicains.

Super-Special-Thanks to our help in the very first hours:

Sparkasse Köln-Bonn, das Ministerium für Familie, Kinder, Jugend, Kultur und Sport des Nordrhein- Westfalen and the Internationale Visitor´s Programm of the  NRW KULTURsekretriat

Check fotos, video and press on  “reviews” .

Following the example of the Winter Jazz Fest in New York, which has been on annually since 2005, the first ”winterjazz köln” festival will be taking place on the 13th of January, 2012.

A visit at this year’s Winter Jazz Fest in New York inspired the Cologne based saxophonist Angelika Niescier, to transfer this model to Cologne allowing for a ‘place of musical energy’ to arise. The Kölner Jazz Haus e.V., which arranges the concerts at the Stadtgarten, proved to be a most suitable partner in implementing this plan in practice.

And so, on the second Friday in the new year, a total of 13 various Jazz groups from Cologne will be performing, from 7 p.m on at different times, on the three stages of the Stadtgarten: the concert hall, Studio 672 and the Cafe-Restaurant. The idea of the ”winterjazz” is to present, in a single evening, the tremendous density and high quality of the Cologne Jazz scene, to both a local and a foreign audience.

Up until the late 1980s, Cologne was the indisputable Jazz-capital of the Republic, however, since the reunification, the Cathedral City has had to cede some of its attention to Germany´s new capital, Berlin, and has since only been occupying a good second place position. Nevertheless, Jazz musicians from Cologne are represented at international festivals and are present and influential in international cooperative projects. Thus the desire to stage themselves at home as a diverse and powerful scene and to challenge Berlin in a friendly competition for international acclaim.

Angelika Niescier: ”It has become clear to me, how important it is to bundle and merge energies, and to deliver statements and take on a position as a scene.” To the question why a specific musician particularly opts for Jazz there are as many answers as there are musicians. What they have in common, though, is a sense of inner openness and the search for a form of expression that bends and bursts frameworks.

”We play to set impulses. We’re organising the festival so that the audience perceives and especially senses us as a scene with a statement as a whole. We believe that our music has a social relevance and understand ”winter jazz cologne” as a first statement from which further common positionings can develop. The festival will grow bigger and more divers every year.”

Share