Cologne Jazzweek: Composers Collective Cologne – Amsterdam Edition

Rebekka Salomea (vocals) Fuensanta (vocals/bass/composition) Heidi Bayer (trumpet/composition) Fabian Dudek (saxophone/flute/composition) Kira Linn (saxophone/bassclarinet/composition) Philipp Brämswig (guitar) Chaerin Im (piano/synth) Felix Hauptmann (keys/synth) Alessandro Fongaro (bass/electric bass/composition) Leif Berger (drums) Sun-Mi Hong (drums)

Tickets

Cologne’s scene for improvised and contemporary music holds great creative potential. Its protagonists are characterized by their innovative spirit and collaborative working methods. On this basis, the Composers Collective Cologne was founded: an ensemble with a rotating lineup that transcends musical and spatial boundaries and offers individual voices a platform for new compositions and comprehensive sound exploration.

The organizers of the first two editions of the project, initiated in 2024 with support from Stadtgarten Köln—Felix Hauptmann, Fabian Dudek and Esther Weickel, aim to create an ensemble that breaks new ground together, flexibly, and visionarily. While the first edition focused on the Cologne scene, the second, titled “Amsterdam Edition”, is dedicated to networking with musicians from the Dutch scene. This exchange creates a dynamic that generates new impulses in an open and risk-taking manner.

Further information

Venue:

Stadtgarten

The first concert in the newly built Stadtgarten concert hall in the mid-1980s launched a program unlike anything Germany had seen: an independent, artistically driven concert series devoted to contemporary improvised music. It was guided neither by attendance figures nor by public subsidies, yet it guaranteed musicians minimum fees and was run on professional terms. The conditions mattered just as much: an acoustically optimized, street-level concert space offering a strong setting for audiences and performers alike. Operations were financed through the adjoining hospitality business, the Stadtgarten restaurant and beer garden, a model that drew attention well beyond Germany.

Today the Stadtgarten Köln ranks among Europe's internationally recognized venues for contemporary and improvised music. The American magazine Down Beat features it regularly in its listings; it has received Germany's federal APPLAUS venue program award several times, including "Venue of the Year" in 2016, followed by the German Jazz Prize in the same category in 2022. More than 400 events across the full spectrum of contemporary music now take place there each year. Its international standing rests above all on the high proportion of demanding, experimental programming.

A programming mission of this kind depends on reliable public support. The venue's 30th anniversary in September 2016 opened that prospect: through a partnership between the City of Cologne and the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, programming work is being substantially strengthened, and from 2017 onward the Stadtgarten Köln is being developed step by step into a "European Center for Jazz and Contemporary Music" – with the goal of becoming one of Europe's leading music centers.

more info

More dates at Stadtgarten: