Facetten #14: Anker · Coudoux · Zoubek · Gouband | live recording

Lotte Anker - Tenor- & Sopransaxophon Elisabeth Coudoux - Cello Philip Zoubek - (präpariertes) Piano, Synthesizer Toma Gouband - Schlagzeug, Steine, Blätter

(english: see below)

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Für die diesjährige Ausgabe hat der Kölner Pianist Philip Zoubek ein besonderes Quartett zusammengestellt: mit der dänischen Saxophonistin Lotte Anker, dem französischen Perkussionisten Toma Gouband und der ebenfalls in Köln lebenden Cellistin Elisabeth Coudoux. Vier eigenständige Stimmen der europäischen Improvisationsszene treffen aufeinander, die über Jahre hinweg ganz eigene Zugänge zu ihren Instrumenten und unverwechselbare künstlerische Handschriften entwickelt haben. Ihre Arbeit bewegt sich zwischen Free Jazz, Neuer Musik, Reduktion und spontaner Komposition - mit einem besonderen Gespür für Klang, Struktur und das gemeinsame Entwickeln musikalischer Formen. Ein Konzertabend im Spannungsfeld von Improvisation, Klangforschung und spontaner Formfindung. https://www.lotteanker.com/ https://www.elisabethcoudoux.com/ https://www.philipzoubek.com/ https://www.umlautrecords.com/artistes/toma-gouband/

Lotte Anker - tenor & soprano saxophone Elisabeth Coudoux - cello Philip Zoubek - (prepared) piano, synthesizer Toma Gouband - drums, stones, leaves

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For this year’s edition, Cologne-based pianist Philip Zoubek has put together a special quartet: featuring Danish saxophonist Lotte Anker, French percussionist Toma Gouband, and cellist Elisabeth Coudoux, who also lives in Cologne. Four distinct voices from the European improvisation scene come together—artists who, over the years, have developed their own unique approaches to their instruments and unmistakable artistic styles. Their work spans free jazz, contemporary music, minimalism, and spontaneous composition—with a special sensibility for sound, structure, and the collaborative development of musical forms. A concert evening at the intersection of improvisation, sound exploration, and spontaneous form-finding.

Further information

Venue:

LOFT

The LOFT in Cologne's Ehrenfeld district is exactly what its name suggests: a spacious loft on the top floor of a former perfume factory. Since 1989 it has been home to the city's musical avant-garde as well as a scene hub and a jazz laboratory for students.

Over those decades it has grown into a respected stage for improvised music, contemporary music, and jazz, with a reputation reaching well beyond Germany. Most of the Cologne jazz musicians who have made their mark nationally and internationally in the past thirty years took their first career steps here, among them Nils Wogram, Hayden Chisholm, Angelika Niescier, Frank Gratkowski, Robert Landfermann, Pablo Held, and Sebastian Sternal.

The Cologne Triennale, WDR, and Deutschlandfunk stage concerts and recordings at the LOFT, and the venue has been invited to the Moers Festival five times. Its own label, 2ndFloor, releases selected recordings, and more than 1,000 live and studio productions made in the LOFT studio have appeared on other labels. Supported by the association 2ndFloor e. V. and the collective jungesloft, it presents over 200 events a year.

Top-tier instruments – including a Steinway D grand, one of the finest concert pianos in any German jazz club – a professional recording studio with award-winning engineers, and the room's distinctive atmosphere have drawn many prominent guests, from Lee Konitz, Steve Lacy, and Peter Brötzmann to Kurt Rosenwinkel, Marilyn Crispell, and Jim Black. Still, the programming focus remains on supporting Cologne's own musicians.

Since 2009 the LOFT has received the NRW venue programming award every year, an honor that specifically recognizes work with emerging regional artists. In 2016 the British Guardian named it one of the ten best jazz clubs in Europe, and at the German Jazz Prize it was voted "Club/Venue of the Year" in 2021 and again in 2023 — a category decided not by the expert jury but directly by the more than 1,300 members of the German Jazz Union.

more info

More dates at LOFT: