Fuchsthone Orchestra feat. Evi Filippou

Christina Fuchs (bandleader, composition, conductor) Caroline Thon (bandleader, composition, conductor) Evi Filippou (percussion, vibraphone) Roger Hanschel, Julian Drach, Veit Lange, Pierre de Stefano, Kira Linn (saxophones) Simon Eckert, Matthias Knoop, Johannes Knoll, Matthias Bergmann (trumpets) Philipp Schittek, Matthias Schuller, Moritz Anthes (trombones) Wolf Schenk (basstrombone, tuba) Zuzana Leharovà (violin) Barbara Barth (voice) Laia Genc (piano) Andreas Wahl (guitar) Alex Morsey (bass) Jens Düppe (drums) Eva Pop̈plein (electronics, live samples)

Tickets

Virtuoso and compelling. That’s how one might describe the music of the outstanding 22-piece “Fuchsthone Orchestra” led by Christina Fuchs and Caroline Thon —both experienced big band and ensemble conductors who joined forces in 2019 to found a joint orchestra in Cologne, for which they write and conduct their respective compositions.

Their album Peaks & Plots, featuring Greek vibraphonist and percussionist Evi Fillipou as the orchestra’s guest soloist, tells the story of the events of the year 2025. Thematically, the pieces look back on various highlights and events. For example, Thon’s Savita is dedicated to Savita Diana Wagner, a German aid worker in Ukraine who wrote about the war in her moving frontline blog diary and was killed during her aid mission. Fuchs’ Taksim uses field recordings from Istanbul; the calls of the muezzin and city sounds form the overall soundscape of the metropolis.

Fuchs and Thon work with dense rhythmic and melodic textures of intricate sound structures, electronics, and live sampling by computer musician and sound artist Eva Pöpplein, which they combine with big-band brass sections, violin, and vocals to create a total work of art.

Transcending genre boundaries, layers of noise emerge into which virtuoso brass sections dive; from these, solos and improvisational inner layers break free, slowing down to a whisper before coalescing once more into a large-scale soundscape. A dynamic interplay of silence and the energy of erupting, forceful tutti passages. Masterfully guided by the two conductors, this serves as a sonic narrative and an exploration of form and material, of peaks and plots.

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: