NICA live: Mount Meander feat. Auziņš, Leidinger, Jacobson, Sauerborn

Kārlis Auziņš (saxophones) Lucas Leidinger (piano) Tomo Jacobson (double bass) Thomas Sauerborn (drums)

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Mount Meander is a transnational quartet featuring musicians whose paths once crossed in Copenhagen: the Latvian saxophonist Kārlis Auziņš, the German pianist Lucas Leidinger, the Polish bassist Tomo Jacobson, and the German drummer Thomas Sauerborn.

What began in 2015 as a recording session in a Copenhagen studio has long since become one of the most enduring collaborations in European jazz. Following their acclaimed debut album on Clean Feed (2016) and the live recording Live in Berlin (2019), the band is deliberately taking its time. This is entirely in keeping with the philosophy of NICA artist Sauerborn, who always approaches his projects with a long-term perspective and a commitment to continuity. Mount Meander’s next release is scheduled for 2027; until then, the quartet continues to impress with the strength honed through experience: four distinct voices uniting as a single organism and blending melodies with a restless spirit of experimentation.

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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.

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