NICA x CJW: Felix Hauptmann - YARDS & EMPATHY

Ketija Ringa-Karahona (flute) Lina Allemano (trumpet) Felix Hauptmann (piano, composition) Roger Kintopf (bass) Francisco Mela (drums)

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As part of NICA x CJW, Felix Hauptmann presents the world premiere of YARDS & EMPATHY - made possible by the annual collaboration between Cologne Jazzweek and NICA artist development, pianist Felix Hauptmann has been commissioned to compose an outstanding, unique project like Fabian Dudek (an empty room, then smiling) and Theresia Philipp (Seeds of Sweat) before him. With his unmistakable musical signature, the NICA artist of Generation 2024 places his program in an expanded, international context.

With a special sensitivity for textures and rhythm, Hauptmann brings together the Latvian flautist Ketija Ringa Karahona, the Canadian trumpeter Lina Allemano, the bassist Roger Kintopf and the Cuban drummer Francisco Mela for his program YARDS & EMPATHY. In search of ever new stimuli and possibilities for playing together, the musicians are constantly researching collective musical processes. In a formation selected for this program, Hauptmann's compositions unfold a special depth that arises from a sensitive juxtaposition of regulation and free space. The individual voices of his players interweave to form dense, organic structures in which precisely set forms and free interpretation meet. This quintet creates music that is just as powerful in its calm as it is in its eruptive moments.

The world premiere of YARDS & EMPATHY promises to be a special moment during this year's Cologne Jazzweek: An insight into an artistic perspective that centers the free dialogue between the musicians while skillfully blurring the boundaries between composition and improvisation.

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.

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