"My Unique Jazz Festival": Music as a Unifying Dorce
Each band interpreted well-known pieces from their own countries, combining them with jazz traditions from all over Europe
May 19th, 2016From 13th to 21th May, 19 European Cultural Institutes and Embassies, part of the Association of European Cultural Institutes (EUNIC Berlin), presented the third edition of the "My Unique Jazz Festival", which displayed the wealth of European jazz, showing its different roots, dialects and new developments from all over Europe.
Musicians from 22 different European countries brought their own compositions, combined them with traditions from all over Europe. All concerts were held at the Kunstfabrik Schlot Jazz Club, located in the Mitte neighborhood. A truly exceptional location, considering that the building was created in late 1800 for manufacturing Edison's incadenscent lamps. Thanks to several renovations, Its intended use has changed over time but its red brick paver still remembers its industrial past.
The conceptor of the festival is Andrea Marcelli, an Italian jazz musician who has been living in Berlin since 2001. Along with him, other important musicians of the european jazz scene were on stage, as Simone Guiducci, internationally acclaimed guitarist, Fausto Beccalossi, one of the most important contemporary accordionists, Uli Kempendorff, German saxophonist, Benedikt Jahnel on piano and Pascal Niggenkemper on bass.
The artists not only made the guests discover their own musical culture, but they also offered a unique combination of music, passion and different roots, as the Festival aims to offer a fantastic and unique musical dialogue, that wants to promote european integration and cooperation through music. According to Marcelli, music can represent an efficient tool for promoting intercultural exchange: "We can adoptate it as a universal language, that without words is more capable of speaking to diverse cultures and territories". The program was rich and brought on stage great names of the european jazz. An unmissable opportunity to watch performances of very high level, redescovering the pride of being european.
References:
News from Berlin
Jessica Sama, Berlin Global