Jazz-Jazz Festival in Moers: Between E and U

Festival Director Tim Isfort says at the press appointment on Monday afternoon. It was enough for the same budget as last year. But since the costs for personnel and technology have exploded in recent years, the bottom line is less. Ten to 15 percent make up increases while the budget is stagnating for fees. That is why Isfort tirelessly asks for donations in his announcements in front of the concerts. So that Moers does not have to line up into the long series of “silent festivals”. They are recorded on black steles on the “Boulevard der Sile”, which runs over the site in front of the festival hall. Also for clubs that no longer exist, and those that may soon no longer be available is space – and for a handful resurrected.

The difficult times also leave traces in Moers. There are rather few names. Vijay Iyer plays an intensive, quiet set with Wadada Leo Smith on the last day of the festival. Smith was last guest in Moers in 1979. Caspar Brötzmann is solo several times and finally experienced with his massacre. The Africa focus established a few years ago, this year on the subject of Rwanda, was narrow. And yet Moers is also a utopian place in these unfavorable times that offers much more than a person can experience on a long weekend.

The opening is already a fanal – which can be heard long close to the border to silence and swells over eight hours to an enchanting choir: In the Multiple Voices project, sound engineer Markus Wallner with the voices of Countertenor Terry Wey and the baritone Ulfried Staber from the composition “Spem” by Thomas Tallis from 1570, which actually lasted only ten to twelve minutes Fascinating sound world. Actually composed for eight choirs of five voices each, Wey and Staber sing alternately in voice in voice that Wallner Live Loopt cuts, strikes. A process that gives birth to moments of silence again and again.

A much stronger contrast to the other end of the festival can hardly be made: a few years ago, the newly formed Caspar Brötzmann massacre gave a brute finals in the hall. Brötzmann, son of Peter Brötzmann, who died two years ago and Moers, created around 1990 with bass player Eduardo Delgado-Lopez and mostly Danny Arnold Lommen on drums a handful of albums with an open rock music between noise and free form. Today Saskia plays drums from Klitzing – the approach is completely the old.

“Moers is not a place of the finished answers – it is a laboratory of hearing, irritation and joy.”

FestivalDireKtor Tim Sort

The program of the four Moers days moved between noise and quiet moments, between composition and improvisation, between E and U. And then it was also crisscrossing the globe: Journalist Sophie Emilie Beha came across an exciting network of artists in Rwanda’s capital Kigali, from which it finally made it to Moers-difficulties in visa applications, especially from the global south, are also a permanent favorite in culture: The concert of the formation of Urwereka belonged The most rousing experiences of this year’s edition: The musician, producer and actress Sheja Cheryl alias Binghi stored the spoken word performance of Natacha Muziramakenga (Miziguruka) and the dancer Manzi Mbaya and Bobo Elvis with powerful beat storms. All four were then experienced in various other contexts and combinations, Binghi, for example, with a DJ set in the tube, one from a series of venues away from the festival site with which the festival uses the spirit of improvisation into the city. Another of these places is the Barbara bookstore, where Miziguruka provided an attentive audience with a context with a context of Rwanda, but also spoke about the fragility and questionability of attributions of identity.

The other focus this year was China. The musicians from different parts of the country also always went into new combinations and relationships: The Uigurian noise artist Mamer, for example, was experienced on the opening evening with a solo set on the large open-air stage, the duo BBB BBB (Lao Dan and Li Daiguo) was on instruments such as Duduk and Guzheng on the one hand, Saxophon and On the other hand, tabla confidently between the change of traditional Chinese music and western sound language. Both were to be experienced in other combinations in the further program, in a dialogue with western musicians or even alone. The stages were a statement for themselves: “About the pitch”, for example, called a lifting platform, on which concerts were repeatedly heard at lofty heights and seen when the wind allowed it to be transferred to a quadrophone sound system. And as in previous years, the pianomobile was traveling all over the city with a changing crew.

Nd.Diewoche – Our weekly newsletter

With our weekly newsletter . We’re Doing Look at the most important topics of the week and read them Highlights our Saturday edition on Friday. Get the free subscription here.

Jazz is only a facet of what is happening, most clearly when the Federal Jazzorchestra appears, which is devoted to music in National Socialism in his current program of music, including “I do not know who I belong” and “I am set to love from head to toe” by Friedrich Hollaender or “While My Lady Sleeps” by Bronisław Kaper. There were not only exciting new arrangements to be heard, but also excerpts from the compensation files between the songs. A not only musically enlightening program item. How difficult the self -made claim of being “never apolitical” can be implemented as part of a music festival was shown on Saturday in a discussion under the title “Art, Criticism or Anti -Semitism?”

While the format “Discussions” usually finds its place in a rather small scale, the big hall was reserved for the conversation, which was just enough for the audience. This had to endure a physical visitation when entering, including the very unusual in Moers. Katja Lucker, managing director of the Music Initiative, Nikolas Lelle from the Amadeu Antonio Foundation and the Israeli musician Maya Dunietz should explore with moderator Benny Fischer in around 40 minutes, as should be dealt with with the signs of the Gaza conflict with the lines of conflict in the cultural scene. Lucker reported from her practice as an organizer of boycott calls, Lelle clearly insisted that there was a growing problem with anti -Semitism in Germany and that it had to be met, while Dunietz repeatedly tried to work that an answer could not be in clear blame. Time was not enough for a real discussion, an exchange of arguments.

But: “Moers is not a place of the finished answers – it is a laboratory of hearing, irritation and joy,” said Isfort in a preliminary record on Monday. He is right. It is another learning that comes from the practice of playing across borders from listening. This makes a festival like Moers important far beyond music. The audience understood – and rewarded ISFORGS STETES Werben with donations over 10,000 euros.