Beyond Jazz: The Moers Festival in 2019

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A jazz festival that actually wants to be none, this is the approach of the Moers festival. To lure instead of just with big names such as the WDR big band, or Tom Zé, scores it with the joy of experimentation and Surprises.

  • Moers Festival 2019: get Out of the comfort zone!

    Peter Evans

    In the Solo series of the Moers festival, a soloist occurs every day for about 30 minutes all alone improvised. Including the New York trumpeter Peter Evans, the occurs frequently with Ensembles for New music and his own Label with the name of “More Is More Records” under holds.

  • Moers Festival 2019: get Out of the comfort zone!

    Erwan Keravec “Urban Pipes”

    The Frenchman Erwan Keravec is the Solo series of this. The Instrument of his choice, the Breton bagpipes. He transcends the apparent boundaries of the traditional wind instrument, and coaxes him to sounds that break with listening habits. Instead of stunning landscapes come to listening to more of the city scenes in your mind.

  • Moers Festival 2019: get Out of the comfort zone!

    Moers Abstractions

    Behind the title “Moers Abstractions” is the title of this project, the Moers festival: the year big With an Arrangement of American composer Vince Mendoza, the WDR big band and the Team musikfabrik NRW to enter, together with soloist Joshua Redman (image) together new worlds of sound.

  • Moers Festival 2019: get Out of the comfort zone!

    Underground Music No. 3

    The series “film club flap” combines Film and improvised music. The project “underground music” of the musician Frank Niehus man (image) and the video artist Jochen Balke you can see the last layers of miners in the Ruhr area. The images have been cut extra to the music.

  • Moers Festival 2019: get Out of the comfort zone!

    Hayden Chisholm

    The new Zealand saxophonist and Globetrotter, known, among other things, from the music documentary “Sound of Heimat” is a permanent guest in Moers and occurs in the case of this issue, even multiple times – including a solo concert in the evening in the mayor’s office.

  • Moers Festival 2019: get Out of the comfort zone!

    Tom Zé

    Festival Director Tim Isfort has asked the doyen of the Brazilian movement of Tropicalismo, the journey across the Atlantic to compete, and for Moers to try something New. Said and done: With young musicians from São Paulo, the 82-year-old singer delivers the Moers audience, a purely acoustic program.

  • Moers Festival 2019: get Out of the comfort zone!

    Moers Laboratory

    Under the title of “Moers laboratory” are musical ingredients mixed together, one would find elsewhere in the combination hardly. The 95-year-old Alstsaxofonist Marshall Allen, a member of the Sun Ra Arkestra meets on the East German Free-Jazz legend Günter “Baby” Sommer, the Japanese electro artist Toshimaru Nakamura, and the braslianischen Spoken Word artist Rodrigo Brandāo.

  • Moers Festival 2019: get Out of the comfort zone!

    M0VE Quintet

    The Mexican Emilio Gordoa (on the right in the picture) is this year’s “improviser in residence” in Moers. The sound researchers occurs several times, the listener can enjoy his music in a concert at the local indoor swimming pool and the sounds of underwater listening. In the festival hall, he performs with his M0VE Quintet.

    Author: Philipp Jedicke


  • Moers Festival 2019: get Out of the comfort zone!

    Peter Evans

    In the Solo series of the Moers festival, a soloist occurs every day for about 30 minutes all alone improvised. Including the New York trumpeter Peter Evans, the occurs frequently with Ensembles for New music and his own Label with the name of “More Is More Records” under holds.

  • Moers Festival 2019: get Out of the comfort zone!

    Erwan Keravec “Urban Pipes”

    The Frenchman Erwan Keravec is the Solo series of this. The Instrument of his choice, the Breton bagpipes. He transcends the apparent boundaries of the traditional wind instrument, and coaxes him to sounds that break with listening habits. Instead of stunning landscapes come to listening to more of the city scenes in your mind.

  • Moers Festival 2019: get Out of the comfort zone!

    Moers Abstractions

    Behind the title “Moers Abstractions” is the title of this project, the Moers festival: the year big With an Arrangement of American composer Vince Mendoza, the WDR big band and the Team musikfabrik NRW to enter, together with soloist Joshua Redman (image) together new worlds of sound.

  • Moers Festival 2019: get Out of the comfort zone!

    Underground Music No. 3

    The series “film club flap” combines Film and improvised music. The project “underground music” of the musician Frank Niehus man (image) and the video artist Jochen Balke you can see the last layers of miners in the Ruhr area. The images have been cut extra to the music.

  • Moers Festival 2019: get Out of the comfort zone!

    Hayden Chisholm

    The new Zealand saxophonist and Globetrotter, known, among other things, from the music documentary “Sound of Heimat” is a permanent guest in Moers and occurs in the case of this issue, even multiple times – including a solo concert in the evening in the mayor’s office.

  • Moers Festival 2019: get Out of the comfort zone!

    Tom Zé

    Festival Director Tim Isfort has asked the doyen of the Brazilian movement of Tropicalismo, the journey across the Atlantic to compete, and for Moers to try something New. Said and done: With young musicians from São Paulo, the 82-year-old singer delivers the Moers audience, a purely acoustic program.

  • Moers Festival 2019: get Out of the comfort zone!

    Moers Laboratory

    Under the title of “Moers laboratory” are musical ingredients mixed together, one would find elsewhere in the combination hardly. The 95-year-old Alstsaxofonist Marshall Allen, a member of the Sun Ra Arkestra meets on the East German Free-Jazz legend Günter “Baby” Sommer, the Japanese electro artist Toshimaru Nakamura, and the braslianischen Spoken Word artist Rodrigo Brandāo.

  • Moers Festival 2019: get Out of the comfort zone!

    M0VE Quintet

    The Mexican Emilio Gordoa (on the right in the picture) is this year’s “improviser in residence” in Moers. The sound researchers occurs several times, the listener can enjoy his music in a concert at the local indoor swimming pool and the sounds of underwater listening. In the festival hall, he performs with his M0VE Quintet.

    Author: Philipp Jedicke


Moers, at the end of the 1960s, In the Wake of the ‘ 68 movement had to call a small group of music enthusiast, the idea of a jazz festival in the “smallest large city in Germany”, as the Moerser your 100,000-inhabitant town of loving. In 1972 it was finally over, and the first artistic Director Burkhard Hennen, organized the “International New Jazz Festival Moers”, as it was called at the time. For 34 years, hens initiated in consequence of the Festival and it quickly made big International Stars and jazz fans made the pilgrimage every year to Pentecost in the small town on the lower Rhine.

A Festival splits his city

“In the first few years, you could see the Hippies, the avant-garde Freaks from all over the world, which invaded the city, immediately visually,” says festival Director Tim Isfort. He knows both sides of the coin better than anyone else here, because not only is he a native of Moers, but is self-toured for many years as a jazz musician in the world. There have often been lack of understanding on the part of the inhabitants compared to the experimental fans, he recalls. The Festival is polarized from day one. Its involvement with own parents went with their son on the weekend for the Hippies-Watching, as the Festival would also be a kind of freak show.

Festival Director Tim Isfort

Over the years, more and more jazz giants, has occurred in Moers and Moers developed a certain Pride in the international Event in your city. The Festival was bigger and more renowned, but at the same time elitist. As Isfort 2017 took over the reins, was drawn to the music festival on the outskirts of town, and had alienated from his city. Under the Moersern the image of the Festival prevailed as “elitist money-burning machine of art and high culture. This has to do with us Moersern nothing more,” says Isfort, the mood at the time. “That was the worst thing that could happen. It may not be the case that the Moersern the Festival is no matter. Love or hate are okay, but no matter is not.”

Music as a Virus

Immediately Isfort met a whole series of measures, the growing alienation of the festival from his own venue to counteract. Including the series “moersify”. Behind the name the idea of a kind of Virus to spread in the city and, among other things, the mayor’s office, an indoor swimming pool, or a hair salon, in concert places turns hiding. The same musicians that play at the same Festival for money in halls, perform in the context of the series in places where you are not expected completely free and unplugged. Moerser, which could start to date, nothing to do with the Festival, to get an access to it. And the Virus begins to take effect: A third of the tickets is now purchased from Locals. And, although there is no “appeasement deals,” such as Isfort said. “On the outside platforms, there is no city like pleasant ‘red wine’-Jazz, not a pandering program. Here, too, the people need to let the same program will endure as the inside,” he says, laughing.

Also read: Jazzfest Bonn-Director Peter Materna: “Jazz head cinema”

The Moers Festival wants everything to be, just please no Mainstream. Isfort and his Team want to challenge the audience, the musicians and yourself. Over 100 program points, the musical range is enormous. With a Mix of free Improvisation, NewJazz, World, avant-garde, contemporary music, Minimal Music, sound art, Drone and Electro Moers want to be very niche-conscious and the “stage for the Outrageous” offer. And also the cliché of the humourless Intellectuals to face up to Isfort. The legendary Sun Ra Arkestra plays this year in the local branch of the electrical trade Saturn – after all, the founder of the band Sun Ra always claimed he came from the eponymous planet. Even the press conferences in Moers types in art Happenings from. Isfort and co. sat down once during the program presentation in a swimming pool, the delivery to and full of water. They had live musicians with improvised Sounds to accompany.

The Sun Ra Arkestra

The “Moers-Energy”

In the meantime, the Moers Festival has banned the word “Jazz” from its name. Why? “I love Jazz, but I don’t want to be in the context of the jazz festivals classified”, so Isfort. Instead of the big Festivals such as Montreux and New York, the part “only decals, be your self”, he travels to the border area between India and Pakistan, to North Korea and São Paulo, and is looking like a truffle pig for new Trends and scenes, to individual artists who bring something with them. “I’m looking for a certain energy, which belongs to Moers.”

Emilio Gordoa is “improviser in residence” in Moers

One who brings this “Moers-energy”, the 32-year-old It Emilio Gordoa from Mexico, this year’s “improviser in residence”. As such, it is a kind of city musicians, living for a year in Moers and acts as a connection between the Festival and the city’s manufactures. The sound researchers working with sound textures and resonances, he improvises with sound bodies, electronic elements and feedback, and edited the vibraphone and other percussion instruments to Make, you don’t anticipate. “For me, Moers is not a jazz festival,” he says. “It’s very open.” Emilio was at the last year’s edition, this year it occurs at an underwater concert and plays in a Quintet with his M0VE. For Emilio, his “residency” is a new way to create things. While he organized in his hometown of Berlin, and manages, he has support here and does Workshops on the topic of sounds and noises with students.

Subsidy and responsibility

How such a large Festival with an “adventurous” music work for so long in this city, in addition to the Mexicans, who organized in his home and even some New-music-Festivals wondered, then.. “to be Quite honest: I don’t understand why,” he says, laughing. The answer is promotion. The entire Festival is a highly subsidized event and could not survive without these funds. So Emilio’s is paid stay in Moers by the arts Foundation of NRW. Other supporters, among other things, the Federal government Commissioner for culture and media, the Ministry of culture of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the city of Moers. Festival Director Tim Isfort is aware of the criticisms of subsidised events. For example, the question of whether such a Festival was not yet time according to.

This is exactly why Isfort and his Team are so keen to be on the pulse of the time. He and his comrades-in-arms operate on a year round field research, you go to the Clubs, jamming with Serbian jazz musicians in smoke-filled pubs, or listening to Brazilian improvisers in their home. The choice of music in Moers is also a political Statement, it is not only a living sound, but an openness to the world. In the year 2018 450 musicians from 22 countries and five continents, have performed here.

“Try harder!”

In 2019, there is a completely new stage in the main hall of the festival. Nothing should be expected or stay the same as it was. Because in the society, the attitude has, according to Isfort, that should not change too much, led to nothing Good, and flies in the world now in the Form of the refugee crisis and climate change around the ears. “We must all make an effort now and consider in what for a world we want to live”, so Isfort. That’s why this year’s Motto is: “try harder!” On the festival poster of an elephant on a mountain of scrap metal, which extends its proboscis to the moon. So you want to show at the Festival: There are always new perspectives.

The poster of this year’s edition

All but a standstill. Therefore, discussions are to be held, for example, between politicians and musicians. In Moers, there are special projects, world premieres and world premieres. This year, among other things, the “Global Improvisers Orchestra” with musicians from Myanmar, South America and other countries, the samples only once. No one knows in advance what will come out in your appearance, also Isfort itself. “This opportunity, this stage should be Moers. It is to ask questions, it’s supposed to shake up.” Asked to describe Moers in three terms, says Isfort finally: “in the first place, but!, secondly, Hiking and the third is off the hook.”

 

48. Moers Festival takes place from 7.-10. June 2019 instead.