We are honored to be the first venue in the world to welcome the full seven-piece ensemble Chimaera, acclaimed for the eponymous album full of atmospheric, shape-shifting improvisations. Pianist/composer Sylvie Courvoisier leads the European-American formation. Remarkable contributors are Wadada Leo Smith, master trumpeter from the Chicago avant-garde, and Christian Fennesz, influential sound artist on guitar and electronics from Vienna.
With her compositions, Sylvie Courvoisier laid the foundations for the wondrously meditative and sonically and texturally varied album. An important source of inspiration was the art of Odilon Redon, whose Symbolist paintings imagine a colorful, hallucinatory dream world that expressed intangible and invisible phenomena.
For this international premiere, the ensemble is completed by Nate Wooley on trumpet, Drew Gress on double bass, Kenny Wollesen on vibes and percussion, and Nasheet Waits on drums. This concert is a collaboration with the North Sea Jazz Festival.
‘Some pianists approach the instrument like it’s a cathedral… Sylvie Courvoisier treats it like a playground’ (Kevin Whitehead, NPR).
Nate Wooley trumpet, Wadada Leo Smith trumpet, Sylvie Courvoisier piano, Christian Fennesz guitar/electronics, Drew Gress bass, Kenny Wollessen drums/vibraphone, Nasheet Waits drums
