Aly Keïta, a virtuoso of the Balafon, was born in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. From his youngest age, he was introduced to the instrument by his father, himself a Balafon player, the musical ancestor of the Xylophone and the Marimba. Aly Keïta has just been nominated for the German Jazz Award 2022. Today, Aly Keïta lives More
The swirling balafon playing of Aly Keïta – the winner of a Special Instruments German JAZZ PRIZE 2022 – is spectacular. The mallets in his hands seem to dance across the sound bars. The West African musician gained worldwide recognition for his mastery of the balafon, which he has been playing since childhood, and has More
Das wirbelnde Balafon-Spiel von Aly Keïta – der Gewinner eines Besonderen Instrumente Deutscher JAZZ PREIS 2022 – ist spektakulär. Die Schlägel in seinen Händen scheinen über die Klangstäbe zu tanzen. Der westafrikanische Musiker erlangte weltweites Ansehen für seine meisterhafte Beherrschung des Balafons, das er bereits seit seiner Kindheit spielt und hat es heute bis an More
In her energetic performances singer, actress and composer Mariana Sadovska creates a fusion of avant-garde and folk music, where archaic midsummer night invocations, wedding songs and emigrant chants from remote villages in rural Ukraine are transfigured into contemporary sound. Creating her own innovative compositions and arrangements in a dialogue with ancient traditions, Mariana approaches each piece More
DZ’OB is an electroacoustic band from Dnipro, Ukraine, striving to combine classical music tradition with contemporary electronic approach. DZ’OB not only synthesizes genres like classics, IDM, techno, dubstep, but also comes up with unique, eclectic sounds that blur the lines within ages, and traditions. The band was founded in 2014 and consists of 5 instruments: More
Mark Tokar is an iconic figure of the Ukrainian improvisational scene. His first album Yatoku (with Yuriy Yaremchuk and Klaus Kugel) was released by Not Two lable in 2006. After that, the career of a contrabass player rocketed. Mark is a frequent guest on international projects (Ken Vandermark Resonance Project, Undivided, Five Spot, Four, Varpaj, More
Yuriy Seredin Quartet is a jazz ensemble of Ukrainian pianist-composer Yuriy Seredin. After graduating with honors from the Jazz Institute Berlin as a pianist and composer, Yuriy Seredin received the JIB Prize for Best Ensemble. Recorded in 2018, Asylum Search debut album in collaboration with modern jazz legend Nasheet Waits won the A-prize (Radio.Aristocrats) as More
NEW BRAIN TRIO is an ambitious confession of Ukrainian musicians. Behind the direct, multi-layered style of this project, which does not succumb to the dry laws of logic, is the author’s personality as the main musical component. The complex introverted electric jazz NEW BRAIN TRIO eliminates the monopoly of dull solos, claiming the search for More
ShockolaD band appeals to the Ukrainian identity through a combination of jazz tradition and experiments. For more than 15 years of existence, the band has gone from the founding of the first jazz club in Western Ukraine to the creation of the Department of Jazz and Popular Music at the Lviv Academy of Music. ShockolaD More
Danylo Zverkhanovskyi considers instrumental and improvised contemporary music to be his main speciality as a solo artist. Zverkhanovskyi prefers performing original pieces, and as a composer he tries to remain open to the global musical achievements of our time, while looking at them through the prism of his own experience, identity, and beliefs. Zverkhanovskyi began More
