Julia Brüssel

Julia Brüssel is dedicated to a wide variety of genres and has a passion for dealing with musical diversity, characteristics, flexibilities and roles. Accordingly, her work includes solo performances both unplugged and with live electronics, but also work as a composer and home producer. In the avantgarde/ experimental (kraut)rock genre she has played with bands like TheDorf, faUSt, RKet, Horse Lords,..and has led several projects like the experimental string ensemble Liasemble, the Jazzband Julia Brüssel Quartet and is also a co-leader of the band song-improv band hilde. In addition to this she founded various projects of other genres and is currently working on a new project with Ghanaian percussionist Abass Dodoo. Julia has played on numerous jazz and avantgarde festivals (e.g. Berlin Solo Impro, Berlin Jazz Festival, Bezau Beatz (...),and has performed at the Moers Festival many times since 2018. She regularly plays and collaborates with international artists and formations in and outside of Europe.

Photo by Cristina Marx

Emily Wittbrodt

Emily Wittbrodt, improvising cellist and composer, currently lives in Cologne. Having studied  classical cello, early music and Jazz, the focus of her musical practice now lays on experimental  music and interdisciplinary collaborations. Emily is an active part of the european avantgarde music scene and a regular guest at international festivals (Moers Festival, Festival International de  Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville Canada, ImpulsTanz Festival Vienna, Bezau Beatz Austria, to  name a few) and she has also created music for several dance theater pieces in Germany and abroad. Her numerous releases range from her own compositions (Make You Stay) to bands she's regularly  working, recording and touring with (hilde, ephemeral fragments, Ludwig Wittbrodt and schoerken  wittbrodt). Her recordings can be found on Ana Ott, Umland records, boomslang records and  Impakt records. 

Photo by Ludwig Kuffer

Neil Charles

Neil Charles is one of the most in-demand musicians on the scene, with a huge array of credits to his name, including Jack DeJohnette, the Sun Ra Arkestra, Mingus Big Band, Jose James, Jerry Dammers, Courtney Pine, and Terence Blanchard. His own projects have included Zed U, with Shabaka Hutchings and Tom Skinner, and the more recent ensemble Dark Days, dealing with the work of James Baldwin. Most recently, he has been heard across the international scene with Gabriels. As well as being known as a bass player with a huge sound and immaculate sense of time, he is equally renowned as a producer, going by the alias Ben Marc.

"Bassist Neil Charles went flying, from the first moment filling the space with the sound of his mighty wings Henning Bolte," – Europe Jazz Media Chart

Alexander Hawkins

Alexander Hawkins’ work ranges from his acclaimed solo performances (‘intensely intricate…powerful, technically brilliant and melodically inventive’) through to works on a much larger canvas, such as his Togetherness Music ('[a] masterpiece that can stand next to the best works of Mitchell, Braxton or Parker’). He collaborates regularly with all generations of creative musicians, including the likes of Anthony Braxton, Marshall Allen, Evan Parker, John Surman, Joe McPhee, Hamid Drake, Nicole Mitchell, Tomeka Reid, Sofia Jernberg, Shabaka Hutchings, and many others. Further creative associations, with two very different icons of African music, Louis Moholo-Moholo and Mulatu Astatke, stretch back for well over a decade. He has been widely commissioned as a composer, including by the likes of the BBC, Berlin’s Pierre Boulez Saal, and numerous festivals. His performance schedule takes him to club, concert hall, and festival stages worldwide.

"Sounds like all the future jazz you might imagine without ever being able to conceive of the details" – The Guardian