22. April 2024

German Jazz Prize

We won the German Jazz Prize “Composition of the year” for our piece “8 Prinzessinnen”! 🥳 What an honour! Thanks to the whole German Jazz Prize team, the Initiative Musik, the jury and Marieke Meischke for the wonderful laudation! Though I did write the compositon by myself, it is my bigband and its 18 musicians that make the piece come to life through their own sound, improvisation, creativity and passion! I love you guys, you make it all possible!🔥 

Not all members could come to the award ceremony, but the four of us gave it all to represent the whole band! Writing the piece was a quite prolonged process. At the beginning there was a newspaper headline: “8 princesses stand trial”. What on earth could eight princesses have cooked up? In my imagination they turned into influencers who stole the fountain of youth, endowing them with eternal youth, beauty and life. But now they face the court, they glow and luminesce, denying all wrongdoing. As for the composition, I wanted to set in motion some kind of musical wheel that keeps on stumbling, but is also consistent in itself. Some kind of morse code. Out of it, another wheel materializes, clutching on to it, as if two bands were playing at the same time, continiously disjoining and re-aligning. In between we have two amazing soloists, Sebastian Nagler on baritone and Alistair Duncan on trombone, firing it all up. 😍

To get all this recorded for the album we had an amazing team, and I want to thank them all for their great work! It is called “Witchy Activities And The Maple Death”, we released it in 2023 on our own label Zenna Records (the name is derived from the my hometown Langenzenn). Here you can order the album (CD or vinyl) and here you can take a listen. And of course, we will be playing the song “8 Prinzessinnen” live:
01.05. Opernhaus, Bonn ➜ Tickets (sold out)
05.05. Ampere, München ➜ Tickets here
17.07. Kulturfeuer Ebersberg ➜ Tickets here
26.07. Herzberg Festival ➜ Tickets here
30.11. Z-Bau, Nürnberg ➜ Tickets here
27.12. Pavillon, Hannover ➜ Tickets here
We’re looking forward to seeing you there!

29. March 2024

May 5th at Ampere, Munich

We are LIVE on May 5th at Ampere, Munich! 🚀
It will be an intense, magical and fiery live show between avant pop, art rock and math jazz! We will leave the walls trembling and are looking forward to seeing you there! (Tickets) 💜

Foto: Ludwig Olah

20. March 2024

Burghausen Jazzfestival

Burghausen Jazzfestival, we had an amazing time!🔥
Here is a great article about the whole festival by Oliver Hochkeppel in German newspaper “Sueddeutsche Zeitung”. In the “Passauer Neue Presse” Erwin Schwarz wrote: “Elfs and the voodoo queen – mystical stuff at cityhall between avantgarde and Big Band sound.” Next concerts are at Jazzfest Bonn on May 1, and at Ampere in Munich, our hometown, on May 5th. Hope to see you around!🔥👻🦉✨ (Fotos: Frank Rasimowitz)

26. February 2024

Tickets for 2024

Ticket sale is starting! This dates are confirmed and more are to come! Right now they are all in Germany. But if you know bookers from your home country that want to book us for a concert or festival, let me know, we are ready for adventures!🙌
16.03. Stadtsaal, Burghausen ➜ Tickets hier
01.05. Opernhaus, Bonn ➜ Tickets hier
05.05. Ampere, München ➜ Tickets hier
17.07. Kulturfeuer Ebersberg ➜ Tickets hier
26.07. Herzberg Festival ➜ Tickets hier
30.11. Z-Bau, Nürnberg ➜ Tickets hier
27.12. Pavillon, Hannover ➜ Tickets hier

We are looking forward seeing you!

Photo: Emanuel Klempa

23. February 2024

“The Progspace” nomination

We have been nominated by The Progspace for “music video of the year” for “8 Prinzessinnen”! This was so much fun, with the video creators Juri Beythien and Lukas Bille and the actresses of my hometown’s theatre Hans-Sachs-Spielgruppe Langenzenn! Here you can watch the whole video.
And here you can vote here for us if you’d like and check out the other bands.
Next LIVE concerts:
16.3. Stadtsaal, Jazzfestival Burghausen
1.5. Opernhaus, Jazzfest Bonn
5.5. Ampere, München

14. February 2024

Albums of the year by eclipsed magazine

We are so happy to be the no 4 of the albums of the year 2023 of eclipsed magazine! This means a lot to us, because this whole album “Witchy Activities And The Maple Death” was a tough nut to crack! It was like everything was jinxed, nothing was easy, everything needed detailed work and effort… sometimes we were wondering, are we going to keep this constant struggle up? But we managed to motivate ourselves all the time, and just kept calm and searched for solutions, it all took a little longer – this honour by the eclipsed magazine means a lot to us!:)

5. February 2024

German Jazz Award: Nomination

We got a double nomination by “Deutscher Jazzpreis” !
We are so stoked to be nominated for album of the year “Witchy Activities And The Maple Death” and composition of the year “8 Prinzessinnen”! What an honour! Congrats to all the nominees! And thanks so much to the jury, Initiative Musik and all the people that were involved in the making of this bigband recording! This means a lot to us! 💜


23. December 2023

Happy Christmas holidays!✨

Happy Christmas holidays to all of you! 2023 was a very special year for our band! The new album, all the concerts, all the musicians and memories, it was an inspiring year! Thanks for all the great moments with you! Thanks for being part of this! We hope to see all of you in 2024!
All the best,
Monika and Bigband

Foto: Emanuel A. Klempa

18. December 2023

Vinyl restock!

… we have our Bandcamp store with CDs, LPs and shirts, and of course our newly available “Failure In Wonderland” double vinyl! But you can also get everything in our shop here;)
We send it out ourselves, and by buying on one of our platforms, you support us as a band directly, which is amazing, because this helps us to go on tour again!
All the best!:)

27. November 2023

“Failure in Wonderland” is here on vinyl!

Dear friends, our album debut from 2012 “Failure in Wonderland” is finally back in stock! But not only that, it is available on vinyl for the first time ever!
Thanks to the whole band and Umberto Echo, to Sascha Banck for the lovely painting, to Tobias Koark-Haberl for the design, and Juan Martin Koch for the cover photo! And of course thanks to all of you, who were constantly nagging me to finally release the album on vinyl – now it happened and we are very happy about it!:)
Maybe you are still looking for a christmas present? 🎁
Check our store to find CDs, LPs, apparel and bags!
Thanks for your support! ❤️

22. November 2023

Thank you Nuremberg, thank you Hubertussaal!

We had a wonderful final concert at Hubertussaal Nuremberg! ❤️
Thanks to everyone who came! Thanks to the team and staff at Hubertussaal and the wonderful cooperation over the last 10 years, we will miss playing there! We played there every year and it was always a blast. But of course, we won’t stop playing in Nuremberg and are looking forward to our new city home venue: Z-Bau, just a few streets away. Next time on November 30th!
You can already get your tickets here: November 30, 2024 Z-Bau, Nürnberg
Many greetings to Nuremberg, cheers!
Monika and big band
Photos: Ludwig Olah

27. September 2023

German Record Critics’ Award

We are so excited and honored to receive the German Record Critics Award (Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik 2023) for our album “Witchy Activities And The Maple Death”!🤩🎉🤘Thanks so much to the jury, it means a lot to us! This prize is for all who were involved in the making of this album, it was a long and wild ride, so we are even more thankful for this honor!💜 We will receive the prize at our concert on October 6th in Munich at Volkstheater. We would love to see you there!

See you soon,
Monika and Bigband

P.S.: You can listen to the album here at Bandcamp or check out our Shop stacked with CDs and vinyls;)