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Short info
The Monika Roscher Bigband is a wild large ensemble blending math-jazz, avant-pop, prog, and experimental excess.
Led by guitarist and composer Monika Roscher, the band smashes the boundaries of traditional big band sounds with its extraordinary sonic palette. Brass arrangements shimmering in a thousand colors, dense guitar riffs, gripping live electronics, a rhythm section verging on madness, and the sheer appetite for experimentation of its 18 musicians combine into a singular, breathless musical ride. Their third album, Witchy Activities And The Maple Death (Zenna Records), received the German Record Critics’ Award and was nominated for the German Jazz Award as Best Album, while the track 8 Prinzessinnen won the German Jazz Award for Composition of the Year. Der Spiegel called it “a buzzing, nervous witches’ sabbath charged with feminist superpower”. In 2025 the band followed up with their first live album, Witchy Activities Live.
About the band
Formed in Munich in 2011, the ensemble quickly made waves with its striking live performances and the compositions of singer and guitarist Monika Roscher, drawing an enthusiastic response from press, radio, and TV. With their first two albums, Failure in Wonderland (2012, Enja / Jazz Echo Newcomer of the Year) and Of Monsters and Birds (2016, Enja), the band played numerous jazz festivals across Germany (including Jazzfest Berlin, JazzBaltica, and Jazzfest Burghausen), performed at the philharmonic halls of Hamburg, Cologne, and Munich, and found itself on the lineups of rock, electronic, and art festivals alike (among them Zappanale, Fusion Festival, and Stroke Art Fair). Outside Germany, they have played in Salzburg, Prague, and Istanbul, among other cities. The American magazine DownBeat named them “Rising Stars” twice in its critics’ poll.
Having grown together over many years into a 18-strong collective of virtuosic individualists, the band celebrates musical freedom, challenge, and mutual inspiration at every one of its electrifying concerts. Their third album, Witchy Activities And The Maple Death, once again proves just how modern and thrilling a big band can sound. Steering clear of well-worn paths, the band pulls off an extraordinary balancing act between fragile intimacy and symphonic grandeur, pushing the possibilities of the big-band format across every genre boundary. Roscher’s tension-charged compositions, meticulously crafted down to the last detail, conjure dreamlike landscapes – at times beguiling in their lyrical beauty, at others revealing vertiginous depths in a frenzy of unleashed energy. Yet they also leave room for experimentation and improvisation. The lyrics carry listeners into nocturnal ocean scenes, probe the borderlands between humanity and technology, or invite them to a witches’ sabbath wreathed in herbal smoke. This is the sound of a band that loves adventure, driven by an insatiable hunger for musical symbiosis, constantly surprising and reinventing itself.
The media response to Witchy Activities was overwhelmingly positive, winning over critics from the worlds of pop, prog, and jazz alike – with coverage in Der Spiegel, Stern, Süddeutsche Zeitung, and Frankfurter Allgemeine, among others. The album received the German Record Critics’ Award in 2023 and was nominated for Album of the Year at the 2024 German Jazz Award. The track 8 Prinzessinnen won the 2024 German Jazz Award for Composition of the Year. To coincide with the release of the third album, Monika Roscher founded her own label, Zenna Records.
In 2025 the band released its first live album, Witchy Activities Live. Eclipsed Magazin wrote in its review: “A Monika Roscher Bigband concert is powerful and transcendental – an experience that’s hard to capture. Yet the explosive Witchy Activities Live manages to do just that.“
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Musicians
Trumpets
Trombones
Rhythm Section
Crew
Live-Sound
| Matthias Leichtle | |
| Toni Hartmann |
Extended Universe 23
| Victor Alcántara | Klavier |
| Tobias Herzog | Posaune |
| Fabius Mey | Posaune |
| Marie Kuhar | Posaune |
| Jan Landowski | Posaune |
| Frederic Andrej | Posaune |
| Matthias Lindermayr | Trompete |
| Jakob Lakner | Bariton-Sax |
| Tahpir | Electronics |
| Robert Hedemann | Posaune |
| Valentin Preißler | Saxophon |
| Felix Ecke | Trompete |
| Lukas Jochner | Posaune |
| Florian Raepke | Trompete |
Design
| Sascha Banck | Artwork & Paintings |
| Emanuel Klempa | Photographie |
| Tobias Koark-Haberl | Design |
| Ludwig Olah | Photographie |
| Julian Gapp | Webdesign & Programmierung |