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!
