Eva Swiderski

What particularly fascinates you about music?  For me, music means an escape from everyday life, the sadness, the world-weariness. At the same time, it is also a form with which you can process exactly these feelings and give listeners a chance to feel heard or less lonely.

Which musician has personally influenced you the most so far?  To this day, Bobby McFerrin remains an inexplicable phenomenon for me; his musicality, (self-)irony and lightness despite his incredibly acrobatic singing fascinates me. Having played classical piano for a long time, I am increasingly enjoying the fusion of classical harmony mixed with improvisation; It was probably the same for Bobby, who as a baby listened to his parents sing opera comfortably under the grand piano and later came to jazz. I also feel connected to Brazilian music in a way. I find the way João Gilberto, João Bosco and Chico Buarque compose so beautifully delicate... at the same time the recordings radiate a warm, cheerful energy. And that despite the fact that the latter mostly involved strictly forbidden criticism of the dictatorial regime at the time. Recently I have also been able to learn a lot from new music, be it Helmut Lachenmann, Rebecca Saunders or Lauren Newton or my friends Laura Totenhagen etc. New things are constantly being added and I think it is important to always remain open to different genres.

Which band/soloists have you always wanted to be on stage with?  On tour as Shirin David's backing singer.

What is your life like outside of music?  I like going to the market and bargaining for every bunch of cilantro, watching cooking videos, going for walks. Sometimes I watch films excessively, for example at the Berlinale, put acrylic blobs on a screen or finally finish knitting my scarf. I almost forgot to mention that I am a passionate Scrabble player! (Add me on Wordfeud: @eversnidersby).

Eva Swiderski (*2000) is a Berlin jazz singer, currently a student at the University of Music and Dance (Prof. Anette von Eichel, Prof. Shannon Barnett) in Cologne. Coming from the classical piano, her path as a singer took her through several big bands, including the Landes Jugend Jazz Orchestra Berlin, the Federal Jazz Orchestra, and the Orchester National de Jazz (FR). With her FLINTA* band called Ever Evolving, she played at the renowned Cologne Klaeng Festival, was able to perform at the North Sea Jazz Festival and won the German Music Council's future music competition in 2023 with her composition "Insomnia". As a scholarship holder of the Gutenberg Jazz Collective in Mainz, she met world-famous musicians (including Norma Winstone, Ben Wendel, Lionel Loueke) with whom she was able to share the stage. By being accepted into the German National Academic Foundation (2022), she was able to release her first singles and, in addition to music, concentrate on political activism. Among other things, she organized a benefit festival for Ukraine in Cologne's “Odonien” in June 2022, co-organizing the feminist Concert series “La Citè des Dames” for equality at the HfMT Cologne and started a regular “FLINTA* Cologne Music” meeting with Catalina Valencia (diversity representative of the Jazzhausschule Cologne). During her Erasmus semester (2024) at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, she met British singing legend Elaine Delmar and received lessons from Brigitte Beraha and Scott Stroman. She was also allowed to join the London Vocal Project (led by Pete Churchill).