From the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger by Horst Peter Koll on 18.09.2024
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Eva Swiderski at the Loft
A singer who knows how to tell jazz stories
“Eva Swiderski takes to the stage and immediately wins the undivided attention of her audience with her fresh musical ideas, her clear, personal voice and her expressive storytelling and exciting improvisations.” When an experienced jazz singer like Fay Claassen speaks so highly of a young colleague, it's worth pricking up your ears. And indeed: Eva Swiderski not only has a wonderful voice, she also knows how to tell stories for which she has found her very own, inspiring subject matter.
It has been an eventful and successful year for Eva Swiderski so far. At the end of April, she won the Young Jazz Talent Award 2024 - the competition in which Fay Claassen spoke so respectfully as a juror - and two months later she graduated from the Cologne University of Music and Dance with a degree in jazz/pop, majoring in jazz singing. She performed her bachelor's degree concert with her new ensemble EVA, in which she sings together with Liv Sindler, Lea Reichel and Laura Detterbeck, accompanied by a finely diversified instrumentation of flutes, clarinets and saxophones. In this way, EVA creates a fragile, sometimes chamber music-like, sometimes raspy sound world, characterized by radiantly beautiful voices, sometimes in choir, often a cappella.
It has been an eventful and successful year for Eva Swiderski so far
But that's not all: at this year's Cologne Jazzweek, Eva Swiderski sang spiritedly in the vocal ensemble of the Bundesjazzorchester BuJazzO, as well as in the twenty-piece “FLINTA* Kollektiv shared PLANET 9”, a project she initiated with Liv Sindler. Here, too, the voices play a key role, while the original compositions by students from Berlin and Cologne revolve around themes such as feminism, human rights and gender equality. Eva Swiderski wrote the piece “Absence”, which now also opens the current album “Shared Planet 9”. “This is my very personal way of translating a feminist expression into music. I could have turned it into an 'angry poem', but I deliberately opted for a melodic form. Anger is a powerful means of channeling change, and I am sometimes angry too, but then in a different context.”
Her emphatically undogmatic, yet always binding combination of social commitment and her enthusiasm for melodies and harmonies is what makes the singer, composer and arranger Eva Swiderski so special. She has long loved Bach chorales, “this power of four-part harmony”, and approached Hermann Hesse's poem “Im Nebel” with no less respect, which she transported vocally into a magical crystalline state. She opened her final concert with an arrangement of the standard “I Have a Reason for Living”, which she discovered during her Erasmus semester at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. “When I heard the piece, the cool melody and harmonic twists immediately caught my ear. It wasn't until I looked at the lyrics more closely that I thought: Oh my God, how much can you romanticize a toxic relationship? So I tried to work with dissonances in certain lyrics to create friction. But I wanted to keep the melody, which is so beautifully crazy. And it's a bit crazy to have four women singing the song.”
I thought to myself: Oh my God, how much can you romanticize a toxic relationship?
Eva Swiderski
Eva Swiderski approached standards such as Duke Ellington's “Prelude to a Kiss” and Victor Young's “Weaver of Dreams” with no less (self-)awareness, while her “Insomnia” is a love poem by Elizabeth Bishop set to music. She won the German Music Council's Future Music Competition with this composition, and since then it has been a recurring theme in her concerts with various ensembles. The piece is also part of EVA.'s repertoire: as a subtle, experimental exploration of forms of love ranging from empowerment, anger and loneliness to the pure joy of being a wide-awake daydreamer, the “daytime sleeper”, as the poem puts it.
Eva Swiderski's references to one of her role models, the vocal ensemble Of Cabbages and Kings, are clear: “I still look up to these singers, who initially sang in the BuJazzO, and I asked myself, where, if not in the BuJazzO, can I meet people who are interested in this kind of music? I experienced the BuJazzO under Ansgar Stripens, Niels Klein and Hendrika Entzian, listened to Peter Herbolzheimer's angular arrangements early on, but above all the vocal ensembles.” She is no less enthusiastic about the style-defining arrangements by Gene Puerling for the Singers Unlimited, while she currently raves about the US vocal group Säje and the a cappella ensemble Sjaella from Leipzig.
Eva Swiderski is now coming to the Loft, where she has already performed in a duo with guitarist Paul Prassel, in bassist Charly Härtel's Large Ensemble and in two concerts with Pablo Held. She will perform her Young Jazz Talent Award concert with her EVA Small Ensemble: herself, Liv Sindler, Lea Reichel and Laura Detterbeck will be accompanied solely by Franka Bayertz on piano and synthesizer. “This allows our voices to become even more abstract. While Franka spreads out the carpet of our sound world, we can be even freer - and also create a little chaos.”
Eva Swiderski, EVA. Winners' concert of the Young Jazz Talent Award 2024, Loft, 19.9., 8 pm.
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From biograph September 2024/45th vol.
biograph Publisher Peter Liese
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14 September at the Jazz Schmiede
EVA. wit Eva Swiderski
Top-class jazz with an extraordinary jazz talent
Start 20:30 . Admission 19:30
The ‘large ensemble’ - 11 participants - presents modern experimental jazz, third stream
Eva Swiderski, who was crowned winner of the YOUNG JAZZ TALENT AWARD 2024 at the Jazz Schmiede in April this year. VOCALS ONLY, starts her autumn tour with her ensemble EVA. through four renowned German jazz clubs at the venue of her great success in Düsseldorf.
Further locations in the period 17.09. - 21.09.2024
are Bielefeld, Cologne and Oldenburg.
Eva Swiderski - voc/comp - Liv Sindler - voc - Lea Reichel - voc
Laura Detterbeck - voc - Jorik Bergman - flute - Sofia Will - alto, fl, cl
Lucie Graehl - tenor, fl, cl - tba - tenor, fl, cl - Victor Breeezy Fox - bass clarinet
Franka Bayertz - piano, synth - Tabea Kind - bass
With their ensemble EVA., the musicians take their audience into a fascinating dream world inhabited by crazy creatures. This extraordinary musical journey effortlessly combines electronic sounds and the intensity of four female voices, hovering between free improvisation, neoclassical influences and jazz.
Franka Bayertz and Eva Swiderski have a long-standing friendship and shared musical vision, which provides the ideal setting for the enchanting singers Liv Sindler, Laura Detterbeck and Lea Reichel. These three talented artists met in the Bundesjazzorchester and enrich the ensemble with their unique chemistry and creative energy.
EVA. creates a soundscape that is both familiar and surprisingly strange. The interplay of the four voices with electronic elements creates an atmosphere that is both intense and dreamy. The audience is invited to embark on a journey full of unexpected twists, turns and quirky surprises.
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EVA. with Eva Swiderski
High-calibre jazz with an extraordinary jazz talent
on 14 September 2024 at the Jazz Schmiede, Düsseldorf.
Start 20:30 . Admission 19:30
The ‘EVA. LARGE-Ensemble’ presents modern experimental jazz, third stream
Eva Swiderski, who was crowned the winner of the YOUNG JAZZ TALENT AWARD 2024 at the Jazz Schmiede in April this year. VOCALS ONLY, starts her autumn tour with her ensemble EVA. through four renowned German jazz clubs at the venue of her great success in Düsseldorf. Further locations in the period 17 September - 21 September 2024 are Bielefeld, Cologne and Oldenburg.
‘Eva enters the stage and immediately wins the undivided attention of her audience with her fresh musical ideas, her clear, personal voice and with expressive storytelling and exciting improvisation. At her young age, she has already reached this high level. I'm very excited to see what her future holds for us!’
Fay Claassen . multiple award-winning jazz singer
EVA. in Düsseldorf
... of the search, of vulnerability, of melancholy, doubts and dreams
For Eva Swiderski, music is an escape from everyday life, the dreariness, the world-weariness. At the same time, it is also a form with which one can process precisely these feelings and give listeners a chance to feel heard or less lonely.
With her new ensemble, Eva tries to blur the boundaries between vulnerability and strength, contrasting fragility and power.
EVA . LARGE-Ensemble
14.09.24 >>> Jazz Schmiede . Düsseldorf
Eva Swiderski - voc/comp
Liv Sindler – voc
Lea Reichel – voc
Laura Detterbeck - voc
Jorik Bergman – flute
Sofia Will - alto, fl, cl
Lucie Graehl - tenor, fl, cl
tba - tenor, fl, cl
Victor Breeezy Fox - bass clarinet
Franka Bayertz - piano, synth
Tabea Kind - bass
EVA. in Bielefeld, Cologne and Oldenburg
17/09/24 >>> Bunker Ulmenwall . Bielefeld
19/09/24 >>> Loft . Cologne
21/09/24 >>> Jazzclub Alluvium . Oldenburg
The ‘EVA. SMALL-Ensemble’ presents modern experimental jazz, neo-A-capella
With their ensemble EVA. the musicians take their audience into a fascinating dream world inhabited by crazy creatures. This extraordinary musical journey effortlessly combines electronic sounds and the intensity of four female voices, hovering between free improvisation, neoclassical influences and jazz.
Franka Bayertz and Eva Swiderski have a long-standing friendship and shared musical vision, which provides the ideal setting for the enchanting singers Liv Sindler, Laura Detterbeck and Lea Reichel. These three talented artists met in the Bundesjazzorchester and enrich the ensemble with their unique chemistry and creative energy.
EVA. creates a soundscape that is both familiar and surprisingly strange. The interplay of the four voices with electronic elements creates an atmosphere that is both intense and dreamy. The audience is invited to embark on a journey full of unexpected twists and turns and quirky surprises.
EVA. SMALL ensemble
Eva Swiderski - voc/comp/arr
Liv Sindler - voc
Lea Reichel - voc
Laura Detterbeck - voc
Franka Bayertz - p/synth
Lucy Liebe - b/efx
Eva graduated in June 2024 in the eighth semester of her studies at the HfMT . University of Music and Dance Cologne with a Bachelor's degree in the ‘Music . Jazz/Pop’, majoring in jazz singing. Originally coming from classical piano, her path as a singer led her through several big bands, including the Landes Jugend Jazz Orchester Berlin, Bundes Jazz Orchester, Orchestre National de Jazz (FR). With her FLINTA* band Ever Evolving, she played at the renowned Cologne Klang Festival. In 2023, she won the German Music Council's Future Music Competition with her composition ‘Insomnia’. Most recently, 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 (directed by Pete Churchill).
Information on the YOUNG JAZZ TALENT AWARD
Jazz is an essential part of musical culture. During its more than one hundred years of development, jazz has constantly spawned new styles and has become a globally dominant form of popular music, which it continues to play a key role in shaping. In addition to a high level of virtuosity in the mastery of their instruments, jazz musicians are characterised by a special talent for improvisation. In Germany, prominent artists such as Albert Mangelsdork, Klaus Doldinger and Till Brönner have developed an independent jazz culture of international importance since the 1960s.
The promotion of young jazz talent in German-speaking countries is a particular concern of the initiators of the YOUNG JAZZ TALENT AWARD. The Ringbeck Foundation launched the award in 2022: Young, not yet established jazz musicians between the ages of 16 and 23 are to be given special support in their career development. Each year, a selected instrument/element of jazz takes centre stage.
In 2022, the focus was on drums ... ‘DRUMS ONLY’. The winner was Merlin Hellenkamp. He studies at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen Werden - Bachelor's degree programme ‘Jazz Performing Artist Drums’ with lessons from Prof. Thomas Alkier and Sperie Karas. At the age of 18, he was the youngest of four nominated drummers and proved to be an exceptional talent among the younger drummers in North Rhine-Westphalia.
In 2023, the piano took centre stage as one of the particularly important, style-defining instruments in jazz and pop music ... ‘PIANO ONLY’. 22-year-old Paul Küppers won the majority of the jury votes. Paul is in his sixth semester at the HfMT in 2023. University of Music and Dance . Cologne - Bachelor's degree programme ‘Music . Jazz/Pop’ with lessons from Prof Hubert Nuss and Prof Niels Klein. He is the bandleader of the group PKIII and has performed as a sideman with the Frederik Hesses Quintet and the fusion band M.E.I.N.E.R., among others.
‘VOCALS ONLY’
In 2024, the competition focussed on vocals as a complementary and at the same time dominant element of jazz ... ‘VOCALS ONLY’. The competition among the nominated singers took place on 26 April 2024 in the ‘Jazz Schmiede . Düsseldorf’.
The concept for the YOUNG JAZZ TALENT AWARD was developed jointly by the Chairman of the Ringbeck Foundation, Jürgen Ringbeck, and Peter Weiss, the spiritus rector of the Düsseldorf jazz scene and musical director of the ‘Jazz Schmiede . Düsseldorf’. Special thanks for their support in the realisation go to the professors responsible for the nominations, the members of the jury, the ‘Jazz Schmiede Düsseldorf’ and the other German jazz clubs involved.
YOUNG JAZZ TALENT AWARD . 2024
The process of the competition in 2024
In order to simplify the selection process, but at the same time ensure a high quality of candidates, the pre-selection was initially limited to jazz singers studying in North Rhine-Westphalia. Prof Romy Camerun, ‘Folkwang University of the Arts . Essen’ and Prof Anette von Eichel, ’Hochschule für Musik und Tanz . Cologne’, both renowned instructors in the region, suggested two suitable candidates, who were nominated for the competition after fulfilling all the necessary requirements.
The jazz singers nominated for the YOUNG JAZZ TALENT AWARD 2024 were Merle Böwering, Anna Galtschenko, Sophia Hufschmidt and Eva Swiderski
THE 2024 COMPETITION
The audition, the selection of the winner and the award ceremony took place on 26 April 2024 as part of an ecological event at the ‘Jazz Schmiede . Düsseldorf’. Each of the candidates, together with the accompanying band - Lars Duppler (piano), Nico Brandenburg (bass), Simon Busch (drums) - sang three selected pieces of music in the styles of modern jazz, standard, ternary; ballad; groove jazz or funk/rock etc. Binary.
The prizewinner was chosen by a competent jury and the audience present and then honoured on the same evening.
THE 2024 COMPETITION
The audition, the selection of the winner and the award ceremony took place on 26 April 2024 as part of an ecological event at the ‘Jazz Schmiede . Düsseldorf’. Each of the candidates, together with the accompanying band - Lars Duppler (piano), Nico Brandenburg (bass), Simon Busch (drums) - sang three selected pieces of music in the styles of modern jazz, standard, ternary; ballad; groove jazz or funk/rock etc. Binary.
The prizewinner was chosen by a competent jury and the audience present and then honoured on the same evening.
THE JURY
- Fay Claassen . multi-award-winning jazz singer
- Kristina Brodersen . Renowned jazz musician on saxophone
- Uli Beckerhoff . Internationally renowned jazz musician . Professor of jazz trumpet
- Jürgen Ringbeck . Initiator and organiser of the YOUNG JAZZ TALENT AWARD . Jazz enthusiasts
- the audience of the “Jazz Schmiede . Düsseldorf” on the evening of the competition
The YOUNG JAZZ TALENT AWARD 2024 is again endowed with € 5,000.00. The prize winner will organised a concert tour with her own band in four renowned German jazz clubs in the period 14.09. – 21.09.2024. The prize money will be used for the realisation of this tour – for fees, travel expenses, hotel accommodation, etc.. The tour will be organised by Peter Weiss.
TOUR DATES
14.09.24 >>> Jazzschmiede . Düsseldorf
17.09.24 >>> Bunker Ulmenwall . Bielefeld
19.09.24 >>> Loft . Köln
21.09.24 >>> Jazzclub Alluvium . Oldenburg
Contact
Jazz-Schmiede
Peter WEISS
Himmelgeister Straße 107g
40225 Düsseldorf
Germany
+49 211 311 05 64
info@jazz-schmiede.de
www.jazz-schmiede.de
TAMMEN GMBH
Werbeagentur . Unternehmensberatung
Wilhelmstraße 14
49076 Osnabrück
Deutschland
+49 541 T 9 400 400 . F 9 400 450
info@tammen.de
www.tammen.de
ROLF TAMMEN
T +49 541 9 400 490 . M +49 170 9 100 490
rolf.tammen@tammen.de
