A group of nine partner organisations from the Europe Jazz Network (EJN) are joining forces to form Constellations. Constellations is a new collaborative artist development exchange programme that reignites international ambitions of artists and partners in the wake of the pandemic. Constellations addresses creative and personal growth, along with recovery, wellbeing and environmental concerns, by enabling participants to meet new international peers and to participate in each other’s development programmes and networks.
Each partner already runs its own respected talent development programme, and has nominated one of their alumni artists to take part in Constellations. Artists and partners will visit and participate in a development programme or residency in another country, learning about local ecosystems, and joining working groups of musicians, creatives and other music professionals. All artists and partners will also partake in major jazz networking events such as jazzahead! and the Europe Jazz Conference to gain a deeper understanding of context. Crucially, Constellations maximises existing programmes and events, avoiding the need to resource new or additional infrastructure.
Constellations builds on a shared commitment to collaboration and to artists, laying foundations for a more connected and sustainable music scene across Europe. It will also provide a workable, solid, innovative model to inspire others to start their own collaborations to empower musicians to expand their horizons.
“We already know each other’s work as members of EJN – some of us for many years – and we realised the huge potential in pooling our resources, experience and expertise in artist development, using our connections to springboard our artists up to the next international level. By inviting a partner and an artist into another partner’s networks, we’ll celebrate the differences in each of our programmes, counteract the impact of the pandemic and at the same time, constellate people and ideas.” – Steve Mead, Manchester Jazz Festival, UK (partner).
The pilot edition of Constellations runs until November 2023.
Artist name | Home country | Visiting country | Host country programme/organisation |
Alessandra Bossa | Italy | Belgium | Stepping Stone, JazzLab |
Delphine Deau | France | Germany | NICA, Stadtgarten |
Ella Ronen | Israel | UK | hothouse, Manchester Jazz Festival |
Frederike Berendsen | Netherlands | Finland | Nordic Jazz Comets, Jazz Finland |
Kaisa Maensivu | Finland | Italy | Nuova Generazione Jazz, I-Jazz |
Kjetil Mulelid | Norway | Netherlands | Stepping Stone, Powered by TINC |
Lara Jones | UK | Israel | Synthesizer |
Mattias De Craene | Belgium | Norway | Jazz Comets, Norsk Jazzforum |
Pablo Gīw | Germany | France | Jazz Migration, AJC |
Nefertiti Quartet:
– Website
– Teaser
– Album
Other Collaborations:
– Oddictive Characteristics
– Tactus Quintet
– Cosmic Keys
Delphine has been living as a musician in Paris since 2012. Her musical education gravitated toward jazz around her 18th birthday: She studied for 3 years at Annecy’s conservatory and moved back to Paris to enter the regional conservatory where she got her degree in 2014.
She chose to leave the «educational path » quite early and began composing for her quartet « Nefertiti » which is still active today. During 10 years, they grew together from a tiny school group to an emergent European band.
Together, they did several European showcases such as jazzahead! and InJazz; they also won a few prizes like the Euroradio Jazz Competition in Copenhagen in 2019, the Jazz Migration tour in 2020, and the Dutch grant « Keep an Eye Records » in 2022.
Meanwhile, Delphine collaborated with a lot of bands in Paris and grew as a side woman around creative jazz groups. Her artistic curiosity was also really stimulated while attending European Workshops such as SOFIA in Switzerland and the International Jazz Platform in Poland, which she did twice as it was so inspiring!
During the pandemic, Delphine began working on a solo performance, and most recently, on a piano-4 hands creation, involving electronics and prepared piano. In September 2022, she joined the collective « Pegazz & l’Hélicon » as a solo artist.
Her desire to start a career outside of France began more and more real in the last 3 years. As a bandleader, she wishes to meet as much as partners as possible to keep playing in new venues and festivals. In fact, with Nefertiti, they have already connections with Netherlands and Germany but they would like to build a stronger network in northern Europe.
Current projects (selection):
– Stellar Banger
– Pablo Gīw & Rebekka Salomea
– Giw&Kilonzo
– Tombak/Trumpet
– Solo
More information:
– giwmusic.com
– Instagram
– Video – Tombak/Trumpet @ Jaki
Improvised or conceptual performances, free noise collages, electronics, beatmusic & melody: Pablo Gīw’s music is not only difficult to classify into categories and genres, the question also doesn’t matter anymore. The trumpeter (*1988) from Cologne has created his own canon since 2010 with his bands and projects and above all his concerts and releases as a soloist: complexity and minimalism, chopped up sharp-edged sound fragments and lyrical excursions, precise rhythm and free interactions are combined to create a unique expression.
His newest project ist the poly-ecstatic-beat quartet »Stellar Banger«, featuring percussionists Joss Turnbull and Ali Hout as well as Abed Kobeissy on buzuq, an arabic lute: an electro acoustic band connected between Beirut – Cologne – Berlin – Torino. Stellar Banger is releasing their first EP in Mai on Beirut based label Ruptured Records and presents a liberated and diverse approach to urban experimental music.
Another recent born collaboration is the duo with Cologne-based singer Rebekka Salomea, who is reknown for her multigenre HipHop Jazz Band »Salomea«. In this duo, electronic and organic worlds keep communicating in an intertwined connection – air becomes melancholy and slowly transforms into a slow beat. Songs and poetry merge with wide trumpet tones in reverb spaces.
His solo debut LP, »Never Is Always« which was self-produced, mixed & released in 2017 and combines improvised music for trumpet as well as composed song structures, spoken word, drone and techno performed with extended playing techniques. Pablo Gīw does regular solo performances in jazz as well as interdisciplinary contexts.
Gīw has made his sound art available to numerous contexts: he has written & performed solo theater music, performed internationally at festivals like XJazz, Saalfelden Jazzfestival, Moers Festival, toured in Chile or Poland, performed with Mouvoir dance company, recorded for rapper Samy Deluxe and played with bands like Ätna and countless ad-hoc concerts with the protagonists of the experimental & improvisation scene.
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union and therefore the European Union cannot be held responsible for them.
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