Ayanna Witter-Johnson

Bill Laurance & Michael League

You can hardly talk about Michael League and Bill Laurance without mentioning Snarky Puppy. American bassist and multi-instrumentalist Michael League founded the globally acclaimed, four-time Grammy award-winning collective almost 20 years ago. And British pianist and keyboardist Bill Laurance has been part of this global adventure for almost as long. The fact that League and Laurance are presenting their first joint duo album with »Where you wish you were« seems both surprising and logical.

Christian Sands Quartet

At the age of just 34, the American pianist Christian Sands can already look back on a quite picture-perfect career: he took up the piano at aged four, wrote his first compositions at five, and his first album followed at twelve. He went on to study with jazz ambassador Billy Taylor, played with bassist Christian McBride and has since recorded eight albums. Now Sands is bringing his quartet to the Elbphilharmonie. The New Yorker relies in his playing on a powerful swinging tempo combined with sophisticated technical finesse. His reputation as a superb live entertainer precedes him. Besides his own compositions, Sands also takes a look far back into jazz history – with Jonathon Muir-Cotton on bass, Max Light on guitar and his brother Ryan Sands on drums. He incorporates and transforms old and not-so-old heroes of piano playing like Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea and Brad Mehldau with incredible ease. The »Süddeutsche Zeitung« newspaper once coined this »entrümpelte Klassiker« (»decluttered classics«).

Guest performance

New Year's Swing

Guest performance

Christmas in Swing

Guest performance

Christmas in Swing

Guest performance

Christmas in Swing

World The magic of the sitar with Anoushka Shankar

Mystical, spiritual, enrapturing – when Anoushka Shankar picks up the strings of her sitar, she opens up a musical world all of her own. The daughter legendary musician Ravi Shankar, she was introduced to the language of classical Indian music by her father at an early age. Today, the artist, who performed as a soloist with the Berliner Philharmoniker in 2017, transports her father’s legacy around the world. At the same time, she and her ensemble combine the traditional music of her country with her own personal, contemporary perspective.

Jazz at Berlin Philharmonic “Italian night” with Stefano Bollani

When Stefano Bollani interprets the hit song “O sole mio”, all languor and indulgence disappears. Instead, you hear light-footed, astonishing imagination. Now the pianist, who is at home in both jazz and classical music, celebrates the music of his homeland for an entire Italian night. There will be well-known melodies, virtuosic improvisation, and imaginative arrangements with plenty of humour. Stefano Bollani is joined by clarinettist Gabriele Mirabassi, guitarist Matteo Mancuso, trumpeter Luca Aquino and singer Valentina Cenni.

Guest performance ‟Best of Swingˮ