Michael Wollny Trio

Michael Kaeshammer

After decades of great success in North America with his naturally powerful live performance and the new album »Turn it Up«, singer-songwriter-pianist Michael Kaeshammer is on his way to conquering his old homeland. This is Germany, in whose southwest he amazed and swept away audiences as a teenage prodigy on the piano at the age of 16. In North America, the musician fills large halls and plays with other successful artists such as Ray Charles, Anne Murray and the Neville Brothers. The national US television chain PBS dedicated a TV special to him in 2020, and the Canadian channel Chek now even has its own cooking show, »Kaeshammer’s Kitchen«. His music, influenced by jazz, also combines elements of pop, blues and rock ’n’ roll – and convinces not least through Kaeshammer’s unique and rousing »crossover style«.

Michael Wollny Trio LIVE 2025

JOOLAEE TRIO

Persian and European classical music, traditional songs from Turkey and Azerbaijan, jazz, and more: the Joolaee Trio’s concert programs combine a range of diverse musical influences. In their unusual lineup consisting of kamancheh player and leader Misagh Joolaee, percussionist Sebastian Flaig, and pianist Schaghajegh Nosrati—who will also be heard at the Pierre Boulez Saal with a solo recital in February—they perform original compositions and newly created arrangements.

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.

Bill Laurance & Michael League

Avishai Cohen Trio

It goes without saying that The Concertgebouw and jazz & pop music make a perfect combination. The stages of both the Main Hall and the Recital Hall have borne witness to nearly the whole of jazz history. Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald have both performed here, as have Miles Davis and Louis Armstrong. Famous pop stars and bands that have graced the stage of the Main Hall include Frank Zappa, the Doors and the Eagles, to name but a few. Legendary concerts, in the present as well as the past.

Brad Mehldau Trio

Brad Mehldau is without doubt one of the most successful jazz pianists of our time. He has been one of the most regular guests at the Elbphilharmonie since the venue first opened its doors, and was even the first improvisor to give a solo concert here. Since then he has kept causing a stir in Hamburg, be that as a solo artist, in a trio or as part of special projects such as the one with the British tenor Ian Bostridge. This time, Mehldau performs in a traditional piano trio with the young bassist Felix Moseholm from Denmark and the Spanish drummer Jorge Rossy – an old friend who was a member of the fixed trio with which Mehldau played his way into jazz’s top tier. In his always unpredictable concert programmes, Mehldau blends pearls from the Great American Songbook, his own works, interpretations of songs from the worlds of pop and independent and the classical repertoire. The result is always something unique, something entirely his own, and that using every trick in the book. Alongside his old buddy Jorge Rossy, an inventive, finely responsive drummer, he is also joined by the newcomer Felix Moseholm on the bass. He comes from Copenhagen, and a great uncle of his played the jazz bass before him, with legends such as Eric Dolphy. Moseholm performed with Mehldau for the first time in 2020 – when he was just 23 years old.

Micah Thomas Trio

»Music is a meditative practice for me. I attach importance to the main focus of always being present.« This is how Micah Thomas describes the relationship to his purpose in life. The 27-year-old is currently one of the most sought-after pianists on the New York jazz scene, widely admired for his understanding of harmonies and his technical brilliance. His first trio album »Reveal« with Dean Torrey and Kayvon Gordon radiates casual aplomb and detailed knowledge of jazz history, which the trio expands on with sparkling virtuosity in its collective. »Reveal is a type of aesthetic declaration that definitively lays the foundation for a unique and innovative ›art of the trio‹,« writes the press and thereby raises the bar for future performances and albums. Micah Thomas, for whom music is a mouthpiece and a very natural form of expression, has so far always exceeded such expectations of his playing. As a result, he has already impressed audiences at the Elbphilharmonie twice: as part of the Ambrose Akinmusire Quartet and as part of the Immanuel Wilkins Quartet, which you could also experience in the Fast Lane series. All good things come in threes? In this case, hopefully even more!

Nduduzo Makhathini Trio

Music is the healing power of the universe, the jazz visionary Albert Ayler once proclaimed on the title of one of this albums. The South African pianist Nduduzo Makhathini seems to be living proof of this perceived truth. After a much observed duo encounter with the Brazilian bandolim player Hamilton de Holanda at the Elbphilharmonie, the charismatic musician is now returning with his trio to showcase his new album, which will be released this autumn. Jazz from South Africa – irrespective of the comparatively few names associated with it, this almost seems to be a genre in its own right. The first mention should go to Abdullah Ibrahim. He created the blueprint for a synthesis of South African roots music and jazz improvisation in the spirit of Duke Ellington under the name »Dollar Brand« in the 1960s. Nduduzo Makhathini also refers to him, but is even more heavily characterised by Bheki Mseleku, the great integrator of township music into the global jazz idiom who died too soon; he was a leading figure from the early 1990s during the last phase of Apartheid in South Africa. Nduduzo Makhathini’s mission is to reconcile the spiritual and physical with each other. He translates the sound character of the Zulu language of his homeland – rhythms and melodies of healing words – to the piano and relates this material using the vocabulary and attitude of John Coltrane and McCoy Tyner. In doing so, he achieves mesmerizingly open, life-affirming and approachable music, weightlessly shrouded in a transcendental ministry. Nduduzo Makhathini’s music is a gift to the world.

Kenny Barron Trio

The name Kenny Barron stands for perfection in jazz piano. The pianist born in Philadelphia in 1943 had his first gigs in his home town when he was just 14 years old. Two years later, he moved to New York City; at 20 years old, he was already playing in Dizzy Gillespie’s quintet, one of the founding fathers of bebop. Since then, he has given concerts or recorded records with more or less all the heroes of jazz. Kenny Barron is one of the great storytellers on his instrument – sensitive, thinking in big arcs, serene. Equally sought after as a soloist, bandleader or guest musician, he proves himself in all situations as an artist of the chamber music format. Two duo formations were legendary in the 1990s: the art of intimate dialogue with tenor saxophonist Stan Getz, later with bassist Charlie Haden, both earned Kenny Barron Grammy nominations. After the impressive Elbphilharmonie debut by the jazz stylist in summer 2022 with his quartet, Kenny Barron now returns to Hamburg in a trio. He has already consistently played together with bassist Kiyoshi Kitagawa, originally from Osaka, and drummer Johnathan Blake for many years – often enough to cultivate a musically close relationship with each other, rarely enough to also still surprise each other time and again.