Tyshawn Sorey – the Festival’s first ever Artist-in-Residence Photo credit: Camille Blake

The full programme has been announced for this year’s Berlin Jazz Festival. This year’s is the fifty-fourth festival and the third under the highly successful Artistic Directorship of Richard Williams. Nadin Deventer will be Artistic Director from next year.

Quoting todays press release: “The connection from the Berlin music scene to the USA and to London is one theme of the third and final festival edition of the artistic director, the British writer Richard Williams. The American drummer and composer Tyshawn Sorey is the festival’s first ever artist-in-residence and will appear in four combinations, including a performance with 20 Berlin musicians on the closing night. Other guests from the USA include Dr. Lonnie Smith, Nels Cline with his Lovers project, Ambrose Akinmusire, Heroes Are Gang Leaders, Steve Lehman & Sélébéyone and John Beasley’s MONK’estra. The “Berlin-London conversations” at A-Trane and the concerts with Shabaka and the Ancestors, Mônica Vasconcelos, Kit Downes and Empirical bring the London music scene to Berlin.” 

JAZZFEST BERLIN 2017 FULL PROGRAMME