Download an overview of next dates (in German): Konzerte_HJ1.pdf
Eli Wallace piano [USA]
Vasco Trilla, drums [E]
Pablo Vazquez, bass [Argentinien]
Foto links/mittig © Hannes Schneider | Foto rechts © Pablo Vazquez
This piano-bass-drums trio will be coming together during their first European tour also for the first time. In 2024, Eli Wallace and Pablo Vazquez already toured Europe with the same instrumentation, but with another drummer - the Argentinian Marcelo von Schultz.
Given the musicality and professional mastery of their instruments, this is what we can expect from the Wallace-Vazquez-Trilla Trio: a firework of individual ideas, concocted in constant interaction into a bubbling trio tour-de-force, along with subtle soloistic excursions. For sure a reinvention of THE "jazz trio setting"!
Eli Wallace is a pianist, improviser, and composer who resides in Brooklyn, NY, leading his own projects, collaborating with other like-minded artists, and co-curating the interdisciplinary performance series Invocation. His work as a pianist displays his vast milieu of experiences from classical, jazz and free improvisation, incorporating elaborate piano preparations that push the boundaries of the prepared piano.
His compositions employ notational strategies to broaden how musicians produce sound and the ways in which they interact. Over the past decade, he has appeared on dozens of albums and performed at esteemed venues such as The Stone, New York, NY, Roulette, Brooklyn, NY, Mizzou International Composers Festival, Columbia, MI, and Experimental Sound Studio, Chicago, IL.
Eli Wallace is already known to Munich improvisation listeners. In 2024, he gave a wonderful solo concert at the MUG as part of the concert series organised by Offene Ohren e.V.
Pablo Vazquez (Buenos Aires, Argentina) plays double bass, electric bass and electronics. He has given concerts and tours in South America and Europe (Germany, Portugal, Poland, Holland, Hungary, Slovakia, etc) playing with Vasco Trilla, Eli Wallace, Diego Caicedo, El Pricto , Albert Cirera, Ricardo Tejero, Amanda Irarrazabal, Hui Chun Lin, John Hughes, Yedo Gibson, Luis Vicente, Gustavo Obligado, Miguel Mira, Jorge Torrecillas Ensemble, Ligia Liberatori, Marcelo von Schultz and many others. His music was released by Discordian Records (Barcelona) and Creative Sources (Lisboa).
Vasco Trilla (Barcelona, Spain) is one of the most active, versatile and creative drummers of the European scene. He has recorded more than 100 albums ranging from free improvisation, jazz rock to progressive rock metal and ambient music.
With six solo albums released internationally he has established himself as one of the leading voices of creative percussion.
The key attributes of his success seem to consist of three factors: imagination, cross-genre experience in performing music and the constant search to expand the limits of the instrument. In recent years, he has become one of the most solid and in-demand voices of the European free improvised scene.
The last time he was in Munich, he was part of the MMI festival in May 2025.
This concert is also made possible by the Federal Culture Prize Applaus, which was awarded to Offene Ohren e.V. in November 2025.
Location: MUG – Munich Underground at Einstein Kultur
Entrance fee: 20 Euro, members of Offene Ohren e.V. 15 Euro, free admission up to 21 years (inclusive)
The box office opens at approximately 7:30 p.m.
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Karin Johansson, piano [S]
Paul Jarret, guitar [F]
Donovan von Martens, bass [S]
Foto
© Donovan von Martens
Hemisfär is an ensemble of three improvising string instrumentalists. Their music consists of a series of concentrated and dense situations in which the vibrations that arise on and around the strings result from various preparations and interventions. Now and then, what is played sounds like entirely different instruments, as if someone were playing a clarinet or blowing bamboo flutes.
Improvisation becomes composition, and composition becomes sound painting that sparks the imagination and encourages a boundless exploration of sound. One hears echoes of various traditions: Morton Feldman's minimalism, Derek Bailey's free playing, Claude Debussy's impressionism. But the sharpness of the music is not the result of stylistic purity. It springs from an open and unprejudiced attitude toward what emerges during their shared music-making.
The music of "Hemisfär" is deeply connected to nature, which is present not only as trees and clouds, light and shadow. It is there as a readiness for what is in constant motion and change. It tests its positions and conditions, its particular way of perceiving emptiness, initiated events, tensions between sound and silence, noise and memory. It is there as a readiness for that which is in constant motion and change.
We experience a heightened awareness of the shifts in materials and processes that emerge and unfold, of what it means to slowly examine a rough surface, a rhythmic transformation, a melodic phrase that appears and disappears. Natural space expands, and the music wanders, from day to night and back to daylight.
Karin Johansson (Gothenburg, Sweden) is a pianist and composer working in a wide range of improvisational music, free jazz and contemporary music. She works with alternative techniques and prepared piano. She was already a guest in the Offene Ohren e.V. concert series in 2021 within the Swedish trio Quagmire.
Paul Jarret (Paris, France) is a young guitarist and composer playing mostly jazz and improvised music. Playing jazz standards as well as radical free improvisation, he is involved in many projects as a leader, co-leader or sideman.
Donovan von Martens (Gothenburg, Sweden) is a musician, composer, film photographer and director active in Gothenburg. He works nationally and internationally with composers, dancers and artists.
Location: MUG – Munich Underground at Einstein Kultur
Entrance fee: 20 Euro, members of Offene Ohren e.V. 15 Euro, free admission up to 21 years (inclusive)
The box office opens at approximately 7:30 p.m.
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Jacques Demierre, piano, spinet [CH]
Urs Leimgruber, soprano saxophone [CH]
Thomas Lehn, analog synthesizer [D]
The trio of Urs Leimgruber, Jacques Demierre and Thomas Lehn continues the work of the quartet that, with bassist Barre Phillips, explored the art of free improvisation to the point of near inaudibility. Without Phillips' freely swinging, Zen-like bass, the music becomes even more ethereal, more spiritual, yet also clearer and remarkably transparent.
The three musicians move with the concentration and daring of the most intrepid free climbers on a rock face, traversing routes not recorded in any app. How they achieve this, what it looks and feels like up there, how each of them contributes precisely what is necessary or surprising to keep the music captivating: this proves not only to be a challenge, but also, again and again, a delight for the listener.
Sound by sound, the listener becomes part of the process themselves in these musical imaginings. The sophisticated sound art, the dynamic range, and the spatial architecture of this trio are unique.
This concert is part of a tour supported by the Pro Helvetia and SUISA foundations.
Location: Steinway-Haus, Rubinstein-Saal,
Landsberger Straße 336 (Rückgebäude),
80687 München
Entrance fee: 20 Euro, members of Offene Ohren e.V. 15 Euro, free admission up to 21 years (inclusive)
The box office opens at approximately 7:30 p.m.
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Toshimaru Nakamura, no-input mixing board [Japan]
Bryan Eubanks, saxophone, electronics [USA/D]
Gert-Jan Prins, percussion, electronics [NL]
Tetuzi Akiyama, guitar [Japan]
The international collaboration of Tetuzi Akiyama, Bryan Eubanks, Gert-Jan Prins and Toshimaru Nakamura comes together for the first time for a small European tour in 2026. Together, these musicians will fuse free improvisation, noise, experimental electronics and the uncategorizable in a fresh and vibrant approach to group playing and spontaneous music creation, informed by decades of experience in other contexts and collaborative projects.
This hard-hitting electro-acoustic quartet will undertake its first tour together in a series of 11 concerts in May 2026, following the release of its debut CD Spring on Japan's Meena label in 2025.
Both Toshimaru Nakamura and Tetuzi Akiyama began their musical careers in earnest in the 1990s. Today, both tour worldwide each year, have a long list of releases, and count among Japan's leading improvisers.
Toshimaru Nakamura constructs sound with the instrument he calls the no-input mixing board, which creates feedback through the irregular hard-wiring of an analogue audio mixer.
Guitarist Tetuzi Akiyama plays either acoustic or electric guitar in highly original performances ranging from lyrical to noisy.
Gert-Jan Prins focuses on the sonic and musical qualities of electronic noise and percussion and investigates their relationship with the visual. Although he began his career as a drummer, his works include performances, sound-installations, compositions, electronic circuits and collaborations with other musicians, visual artists, composers, and dancers.
Synthesist and saxophone player Bryan Eubanks has developed his music through solo work and collaboration since 1999 and has participated in many short- and long-term projects. He remains continually active in a variety of contexts: improvisation; composing electronic and acoustic works for small ensembles, solo instruments, computers and electronics; organising and curating concerts for other artists; and building electronic instruments.
Location: MUG – Munich Underground at Einstein Kultur
Entrance fee: 20 Euro, members of Offene Ohren e.V. 15 Euro, free admission up to 21 years (inclusive)
The box office opens at approximately 7:30 p.m.
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Tatsuya Yoshida, drums [Japan]
Risa Takeda, piano, synthesizer [Japan]
This is a much-acclaimed improvisation duo from Tokyo. Consisting of Tatsuya Yoshida, a significant drummer in the avant-prog scene, and Risa Takeda, a pianist and keyboard player who is currently attracting considerable attention in Tokyo's improv scene, the duo is touring Europe for the first time.
Together, they create a unique sonic world shaped by compelling contrasts and harmonies unfolding at breathtaking speed. Their highly structured and highly improvised performance moves freely between classical music, contemporary music, progressive rock and jazz rock. Although the duo consists of only two musicians, they generate the sonic density and impact of a full band.
Risa Takeda was born in Hokkaido and began studying classical piano at the age of three. While at university, she also played drums. In 2011 she moved to Tokyo and, alongside performing with various bands, began giving solo performances from 2016 onwards.
She has released three albums on which she composed, arranged, performed and recorded all the material herself. The result is a multi-layered musical work featuring complex melodies, harmonies, rhythms and sound sequences, realised by the respective ensembles with both freedom and great precision.
In live performances she has performed with Akira Sakata, Tatsuya Yoshida, Seiichi Yamamoto, Tadahiko Yokogawa, Keiichi Suzuki and Mani Neumeier, continually expanding her musical range.
Tatsuya Yoshida is regarded as a major drummer, composer and improviser within the Japanese avant-garde music scene. He was already performing in Tokyo live clubs in the early 1980s. He has a powerful, polyrhythmic and fast-paced playing style that often uses odd time signatures.
The group Ruins, which he founded in 1985, gained international recognition for its distinctive sound, combining the explosive energy of its solid rhythm section with vocals in Yoshida’s native language.
Since the 1990s he has formed bands based on different concepts, such as Koenji Hyakkei, Korekyojin, Zubizuba, and Akaten, composing most of their repertoire himself. He has been playing with musicians such as John Zorn, Bill Laswell, Derek Bailey, Keiji Haino and Otomo Yoshihide.
In recent years he has focused on improvised music and has also collaborated with jazz musicians such as Satoko Fujii. He has released more than 100 recordings on various labels in Japan and abroad.
Location: MUG – Munich Underground at Einstein Kultur
Entrance fee: 20 Euro, members of Offene Ohren e.V. 15 Euro, free admission up to 21 years (inclusive)
The box office opens at approximately 7:30 p.m.
Camila Nebbia, saxophone [Argentinien/D]
Chris Corsano, drums [USA]
Izumi Kimura, piano [Japan/CH]
Barry Guy, bass [GB/CH]
Gerry Hemingway, drums [USA/CH]
The friends of improvised music of the Offene Ohren e.V. would like to thank the Kulturreferat München for its continuous help allowing to present improvised music in Munich.