ALFRED MEHNERT AND THE BERLIN METROPOL ORCHESTRA

Alfred Mehnert is absolutely right when he calls his project Berlin Metropol Orchestra, because this group of musicians from all over the world embodies what this city would like to be, and actually already is: Metropolis.

Mehnert and his musicians, although the orchestra's repertoire includes many of their own compositions, classics from Duke Ellington to Nat King Cole Minden, are at home in the now, on the front lines of a new culture. It's not just young bodies that fall for the orchestra's groove; its music actually transcends generations. What distinguishes this Metropol Orchestra, what makes it a new type of orchestra, is, in addition to the players' art of playing - which is actually a matter of course with this line-up - the fact that no indefinable multicultural sound is created here, which exotically exposes the musicians' origins, but rather that in it the individual timbres become a new music that is unique in its own right. The roots are of course still recognizable, why should they be denied or concealed? But they become more and more a distant memory, echoing in the new sound of the new homeland, which in Germany could probably only be created here, in the metropolis of Berlin. Alfred Mehnert & Das Berlin Metropol Orchestra have found this sound.

Founder and initiator. A man of inexhaustible ideas and creativity. Alfred has played with the greats and has demonstrated incredible diversity, from jazz to Latin American to electronic music. As a performer, conferencer and lyricist, his horizons range from the nightly poetry slam in the Kreuzberg Kaschemme to the grand stage of the Deutsches Theater.

Artistic Director. Our genius on the keys and composition. Born in Munich, he studied at the renowned Berklee College of Music in Boston and at New York's "New School for Music", from which he graduated with a Bachelor Degree in 1995. During his 13-year stay in the USA, Tino Derado became a sought-after member of the jazz and Latin scene and played concerts with Gary Burton, Peter Erskine, Bob Moses, Randy Brecker, Bill Evans, Paul Winter, Dave Liebman, Jimmy Cliff, Frank Gambale, Jamey Haddad, Chiara Civello, Richard Bona, Matthew Garrison, Joe Chambers, Nils Langren, Jojo Meyer, Papo Vasquez, Orlando Marin Y Su Orchestra, Andy Gonzales, Adam Nussbaum and Fred Hersch, among others.

The singer from Guantánamo, Cuba, is known to many in Berlin and throughout Germany as a salsa performer and is the most popular and busiest Cuban singer in this city. At BMO, she shows that she is also at home in jazz. She shines in Spanish and English, and beyond that with text adaptations of great standards in her new home language, German.

Sören Fischer has lived in Berlin since 1985, where he studied with David Friedman and Jerry Granelli at the Berlin University of the Arts. He also continued his studies in New York, Banff/Canada and Gambia. Fischer is a versatile artist who feels extremely comfortable in a wide variety of musical situations: he was part of the Berlin Contemporary Jazz Orchestra, is a member of the RIAS Big Band Berlin and the Big Band of the Deutsche Oper Berlin. He can also be heard on albums by Lisa Bassenge, Jazzanova and Wolfgang Haffner. He has also worked with Ray Brown, Scorpions, James Morrison, Toots Thielemanns, Cyndi Lauper, Holly Cole, Till Brönner, Jim McNeely, Richie Beirach, Joe Gallardo, Aki Takase, Conny Bauer, Nils Petter Molvaer and many more.