BERLIN METROPOL ORCHESTRA feat. Mayelis Guyat and Mic Donet

What distinguishes this Metropol Orchestra is that it doesn't create an indefinable multicultural sound that exoticizes the musicians' origins, but rather that the individual timbres transform into a new, unique music. The respective roots are, of course, still recognizable – why should one deny or conceal them? But they are increasingly becoming a distant memory, echoing in the new sound of the new homeland, which in Germany could probably only have emerged here in the metropolis of Berlin.

• ALFRED MEHNERT - PERCUSSION
  
• TINO DERADO - PIANO
  
• SÖREN FSCHER - TROMBONE
  
• KATRINA MARTÍNEZ MARRUPE - DRUMS
  
• SOLOIST: MAYELIS GUYAT - VOCALS
  
• GUEST: MIC DONET - VOCALS
  

The performers are:

Alfred Mehnert
Founder and initiator of the Berlin Metropol Orchestra. Alfred is a man of inexhaustible ideas and creativity and has played with the greats as a percussionist: from jazz to Latin American to electronic music, he demonstrates incredible versatility. As a performer, emcee, and poet, his horizons range from nightly poetry slams in Kreuzberg's Kaschemme to the grand stage of the Deutsches Theater. Since winter 2023, he has been organizing his "Bürgermeister" evening in a small Kreuzberg bar. This is where musicians and performers of all genres meet.


Tino Derado
Top European pianist and also composer and musical director of the BMO. Born in Munich, he studied at the renowned Berklee College of Music in Boston and at New York's New School for Music, where he graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1995. During his 13 years in the USA, Tino Derado became a sought-after member of the jazz and Latin music scene, playing 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 Landgren, Jojo Meyer, Papo Vasquez, Orlando Marin y Su Orchestra, Andy Gonzales, Adam Nussbaum, and Fred Hersch, among others.


Katrina Martínez Marrupe
Even as a child, she demonstrated a passion and talent for music. At the age of 11, she was accepted into the National Conservatory of Music in Havana, where she studied classical music and popular Afro-Cuban percussion. She co-founded Cuba's first and most famous all-female salsa bands, "Anacaona" and "Son Damas," with whom she toured the world at the tender age of 16.
She has lived in Germany since 1996 and plays in a variety of genres (Cuban music, Latin jazz, rock, pop, funk, among others) throughout Germany, Europe, and around the world. Katrina Martínez is an internationally renowned drummer and percussionist and represents the new generation of great musicians in Cuba.


Sören Fischer
Born in Stuttgart in 1964, Sören Fischer has lived in Berlin since 1985. In addition to studying trombone at the Berlin University of the Arts, he continued his studies with renowned artists in New York, West Africa, Canada, and Europe. He has received prizes and scholarships from Jugend Musiziert, Jugend Jazzt, and the Berlin Jazz Fund. He has worked with, among others, Ray Brown, Robbie Williams, Metallica, Scorpions, James Morrison, Toots Thielemans, Cyndi Lauper, Holly Cole, Nana Mouskouri, Till Brönner, Wolfgang Haffner, Jim McNeely, Richie Beirach, Joe Gallardo, Alexander von Schlippenbach, Aki Takase, Conny Bauer, Nils Petter Molvær, De Phazz, Jazzanova, German Trombone Vibration, NDR Big Band, RIAS Big Band, Berlin Symphony Orchestra, German Symphony Orchestra Berlin, Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, Thärichens Tentett, and many more. In addition to his concert activities, he teaches at the City West Music School and the City West Adult Education Center.


Soloist: Mayelis Guyat
The singer from Guantánamo, Cuba, is known to many in Berlin and throughout Germany as a salsa performer and is the city's most popular and busiest Cuban singer. At BMO, she demonstrates that she is equally at home in jazz. She excels in Spanish and English, as well as adapting the lyrics of major standards in her new native language, German.


Guest Musician: Mic Donet
As always, the orchestra invites top-class guest musicians – this time it's Mic Donet! When people in Germany talk about "soul," many probably think of the exceptional talent Mic Donet, who rose to national fame through the first season of The Voice of Germany (2011–2012) and his subsequent album, PLENTY OF LOVE.