EROSÃO PERCUSSION TRIO // DREAM BABY DREAM // Anthony Braxton Septet // Alexander Hawkins Willow Music

Portugal possesses the extraordinary ability to discover poetic qualities even in the most elliptical gestures and to conjure up beautiful melodies through multilinear abstraction. In 2021, she presented her project EROSÃO at the Jazzfest Berlin, in which she interpreted songs created in collaboration with Brazilian musicians alongside European performers, using spontaneous arrangements.

She had planned something similar when, a few years ago, she founded the EROSÃO PERCUSSION TRIO together with percussionists Emilio Gordoa and Burkhard Beins. Both are central figures in Berlin’s real-time music scene, which frequently adopts a pared-back, minimalist approach to improvisation. Over time, however, the focus of the new trio shifted, and the group found an unbeatable compromise that culminated in a completely new repertoire. At times, Portugal sings her own melodies with captivating tenderness over the floating waves of a single note; at others, she fights her way through a clattering jumble of sounds. Together, the three bring to life an extensive catalogue of sophisticated extended playing techniques, drawing upon them to craft a series of passages underpinned by attentive listening and brimming with detail.

18:00

EROSÃO PERCUSSION TRIO

(BR, DE, MX)

Line-up

• Mariá Portugal – percussion, drums, vocals
• Emilio Gordoa – percussion, live electronics
• Burkhard Beins – percussion, electric bass

Followed by:

DREAM BABY DREAM

A film by Andrés Aguiló, Lina Ashour, Frederik Britzlmair, Nadin Deventer, Joel Grip, Andrés Hilarión, Chris Jonas, Nelly Thea Köster, Cal Ola and Ahmed Shah

A production by Jazzfest Berlin / Berliner Festspiele

2025, 21 mins

In various languages with English subtitles

In this experimental short film, 60 Berlin-based participants – including children, young people and adults, as well as professional and non-professional artists from a wide range of disciplines – explore key questions of our time through music, movement and poetry.

The project was developed and produced in autumn 2025 by a ten-member creative team and filmed in Berlin during the Jazzfest Community Week at the end of October 2025. The film premiered in April 2026 in Washington, D.C., where it was awarded the IN Series Counterpoint Award, and has since been shown at over twenty screenings at music and film festivals both in Germany and abroad.

19:45

Anthony Braxton Septet

(BE, CA, DE, FR, US)

World premiere

In 2019, the legendary American composer and saxophonist Anthony Braxton presented one of the most remarkable events in the history of the Jazzfest Berlin when, together with more than 60 musicians, he realised his ‘Sonic Genome’ at the Gropius Bau – an outstanding statement by a figure who has shaped the world of music throughout his life. As a founding member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) in Chicago, Braxton unwaveringly transcended all genre boundaries, thereby laying the foundations for his creative approach, which draws on the full scope of human imagination. A spirit of experimentation, improvisation and collectivity have always been at the forefront of his work.

The list of musicians who have worked with Braxton and studied under him reads like a ‘Who’s Who’ of improvised music. It includes many artists appearing at this year’s Jazzfest Berlin, such as George Lewis, Mary Halvorson, Alexander Hawkins and Tomeka Reid, to name but a few.

As part of this special concert, a new ensemble, a series of compositions and a new organisational system will be presented.

Braxton’s music has always been characterised by a cumulative development: his work is in a state of constant flux and is continually expanded by new concepts and ideas. He had already explored some of these ideas in his saxophone quartet *Lorraine* (2022). In that work, the bandleader added electronic elements to the densely interwoven melodic interplay, which was interpreted through the prismatic perspective of his improvisational language, ‘Language Music’ (also known as ‘Ghost Trance Music’).

The version presented at the Jazzfest Berlin, however, expands the material to include a new dimension of possibilities, which Braxton envisages as a kind of subterranean universe. Joining the bandleader are his long-standing colleague James Fei and two exciting new additions.

The Berlin-based woodwind player Silke Eberhard previously collaborated at the Jazzfest Berlin in 2023 with another AACM heavyweight, Henry Threadgill. And the New York-based Canadian saxophonist Anna Webber is a brilliant composer who performed at the Jazzfest Berlin in 2024 as a member of John Hollenbeck’s GEORGE. The ensemble is rounded off by three tuba players: Berlin-based Matthew Bookert, the Belgian Berlinde Deman and the French Fanny Méteier.

Line-up

• Anthony Braxton – saxophone
• James Fei – saxophone
• Anna Webber – tenor saxophone
• Silke Eberhard – alto saxophone
• Fanny Méteier – tuba
• Berlinde Deman – tuba
• Matthew Bookert – tuba

21:15

Alexander Hawkins Willow Music

(DE, GB, IT, US)

European premiere

Whilst Willow Music may be a new project by the outstanding British pianist, composer and bandleader Alexander Hawkins, it was preceded by in-depth reflection and a meticulous artistic development process. In recent years, Hawkins has performed at the Jazzfest Berlin as a member of the Decoy trio and in a duo with the singer Sofia Jernberg. Most recently, he felt a desire to further develop his contrapuntal compositional style, in which melodic lines complement one another. He had already explored this technique in his long-standing trio, but the pianist wanted the opportunity for an orchestral realisation that would both give him greater scope for the use of counterpoint and offer him the chance to create dense chordal harmonies. He drew inspiration from, amongst others, Ornette Coleman and Anthony Braxton, whose ideas he greatly admires.

Furthermore, most of the band members play more than one instrument, which expands the band’s sonic spectrum exponentially. This enables Hawkins to craft his arrangements in the style of Ellington. According to him, even the one-word titles of his compositions are a nod to Duke Ellington’s occasional tendency to keep his titles brief and write them in capital letters.

During the ensemble’s first performances at London’s Café Oto this May, the rhythm section of his long-standing trio – bassist Neil Charles and drummer Stephen Davis – contributed to the creation of the music. This ensures continuity, even though the majority of the ensemble consists of musicians with whom Hawkins has not previously worked. In Berlin, the line-up features some of the leading figures on the British scene, including woodwind players Chelsea Carmichael and Tom Challenger, as well as the Italian clarinettist Marco Colonna, the Berlin-based trombonist Matthias Müller and the bassist Nick Dunston.

Line-up

• Chelsea Carmichael – flute, tenor saxophone
• Tom Challenger – flute, clarinet, alto saxophone
• Marco Colonna – clarinet
• George Crowley – bass clarinet, tenor saxophone
• Stephen Davis – drums, percussion
• Nick Dunston – double bass
• Alicia Gardener-Trejo – flutes, bass clarinet
• Alexander Hawkins – piano, composition
• Olivia Hughes – tuba
• Charlotte Keeffe – trumpet
• Matthias Müller – trombone