MARINA & HER GOOD SPIRITS

With special intros, rhythm changes, and forays into other genres beyond the usual jazz standards.

• Marina Thalke - Vocals
• Felix Mross – Piano
• Jörn Henrich - Bass
• Yatziv Caspi – Drums
• Harry Ermer - Harmonica

The presenter and singer Marina Thalke began her musical journey with the classical choral repertoire. Her enthusiasm for flamenco then led her from flamenco dance to flamenco singing and, via Latin American rhythms, to jazz, where she finally found her musical home. Through jazz standards, boleros, and chansons, she tells stories from all corners of the world in multiple languages.

Felix Mross is a classically trained pianist with a broad stylistic range. He has received several national awards at “Jugend musiziert” as well as the WDR Classical Music Prize in 2004. As both a soloist and an accompanist, he has performed at venues including the renowned Carnegie Hall in New York. In recent years, he has increasingly focused his artistic efforts on jazz and Latin American styles.

Bassist Jörn Henrich played in his first jazz band during his school years and has remained in the music scene ever since. In the late 1990s, he was a member of jazz professor Joe Viera’s quartet. This was followed by numerous engagements, such as concerts at the Philharmonic in St. Petersburg, in Donetsk, in Kyiv, at the “Jazz au Chellah” jazz festival (Rabat, Morocco), leading masterclasses at the “Conservatoire National De Musique Et De Danse” (Morocco), and lectures on philosophical perspectives in jazz. Since 2005, he has been the associate bassist for the German Foreign Office’s jazz band.

Yatziv Caspi, born in Israel, has lived in Berlin since 2009. He began playing drums at the age of 6. He is at home in many genres, ranging from jazz to pop, fusion, progressive rock, and world music. At age 17, he took tabla lessons from an Indian teacher for six years, then traveled to northern India and became acquainted with the rich traditions of Indian classical music, which expanded his approach to rhythm and musical expression into new dimensions.

Harry Ermer, born in Landau/Pfalz, studied sound engineering at the HdK Berlin. Starting in 1990, he played keyboards at the Wintergarten Varieté in Berlin and, beginning in 1992, served as pianist in the orchestra of the Theater des Westens. From 1996 onward, he accompanied numerous renowned artists at the Bar jeder Vernunft, the Renaissance Theater Berlin, the TIPI, the Schlosspark Theater Berlin, and the Ernst Deutsch Theater in Hamburg. He also contributed to music productions for the TV series “Praxis Bülowbogen” and “Lindenstraße.” He recorded CDs with Manfred Krug, Judy Winter, Georg Preuße, Till Brönner, Joana Zimmer, “Ich & Ich,” Sarah Connor, and Sharon Brauner.