ALT R JAZZ Large Ensemble (DK/NO)

It's happening: for the first time ever, Alt R Jazz has brought together a unique distillation of this year's artists and selected musicians from the Aarhus improvisation scene: ALT R JAZZ Large Ensemble under the direction of Paal Nilssen-Love and Lotte Anker.

Through open structures and instructions from Paal and Lotte, we invite you to celebrate and explore music in all possible and impossible corners.

It will be wild, small, big, and quiet. In other words, it will be completely unique, and we look forward to experiencing all these capacities coming together in a grand finale to this year's festival. We celebrate music, and not least the experimental music scene in Aarhus and around Alt R Jazz.

For more than 25 years, Paal and Lotte have crossed paths on stage in smaller and larger band constellations. They have each worked with free-form and experimental big bands in both workshops and established groups, including Paal's Large Unit and PanScan Ensemble, and Lotte's What River Ensemble and Sub Habitat.

Lotte Anker (saxophonist / composer) works in the hybrid and fluid field between improvisation, experimental jazz, and new compositional music. As a performer / composer, she is particularly interested in the dynamics between improvisation and compositional practice, with an emphasis on exploring the qualities and possibilities of sound material, space, and silence.

Recent own groups / collaborations include: Anker / Taborn / Cleaver (w / Craig Taborn and Gerald Cleaver), What River Ensemble (w / Phil Minton, Fred Frith, Ikue Mori, Anna Klett, Chris Cutler, Garth Knox, Jesper Egelund), Electric Habitat and Sub Habitat (with Sofia Jernberg, Mazen Kerbaj, Andrea Neumann, Sten Sandell, Katt Hernandez, Nina de Heney, Ikue Mori, Burkhard Beins, Thomas Lehn, Michael Vorfeld), Lotte Anker & Fred Frith and others. She has given concerts / workshops etc. in Europe, USA, Canada, Russia, Asia, Africa and the Middle East and has performed commissioned works and world premieres at Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (UK), Gong Tomorrow (Cph), Donaueschingen New Music Festival / SWR, Ensemble Modern), Hanoi New Music Festival, DR Big Band, Copenhagen Art Ensemble.

Before the age of 30, Paal Nilssen-Love had already established himself as one of the most sought-after drummers in Europe. He has performed at countless festivals and clubs in Europe and the USA, and has been featured on over 50 recordings. He runs an annual festival of improvised music, All Ears, in Oslo, which is an important part of his musical life, and plans to start a record label focused on vinyl releases. As Pat Metheny said in 2002 after playing with Paal at the Molde International Jazz Festival: "He's simply one of the best new musicians I've heard in years! And after hearing Paal in nine different settings at the same festival, Down Beat journalist Dan Quelette said: "His week in Molde was a revelation: Nilssen-Love is one of the most innovative, dynamic and versatile drummers in jazz!"

More about #1

More about #2