Impro Festival celebrates new music and will feature this year's IMPRO CAMP participants and exciting bands from the national and international scene.

!FRIDAY!
14:00 DOORS
15:00 FREDAGSJAM - DAMA DAMA (FREE ENTRANCE)
19:00 LARS BECH PILGAARD GROUP
20:00 KAKAO INTENS
21:00 CAROLYN GOODWIN GROUP
22:00 EAT THE FROG x MNEME KOLLEKTIV

!SATURDAY!
14:00 DOORS
15:00 CHRISTIAN WINDFELD GROUP
16:00 STRØMMEN
17:00 SUSANA SANTOS SILVA GROUP
19:00 INGEBRIGT HÅKER FLATEN GROUP
20:00 JUST ANOTHER FOUNDRY
21:30 EXTEMPORIZE

ENTRANCE:
1 day ticket - 60 kr.
2 days ticket - 100 kr.

_
15:00 FREDAGSJAM - DAMA DAMA (FREE ENTRANCE)

DAMA DAMA moves in the borderland between the down-to-earth and the abstract. The trio explores the boundaries of jazz through music based on concepts such as time, space, presence, silence and noise. The audience is taken on a musical journey that, through collective improvisation, makes each concert unique!

The 3 musicians come from different corners of the Danish jazz scene, and are known from e.g. "I Think You're Awesome", "PIG" and "Imagination Laboratory". In DAMA DAMA they come together for their love of improvisation, the intuitive, honest and beautiful.

Concerts with DAMA DAMA range from the introspective and poetic to the exuberant and groovy. Threads are drawn to both Scandinavian and American jazz as well as European classical music - seasoned with avant-garde elements. For the concert, they play music from their debut album and their upcoming album as well as free improvisations.

Line-up:
Dan Hjorth - piano
Jens Mikkel Madsen - bass
Thomas Eiler - drums

DAMA DAMA opens fredagsJAM with a concert and after the jam is open for everyone. So bring your instrument and take the chance to create new musical connections.

-
19:00 LARS BECH PILGAARD GROUP

!The Aesthetics Of Improvised Music And Beyond!

This group has been working with the sensational Danish guitar player Lars Bech Pilgaard for a week during Impro Camp under the theme "The Aesthetics Of Improvised Music And Beyond".

Lars Bech Pilgaard has made a name for himself for a decade with his energetic and always sonically challenging guitar playing. Whether it's as a sideman with critically acclaimed darlings Bisse, Frk Jacobsen and Frisk Frugt or in some of Pilgaard's own ensembles SVIN, Klimaforandringer or Slowburn, you're never in doubt about the guitar's owner. Lars Bech Pilgaard's music is in the borderland between noise, sacral nerve and organic improvisation, but his musical expression is in its basic form changeable and always in contact with the absolute abstract and the perversely concrete. Bech Pilgaard has earned two prices at the Danish music Awards jazz as well as a nominations as musician of the year at the Danish music critics association “Steppeulven”.

_
20:00 KAKAO INTENS

Abstract is a wrong term for describing this music. Yes it’s foreign to most people. Yes it’s maybe a bit hostile. Yes it’s super avantgarde.
But abstract is not the right word for describing the music. Kakao Intens is working with sound in such a concrete way, that it suddenly
seems abstract when compared to most musical idioms.

Playing on metal pipes and old springs and different types of stones placed on top of your guitar pickup, is super concrete, for it works with the sounds exactly as they are - without trying to look at it through some constructed idiomatic filter.

That’s how Kakao Intens work with sound.

Not to say Kakao Intens doesn’t work with idioms and styles. The music is still super rocking. It’s grooving and sometimes weirdly danceable. Their music is a weird juxtaposi:on between a super concrete way of working with sound, and their own love for super popular music (Like Big Thief and Outkast and Metalica).

Line-up:
Simon Fikstvedt - prepared guitar
Halfdan Magnus Stefansson - prepared guitar
Mikkel Wilstrup - drums & percussion

_
21:00 CAROLYN GOODWIN GROUP

!Beyond Words: Finding and redefining yourself through Musical Improvisation!

This group has been working with the remarkable Irish woodwind player Carolyn Goodwin for a week during Impro Camp under the theme "Beyond Words: Finding and redefining yourself through Musical Improvisation".

Irish woodwind player Carolyn Goodwin has been based in Copenhagen since 2016, where she is an active participant in the experimental and improvised music scene. She is the founder of the ensemble Copenhagen Clarinet Choir, with whom she released the album Organism in September 2022 on the År & Dag label. The group has collaborated with composers Greta Eacott, Marcela Lucatelli, and Anders Lauge Meldgaard to premiere ambitious new works, often with a performative or site specific element. Other projects include the saxophone chamber music trio Coriolis, the improvising song trio Thou Sonic Friend, the ambient Americana quintet Blue Lake, and the avant-folk quartet Clang Sayne. She is a member of the Scandinavian musician collective Barefoot Records.

_
22:00 EAT THE FROG x MNEME KOLLEKTIV

Münster/Berlin based dance and music collectives MNEME and EAT THE FROG join forces for their ecstatic, sensual, celebratory, communal, improvised performances.

Since they first met in 2020, the two collectives have developed a strong friendship and a deep understanding of each other, which shows and translates to the audience when they perform on stage.

Together they developed the dance-theater piece "Niemandsland", which toured in Germany and Kurdistan/Iraq. Their research into how to bring improvised dance and music together organically and as equal forms of expression led them to the project „Uncivilisation", an improvised one hour film made by Vincent Moon, in collaboration with Hayden Chisholm and Grammy-nominated Georg Niehusmann.

Line-up:
Isabel Bernhard  - dance
Friederike Klodwig  - dance
Charlotte Petersen  - dance
Sarah Bernhard - dance
Stefan Vidal Schneider  - music
Tobias Link - music
Tobias Brügge - music

EAT THE FROG x MNEME kollektiv: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4ES9RnLDf8
UNCIVILISATION Movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7Lxso_Svbw&t=2748s

-
Impro Festival is organized by The Community and supported by Musikaftenskolen Lillebælt, Tøjhuset, Den Kreative Skole, Pakhuset, Statens Kunstfond, Koda Kultur, EWII, Fredericia Kommune, William Demant Fonden, DMF Trekanten and Jazzpuljen.

*************************

Impro Festival celebrates new music and will feature this year's IMPRO CAMP participants and exciting bands from the national and international scene.

!FRIDAY!
14:00 DOORS
15:00 FREDAGSJAM - DAMA DAMA (FREE ENTRANCE)
19:00 LARS BECH PILGAARD GROUP
20:00 KAKAO INTENS
21:00 CAROLYN GOODWIN GROUP
22:00 EAT THE FROG x MNEME KOLLEKTIV

!SATURDAY!
14:00 DOORS
15:00 CHRISTIAN WINDFELD GROUP
16:00 STRØMMEN
17:00 SUSANA SANTOS SILVA GROUP
19:00 INGEBRIGT HÅKER FLATEN GROUP
20:00 JUST ANOTHER FOUNDRY
21:30 EXTEMPORIZE

ENTRANCE:
1 day ticket - 60 kr.
2 days ticket - 100 kr.

-
15:00 CHRISTIAN WINDFELD GROUP

!Framed Improvisation, Reductionism and the sound of Silence!

This group has been working with the spectacular Danish drummer Christian Windfeld for a week during Impro Camp under the theme "Framed Improvisation, Reductionism and the sound of Silence".

Christian Windfeld is featured on more than 40 records, including five solo albums, and has toured extensively in Australia, North America and Europe. As a composer and sound artist he has created works for various installations and interdisciplinary performances and publications with writers, dancers and visual artists.

He has a minimalist but highly expressive approach to the percussive instruments often reducing his set-up to focus on just one instrument e.g. the snare drum to explore its full potential aiming to transcend the general perception of its capabilities.

-
16:00 STRØMMEN

They move between the chaotic and the calm, and try to hit an energy where the melodies flow through them.
They have a musical space that is fundamentally safe so that they can both be brave and explore and feel each other.
They create a setting where they and the audience can have a moment of coexistence.

Line-up:
Bo Stief - electric bass, double bass & effects
Rasmus Mikkelsen - trumpet, flugelhorn, vocal & effects

-
17:00 SUSANA SANTOS SILVA GROUP

!Flowing as water and moving as clouds!

This group has been working with the marvelous Portuguese trumpet player Susana Santos Silva for a week during Impro Camp under the theme "Flowing as water and moving as clouds".

Susana Santos Silva is a Portuguese trumpeter, improviser and composer based in Stockholm, Sweden.

"One of the most exciting improvisers in the world" - Downbeat

Susana has a singular artistic approach that comes out of a comprehensive spectrum of influences, from classical, improvised and contemporary music to jazz and textural sound art. She is interested in expanding the sonic possibilities of her instrument and creatively exploring the dissolution of boundaries of perception, genre and media. Much in demand, she has been working with an array of different projects and with musicians such as Anthony Braxton, Fred Frith, Evan Parker, Joëlle Léandre, Mat Maneri, Paul Lovens, Hamid Drake, Catherine Christer Hennix and Ictus Ensemble, just to name a few.

-
19:00 INGEBRIGT HÅKER FLATEN GROUP

!Improvisation?!

This group has been working with the incredible Norwegian bass player Ingebrigt Håker Flaten for a week during Impro Camp under the theme "Improvisation?".

The award winning Norwegian bassist, improviser, composer and bandleader Ingebrigt Håker Flaten has been at the forefront of modern creative music both in his native country Norway and internationally since the early 1990s. Perhaps best known as a founding member of the Scandinavian super groups Atomic and The Thing, Håker Flaten has merged post-free jazz explorations and experimentation with skillful use of attributes from many other idioms in countless collaborations, bands and projects.

-
20:00 JUST ANOTHER FOUNDRY

Just three individuals, just a trio, just another jazz band which surprises constantly.

Their songlike originals provide the fundamentals from which they create. But this trio does not simply sound like drums, double bass and saxophone. They’re willed to demolish their elegant construct at any time and rebuild it abruptly in a manner which is fed by Hip-Hop, Pop, Free Jazz and Improv.

There are moments in which the typical rules of the instruments hardly apply or get altered heavily by swapping roles and using extended playing techniques. All this creates an authentic statement that goes beyond Just Another Foundry’s music. This is the music of the big cities and yet of their roots: a music that mirrors the fire of a new generation.

Press Quotes:
“This is what the future of German Jazz looks like.” - Oliver Hochkeppel, South German public newspaper (Süddeutsche Zeitung)

“Their effortless play with melodic finesse and rustic brutality already won the band some prices”- Uli Lemke, JazzThing

“Courage to go over the edge, to be not-sweet in the intense performance of this excellently interplaying trio”- Roland Spiegel, Bavarian public radio (Bayrischer Rundfunk)

Line-up:
Jonas Engel - saxophone
Florian Herzog - double bass
Anthony Greminger - drums

-
21:30 EXTEMPORIZE

On this evening you can experience a concert of pure instant composing with the musicians particpating at IMPRO CAMP.
They will be conducted by Nana Pi Aabo-Kim with the music sign language Extemporize - a sign language system developed by Nana Pi. The signs consist of music elements like loop, register, dynamics, multiphonics, etc. and are going to be given by the conductor. The musical interaction is based on the structure of the conductor and the intuition of the respective musicians.

Links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtYDK_x_qWk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaYw1Z4OP2M&t=420s

-
Impro Festival is organized by The Community and supported by Musikaftenskolen Lillebælt, Tøjhuset, Den Kreative Skole, Pakhuset, Statens Kunstfond, Koda Kultur, EWII, Fredericia Kommune, William Demant Fonden, DMF Trekanten and Jazzpuljen.