Concert with Eleni Karaindrou and Ensemble

On Saturday, 16 November 2019, the final concert of this year's Enjoy Jazz Festival took place. The Greek pianist and composer Eleni Karaindrou performed in front of 800 listeners in the opera house of the Mannheim National Theatre. In the presence of Manfred Eicher, founder of ECM Records, the celebrations for the 50th anniversary of the music label at Germany's largest jazz festival culminated. Enjoy Jazz had opened on Wednesday, 02 October 2019, with a concert by American pianist and ECM artist Carla Bley at the BASF Feierabendhaus Ludwigshafen.

After an introduction by festival director Rainer Kern and actor and member of the Enjoy Jazz curatorship Matthias Brandt, Eleni Karaindrou and her 21-member ensemble created a 90-minute concert evening. The German premiere of her programme "Tous des Oiseaux" included compositions by Karaindrou to the play "Tous des Oiseaux" by the Lebanese-Canadian author Wajdi Mouawad and the film "Bomb, A Love Story" by the Iranian director Payman Maadi as well as to various films by the Greek director Theo Angelopoulos.

In addition to Eleni Karaindrou and Carla Bley, the ECM artists Barre Phillips, Tord Gustavsen, the Yonathan Avishai Trio and the Maciej Obara Quartet were also represented in the Enjoy Jazz 2019 programme to mark the 50th anniversary of ECM Records . At the events of its 21st edition, the festival has recorded a total of over 20,000 visitors. In 2020 Enjoy Jazz will take place from 02 October to 14 November.