Double concert: George Dumitriu Hazard Ensemble + Sofie Birch & Antonina Nowacka

And another cooperation with the "Unsound" festival in Kraków, at least halfway. There, too, "Languoria", the joint project of the Danish ambient electronica artist Sofie Birch and the Polish vocalist Antonina Nowacka is on the program. However, only one day after the gig at Enjoy Jazz. The two musicians met at the "Unsound" festival in 2021, when they played an improvised live set. At 2 a.m. In the winter of 2021/22, the two musicians met in the studio in København to work on the tracks of "Languoria" in eight days, to be released in time for the concerts in October. On the importance of the open spaces and the indeterminate in their music, Birch explained in an interview, "The improvisational element is important to me. I want to share that vulnerability, the humanity and organicity of the music with the audience as well." When some apply the term "New Age" to this spritual element in Birch and Nowacka's music, the answer is that the evolution was discovery rather than plan. A "mindfulness," if you want to call it that, also characterizes the specific understanding of space of the George Dumitriu Hazard Ensemble, which Enjoy Jazz presents together with KulturTandem and North Sea Round Town. The sextet around the violinist, guitarist and violist George Dumitriu, who comes from Romania but resides in Amsterdam, creates spatial soundscapes, as it were, by the musicians moving within the concert space and letting the various sounds take effect. This creates a dramaturgy of waiting, because it is more about the something-not-doing than about the doing. Dumitriu comments that this very "waiting" is something that tends to be avoided in real life beyond the concert experience. The Hazard Ensemble is about improvisational exploration of the acoustic possibilities of a specific space. Perhaps one imagines something like a cross between Bohren & Der Club of Gore, The Necks and Jan Gabarek feat. The Hilliard Ensemble. Thus, the two acts of this unusual double concert can be understood (and heard!) as different but complementary and communicating designs of ambient music with a spiritual approach.

George Dumitriu Hazard Ensemble in cooperation with KulturTandem and North Sea Round Town

Sofie Birch & Antonina Nowacka in cooperation with Unsound Festival Krakow