CONCEPT

In March 2011, six of Britain’s most exciting and forward-thinking bands will be descending on Germany and Austria to perform 76 gigs over the period of two weeks. 14 clubs in 13 different cities will be running a ‘Brit-Jazz-Week’ and hosting performances from a different one of the bands each night.
Between them, the bands have been recognised by the MOBO and MOJO Awards, Mercury Music Prize and just about every British Jazz Award available! They have all toured internationally but this is the first time any of them will be presented in Germany and Austria in such a big way.
With influences as diverse as Indian music, Hip-Hop, Rap, Trip-Hop and Rock, the bands involved are ex-Portishead Jazz-Rockers Get The Blessing, saxophonist Jason Yarde, Indo-Jazz Clarinettist Arun Ghosh, pianist Kit Downes, The Julian Siegel Quartet and rapper-saxophonist Soweto Kinch.

You can catch their performances:

14th – 20th March 2010 in Munich (Unterfahrt), Berlin (A-Trane), Hamburg (Birdland), Cologne (Stadtgarten), Dortmund (Domicil) and Karlsruhe (Tollhaus and Kulturzentrum Tempel)

21st – 27th March 2011 in Frankfurt (Brotfabrik), Mannheim (Feuerwache),
Passau (Neues Theater), Innsbruck (Treibhaus), Burg Vischering in Lüdinghausen, Linz (Oxymoron) and Wien (Porgy & Bess).

This tour will be launched with 3 nights of performances in London’s Pizza Express Jazz Club (Dean Street) on the 11th, 12th and 13th March 2011, with 2 bands playing each night. For ticket enquiries please contact the venue directly.

The Brit-Jazz-Week in Germany and Austria has been organized by Burkhard Hopper. From 1996 to 2004 Burkhard Hopper´s Munich-based company B.H. Hopper Management had already presented the “Rising Stars” concert series throughout clubs in Europe, which brought the then hippest young artists to audiences across Europe. Amoung others Diana Krall, Brad Mehldau, Nicholas Payton, Jane Monheit, Kevin Mahogany, Eric Reed, Benny Green and many others have started their careers through the “Rising Stars” concert series.

Throughout the Noughties Burkhard Hopper had been managing Esbjörn Svensson and e.s.t., which came to a sudden and unexpected end when Esbjörn Svensson died in June 2008.

Towards the end of the same year Burkhard Hopper moved to London and became a constant figure on the local music scene across the channel. He teamed up with Jamie Cullum´s manager Marc Connor and PR-whizz Sheela Bates and formed Air Artist Agency Ltd. an agency dedicated to excellence and the discovery and facilitation of young talent.
“I was welcomed and invited to England in the most friendly of ways. London is without doubt Europe´s capital for culture. There are a dozen great concerts to go to every day. All museums are for free. And the local music scene is vibrant, energetic and imaginative with a great mixture of artists from all sorts of backgrounds. A true melting pot of styles, rhythms, musical languages and heritage. In Soho there is one threatre next to the other and clubs string together like pearls on a bracelet. I immediately felt the necessity to bring out and tour some of those exceptional talents and show them to audiences in Germany and Austria.”

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