Collab Stories

The GROUP50:50 in concert

For the Jazz Club of Leipzig, the trio Elia Rediger, Kojack Kossakamvwe and Ruth Kemna offer a concert about current and future economic crimes and the ghosts of the colonial era. In a transcontinental musical dialogue, they revisit works from their past collaborations and present new pieces on stage for the first time.

The Swiss singer Elia Rediger, the Congolese guitarist Kojack Kossakamvew and the Italian viola player Ruth Kemna have been working closely together since "Hercules of Lubumbashi" (Podium Esslingen 2019) and are continuously developing new spaces for exchange on musical, historical and economic themes. Jazz serves here as a meeting place and energies between improvisation, song, Congolese rumba, contemporary music and narration. The musicians develop a music inspired by ancestral stories. Utopias between ecstasy and postcolonial debate on restitution. The result is an intense evening of multimedia concert at the crossroads of Africa and Europe, of what has happened and what is yet to come. The evening flirts with the borders of the physical and the spiritual, of life and death. We are caught up in a lively musical whirlwind and discover insights into the current world situation with themes such as global failure and cooperation. With music from works performed in recent years on stages in Africa and Europe (including Hercules of Lubumbashi) and new compositions on the future of relations between Kinshasa and Leipzig.

With contributions from Christiana Tabaro and Huguette Tolinga, Willy Ilumbo, as well as other guests on site. The concert is dedicated to Dorine Mokha, founding member of the collective, who passed away in the spring of 2021. As part of MusikZeit, it is the first live performance of the project in this constellation. The show also includes the shooting of a narrative concert film.

A project by GROUP50:50, produced by Jazzclub Leipzig e.V.

Shows

with
Elia Rediger (Voc,Keys),
Kojack Kossakamvwe (G,Voc)
Ruth Kemna (Vla,Voc)
Drum Robot Petit Frère

guest (video)
Christiana Tabaro (Voc),
Wily Ilumbo (Likembe),

guest (live)
Huguette Tolinga (Perc)
Max Kraft (Tp),
Antonia Hausmann (Tb),
Damian Dalla Torre (Sax, Bcl)
Julian Sartorius (Drums)

Dramaturgy
Eva-Maria Bertschy

Production
Pamina Rottok, Annika Sauter
Vero,

video
Tobias Schütze, Joseph Kwilemba Kasau, Perrin Cam

sound
Philipp Ruoff, Cédric Mbongo

Edit Video
Tobias Schütze