Jazzfest Berlin 2025: Where Will You Run When the World’s on Fire?
From 30 October to 2 November, this year's Jazzfest Berlin will present 27 concerts featuring international artists at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele, A-Trane, Quasimodo and the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. The festival's participatory outreach activities will kick off on 27 October with Jazzfest Community Week at various locations in Berlin-Moabit, at the Jazz Institut Berlin and with an interdisciplinary film project at the Gropius Bau. The complete programme for the 62nd edition of the festival has been published and accreditation is now open. Advance ticket sales begin on 18 September at 14:00.
With the world in turmoil, the legendary guitarist Marc Ribot asks on his new album, “Map of a Blue City”: Where will you run when the world’s on fire? In light of global crises and turbulent times, this year’s Jazzfest Berlin and artistic director Nadin Deventer are welcoming 120 international musicians from more than 20 countries to Berlin, spanning an artistically diverse range, from free improvisation to hip-hop and noise, from lyrical and melancholic tones to distorted guitar sounds and stuttering beats, and from introverted solo sets to thundering large ensembles. Across four days, 27 acts featuring exceptional artists who have shaped the style of jazz history will share the stage with up-and-coming voices. Acting as a bridge between different worlds, Jazzfest Berlin focuses on bringing together people from very different backgrounds and walks of life. In an age of declining social trust, the festival is more committed than ever to promoting a global understanding of solidarity, acceptance and diversity – values that have been enshrined in its mission since its founding in 1964.
To open the festival on 30 October at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele, saxophonist Angelika Niescier, cellist Tomeka Reid and percussionist Eliza Salem can be heard in a trio that deliberately defies categorisation of any kind. At Quasimodo, two acts combine jazz with hip-hop: the noise improvisation group MOPCUT with rapper MC Dälek and the sextet The Young Mothers.
Our visitors from the USA will include the musician and composer David Murray – one of the outstanding figures of New York’s post-bop scene for decades – who presents his quartet’s new album in Germany for the first time. The legendary trumpeter and composer Wadada Leo Smith can be heard as part of his latest European tour with the pianist Vijay Iyer. From New York we welcome the saxophonist James Brandon Lewis with his quartet as well as saxophonist Tim Berne with his trio CAPATOSTA, which makes its European debut at Jazzfest Berlin 2025. And we also look forward to the thrillingly complex, cross-genre approaches of Chicago-based percussionist Makaya McCraven and guitarist Mary Halvorson. Halvorson’s Amaryllis Sextet includes the Mexican American vibraphonist Patricia Brennan, who will also play the multi-award-winning album “Breaking Stretch” with her septet on the same evening in their first stage performance in Germany.
Signe Emmeluth and Amalie Dahl’s Dafnie EXTENDED come to Berlin from Scandinavia and will present their current albums for the first time in Germany. The trio The Handover creates a fusion of classical Egyptian music with the popular street sound shaabi and European jazz, while Berlin-based bassist Felix Henkelhausen uses samples and electronics to push beyond the post-bop sound in his project “Deranged Particles”. Amirtha Kidambi's free jazz band Elder Ones premieres its new album in Europe.
The large-scale Fire! Orchestra will bring together 19 innovative musicians from nine different countries for the world premiere of the project “Words”, while another large ensemble will also perform a world premiere on the stage of the festival theatre: the international line-up of the London Jazz Composers Orchestra will be led by double bassist Barry Guy with the pianists Marilyn Crispell and Angelica Sanchez as soloists. And the British jazz legend Pat Thomas will perform on the Main Stage with one of his rare piano solos.
More intimate line-ups, each with their own individual sonic language, offer concerts at the A-Trane and in the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church: the quartet hilde, Berlin resident Lina Allemano with her Canadian quartet and the Marta Sánchez Trio as well as a solo appearance by French saxophonist Sakina Abdou. And on 29 October, the Argentinian-born and Berlin-based baritone saxophonist Sofia Salvo can be heard as part of the Melting Pot project at the Jazz Institute Berlin.
In addition to the concert programme, Jazzfest Berlin will also include the presentation of this year’s Albert Mangelsdorff Prize, awarded by the German Jazz Union to the vocalist Lauren Newton. The concerts on the Main Stage at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele will be preceded by artist talks with the festival’s artists and partners. And Jazzfest Berlin also invites visitors – entry is free of charge – to jam sessions and a party to round off the festival at Quasimodo.
Advance ticket sales begin on 18 September. Accreditation for Jazzfest Berlin 2025 opens today – the deadline for accreditation is 10 October.
In the press section, images of all artists and groups are available for download and can be used for announcements. You will also find all press releases issued in connection with the festival and the press contact details there.
Jazzfest Community Week
With its community and outreach programme offering free admission, Jazzfest Berlin invites the public from 27 October to 2 November to experience jazz as a living art form and open field for experimentation. In this year’s Jazzfest Community Week, projects are created together with local figures, initiatives from Moabit and festival musicians that encourage creative participation and create new spaces to meet people.
The Jazzfest Community Week will kick-off on 27 October at PAS Berlin, and end with a closing event at the Jazz Institute Berlin on 31 October. Besides, the concert at Haus der Berliner Festspiele with the Moabit Imaginarium on 2 November will give an insight into the musical experiments that the ensemble of ten Moabit musicians developed during the festival week.
Building upon Jazzfest Community Lab Moabit 2024, this year Jazzfest Berlin will once again continue its close collaboration with the Jazz Institute Berlin, which will open its doors wide for rehearsals and concerts and fill the Moabit district with music in ten neighbourhood concerts featuring more than 20 students. There will also be new editions in expanded form of both the seminar “Artistic Leadership” by Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin and the Jazzfest ImproLab for Kids. In addition, the community ensemble Moabit Imaginarium will be founded and will develop a transcultural repertoire during the festival week, which will then be performed for the first time.
In a multi-month collective process, Berlin-based artists are working with international filmmakers to develop a community film that will be shot at various Moabit locations and at the Gropius Bau during the festival week. International filmmakers and musicians are working with workshop leaders from Jazzfest Community Week to develop a film that, like Marc Ribot's current album, explores questions of belonging, dreams and trauma in a rapidly changing world. Over 60 artists, children and musicians are involved in the filming during Community Week. The film will premiere in Berlin over the course of the next year.
Jazzfest Berlin on air
Thanks to the cooperation with the ARD radio network and Deutschlandradio, one can experience the festival on air through a series of live concert recordings and the long ARD Jazznacht. The recordings will also be available in the Berliner Festspiele Media Library.
Jazzfest Berlin is funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.
Media partners are ARTE, Dussmann, Monopol, Wall and the Yorck Kinogruppe.
In cooperation with ARD and Deutschlandradio.
Jazzfest Berlin is member of Europe Jazz Network and Initiative Keychange.
The Jazzfest Berlin 2025 and specific projects are supported by: Schweizer Kulturstiftung ProHelvetia, Robert Bielecki Foundation, Swedish Arts Council and the Norwegian Embassy in Berlin.
The Jazzfest Community Week is funded by the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung and the Berliner Sparkasse.
Partners of the Jazzfest Community Week are: Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin | Jazz Institut Berlin | Kallasch& | KUKUMU e. V. | KULTURFABRIK Moabit | Mullewapp e. V. & Miriam-Makeba-Grundschule | OTTO-Spielplatz –Moabiter Ratschlag e. V. | PAS Berlin | SOS-Kinderdorf Berlin: Familienzentrum / Mehrgenerationenhaus | Theater X | Theodor-Heuss-Gemeinschaftsschule | ZK/U – Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik
Press contact
Anna Hinz, Patricia Hofmann, Toni Zahn
presse@berlinerfestspiele.de
+49 30 254 89 223
To the press section Jazzfest Berlin