Jazzfest Berlin 2025: Artistic Diversity and High Attendance
The Jazzfest Berlin 2025 came to an end on Sunday evening with performances by the Fire! Orchestra at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele and the James Brandon Lewis Quartet at Quasimodo. Held from 30 October to 2 November with the slogan “Where Will You Run When the World's on Fire?”, the 62nd edition of the festival featured 120 international musicians from 20 countries. Almost 6,000 visitors attended the 27 acts at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele, A-Trane, Quasimodo and the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church – almost all concerts were sold out.
Before and during the concerts, the Jazzfest Community Week took place from 27 to 31 October with activities in Moabit and the Jazzfest Community Film Lab at the Gropius Bau. Nearly 2,000 guests attended the admission-free events, which included lunch concerts at the SOS-Kinderdorf, Kiez sessions at various locations in Moabit as well as several concerts at the Jazz-Institut Berlin and at Quasimodo. Over 90 children, young people, workshop leaders, music students, musicians and a film crew were involved in the outreach programme.
The 2025 Berlin Jazz Festival featured a series of impressive premieres that showcased the stylistic diversity and innovative power of the international jazz scene and thrilled audiences. Marc Ribot enchanted and ignited the Quasimodo with his new album “Map of a Blue City” which inspired this year's festival motto. Amirtha Kidambi celebrated the European premiere of her new album with her band Elder Ones. Trumpeter Lina Allemano and her quartet played music from “The Diptychs” for the first time in Germany. Tim Berne and his trio CAPATOSTA gave their debut in Europe, while composer Barry Guy presented the new line-up of the London Jazz Composers Orchestra with a new version of the composition “Double Trouble’, featuring pianists Angelica Sanchez and Marilyn Crispell, among others. With “Words”, the Fire! Orchestra, conducted by Mats Gustafsson, also premiered a new work that combined collective energy and spoken word to create a thrilling concert experience.
Many other established artists returned to the festival in familiar and new constellations, such as alto saxophonist Angelika Niescier, who opened the jazz festival this time with cellist and composer Tomeka Reid and drummer Eliza Salem or David Murray with his new quartet as well as guitarist Mary Halvorson with her Amaryllis Sextet. The Young Mothers performed at the Jazzfest again after six years, and Makaya McCraven was celebrated as a highlight on the main stage of the Festspielhaus, seven years after his club performance at the fetsival. The Jazzfest Berlin paid special tribute to trumpeter and composer Wadada Leo Smith on his last European tour. Together with pianist Vijay Iyer, he presented their current album “Defiant Life” and was given a standing ovation by a visibly moved audience.
Musicians of younger generations were also part of the festival, such as bassist Felix Henkelhausen with his large ensemble “Deranged Particles”, the quartet hilde, and saxophonists Signe Emmeluth and Amalie Dahl, the latter with her twelve-person band Dafnie EXTENDED. Newly founded during Jazzfest Community Week, the ensemble Moabit Imaginarium premiered its transcultural repertoire on Friday in the packed hall of the Jazz-Institut Berlin and performed at the festival's closing concert at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele before Pat Thomas' solo performance on the grand piano.
The concert programme was complemented by artist talks, the presentation of this year's Albert Mangelsdorff Prize to vocalist and composer Lauren Newton, as well as free jam sessions and an after-party at Quasimodo.
The Jazzfest Community Week, which began on 27 October, offered a wide range of opportunities for exchange and participation with free admission, including additional concerts, workshops, and an interdisciplinary film project at the Gropius Bau.
Numerous Jazzfest Berlin events were sold out in advance. In total, the festival and Community Week attracted almost 8,000 visitors. Concert attendance was almost 99%.
Three live broadcasts on Deutschlandfunk Kultur, ARD and radio3 from rbb, as well as the long ARD Jazznacht from Saturday to Sunday with a total of over 1,000 minutes of festival coverage also reached audiences far beyond Berlin.
Jazzfest Berlin 2026 will take place from 29 October to 1 November under the artistic direction of Nadin Deventer.
The 62nd edition of the festival was dominated by the question “Where will you run when the world's on fire?”. It is about our positioning in a time that is turbulent in many ways and marked by fears. This also applies to the role of jazz, that creative improvised music which the artist and music researcher George E. Lewis once described as a “medium for the real-time translation of cultural values into sound” – but at the same time as a “banana skin under the foot” of power. In the current edition of the festival, we were able to experience powerful statements from legendary improvisational innovators such as Wadada Leo Smith and Barry Guy, as well as the sonic worldviews of the younger generation: Marta Sánchez, Amirtha Kidambi, Patricia Brennan and Felix Henkelhausen. Sometimes delicate and sensual, sometimes thunderous and stirring – enormously diverse material for our live broadcasts and the long night of jazz.
Today, it is also essential to open up new spaces alongside established venues and to take music to the people, especially the youngest. The sustainable community work of the Jazzfest Berlin in Moabit is bearing more and more fruit – this is also an important story that we would like to continue to follow and report on for the radio.
Many thanks to Nadin Deventer and the festival team for an excellent programme and great cooperation.
– Stefan Gerdes, spokesperson for the Broadcasting Committee
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.
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.
Die Partner der Jazzfest Community Week sind: 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