Carol Liebowitz & Birgitta Flick
April 2018 appearances in Berlin

Saturday, April 21 @ 5pm
Carol Liebowitz – piano, voice
Birgitta Flick – tenor saxophone
Haus Kladower Forum
Kladower Damm 387
14089 Berlin

Birgitta Flick is a saxophonist and composer and lives in Berlin. She studied saxophone and Jazz at the Jazz-Institut Berlin (UdK) and the Royal College of Music, Stockholm. Current projects—besides her Duo with Carol Liebowitz—are her Berlin-based quartet and the German-Swedish-Finnish band Flickstick, with whom she won the 2012 Jazz Baltica Förderpreis and released the 2nd album in January 2018. Ms. Flick’s other work includes playing in the Nico Lohmann Quintet, and in drummer Sebastian Voegler’s Stockholm-based band Fluxmaschine and the German Women’s Jazz Orchestra.

In 2011–12 her research and composition project on traditional Swedish music was sponsored by the Elsa Neumann Scholarship of the Country of Berlin. The resulting suite for the Swedish singer Lina Nyberg, Silke Eberhard (bass clarinet), Nico Lohmann (alto saxophone, flute) and the Birgitta Flick Quartet was released in April 2016 by Double Moon Records. The quartet’s debut CD, “Yingying” was released in 2013 by Jazz thing Next Generation. Further CD productions include those with the Nico Lohmann quintet (“Merging Circles” in 2016 and “Miraculum” in 2013), amongst others.

Her concert tours have taken her to Sweden, the USA, Bahrain and the Middle East, and in winter 2014–15, to New York for a three month stay including private studies with Connie Crothers. Festival concert appearances include XJazz Berlin, Elbjazz in Hamburg, JazzBaltica, Jazzwoche Burghausen, Jazzahead German Jazz Meeting and Cairo Jazz Festival. Since 2013 Birgitta also contributes to the monthly Psalmton Jazz Pop Services at Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtnis-Kirche in Berlin—both as a performer, composer and coordinator. Since 2015 she also serves as the musical coordinator of the summer concert series “In Spirit“ at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtnis- Kirche.

In 2017 she received a scholarship of the City of Berlin to realize a new improvisation project and CD recording together with Carol Liebowitz.

“An excellent tenor-saxophonist based in Berlin, Birgitta Flick has an original sound on her horn, not sounding like any of her historical predecessors.” —Scott Yanow

“The large scale of Flick’s music is testimony to her rich orchestral experience, and this album first of all surprises the listener with her outstanding talent as a composer.” —Kayo Fushiya, JazzTokyo

Carol Liebowitz, piano

Pianist Carol Liebowitz brings a uniquely expressive and personal sound to the jazz and free improvisation scene. After focusing on classical repertoire at the High School of Performing Arts and NYU, her musical direction turned to improvisation and she began studying with Connie Crothers. Other influential teachers have included Sal Mosca, Jay Clayton and Sheila Jordan. She has performed in Europe and throughout the New York City metropolitan area in venues such as Roulette, The Stone, Cornelia Street Cafe, IBeam, The Firehouse Space, Arts for Art, Spectrum, and Birdland. In addition to frequent solo concert appearances, Carol has worked in various groups with musicians including Tom Blancarte, Adam Caine, Daniel Carter, Claire de Brunner, Maryanne de Prophetis, Andrew Drury, Ken Filiano, Andy Fite, Birgitta Flick, Ratzo Harris, Ron Horton, Louise D.E. Jensen, Adam Lane, Eva Lindal, Nick Lyons, Ryan Messina, Kevin Norton, Bill Payne, John Pietaro, Lorenzo Sanguedolce, John Wagner, Michael Wimberly, and Andrea Wolper.

Her CD “Payne Lindal Liebowitz” on Line Art Records with clarinetist Bill Payne and violinist Eva Lindal was voted one of the Top Ten Jazz CDs in the 2015 NPR Jazz Critics Poll by Art Lange. Also on Line Art Records are “First Set” (a duo with alto saxophonist Nick Lyons), and “Poetry from the Future” (To Be Continued, a quartet with Claire de Brunner, Daniel Carter, and Kevin Norton). Carol has two releases on the New Artists label: “Waves of Blue Intensities,” a duo with tenor saxophonist Bob Field, and “Time on My Hands,” a voice/guitar duo with Andy Fite.

CD projects for 2018 include a duo with tenor saxophonist Birgitta Flick, a live concert recording with Bill Payne (also featuring poet Mark Weber), and a trio recording with bassist Adam Lane and percussionist Andew Drury.

“It quite simply was one of the greatest solo piano concerts I’ve ever witnessed…” —Mark Weber, poet

“…chords that brim with ardent energy and hypnotic beauty.” — Hrayr Attarian, All About Jazz

carolliebowitz.com
birgittaflick.com
lineartrecords.com

Tramontana realizes a decade-long dream with a multi-national ensemble and guest appearances by Cuban sax legend Paquito D’Rivera and Colombian vocalist Lucia Pulido
“It’s very hard to get a personal, identifiable sound when orchestrating for a Big Band, but – almost miraculously – Juan Andrés Ospina makes it happen. Bingo!” – Paquito D’Rivera

Powerful yet invisible, momentarily ferocious yet leaving behind idyllic, crystal clear skies; the Tramontana is a true force of nature, a gale force wind that lashes Spain’s Catalan coastline. It serves as an apt inspiration for composer and bandleader Juan Andrés Ospina, who has experienced its strength and beauty firsthand and has translated the wind’s stirring and awe-invoking qualities into music for Tramontana, the debut release by his phenomenal big band. Soul-stirring and vigorous, a family affair as well as a multinational congregation, the Juan Andrés Ospina Big Band embodies the contradictory essence of this formidable natural phenomenon.

Due out April 20, 2018 Tramontana is the extraordinary fulfillment of nearly a decade of dreaming and a lifetime’s immersion in music. Born into a musical and artistic family in Bogotá, Colombia, Ospina chanced into his gift for big band composing and arranging while a student at Boston’s Berklee College of Music. The album’s realization follows a successful, inventive Kickstarter campaign and the enthusiastic encouragement of renowned bandleaders Paquito D’Rivera and Maria Schneider. It brings together a gifted ensemble of artists of ten different nationalities, performing Ospina’s striking originals, one radically transformed standard, and a passionate song by Colombian singer Lucia Pulido.

“This is something that I’ve felt for a long time that I had to do,” Ospina says. “I just needed to find the courage to finally do it.”

One listen to the majestic and richly textured pieces that make up Tramontana and it’s obvious why Ospina felt so compelled to pursue the daunting task of assembling a big band to record his music. He never set out to become a bandleader on this scale, however; his first piece for big band, in fact, was nothing more than a classroom assignment. It was under the tutelage of Greg Hopkins at Berklee that Ospina crafted the dramatic rendition of “Like Someone In Love” that appears on the album, reharmonized and with the well-known melody stretched to unrecognizable lengths, creating something that feels both familiar and fresh.

That description also applies to the ensemble itself, which combines longtime collaborators and new acquaintances. Several of them were on stage alongside him when Ospina premiered his original big band pieces at his Berklee graduation in 2007; others met for the first time in the studio when these tracks were recorded. The members of the band hail from such far-flung locales as the U.K., Cuba, Canada, Israel, Switzerland, Greece, Portugal and Argentina, as well as Ospina’s native Colombia and his adopted home of New York (he splits his time between the two when not on tour).

“I thought it would be interesting to have so many different nationalities playing in this band, all bringing their influences to the music in some way,” Ospina says. “It’s something that might be very common in New York, but from a Colombian perspective it’s pretty crazy.”

Ospina’s homeland is well represented on the album; aside from one turn by Ospina himself, the piano chair is filled either by Colombia native Carolina Calvache or by the composer’s brother Nicolás Ospina, with whom he collaborates in a comedy-music duo that’s found viral success online. Their sister Silvia designed the artwork for the album. Acclaimed Colombian singer Lucia Pulido’s heart-wrenching vocals bring the album to a stirring close on her own “Ver Llover,” one of three pieces in Ospina’s repertoire commissioned by Bogotá’s Jazz al Parque festival. The composition is based on the currulao rhythm from the Pacific coast of Colombia, for which Ospina invited Argentinean drummer Franco Pinna, a master of that tradition, to join the band.

The soaring wordless vocals on the opening title track are by the remarkable Portuguese singer Sofia Ribeiro. Ospina has been a key member of Ribeiro’s band for seven years, serving as musical director and producer as well as pianist for her last two albums. Two other members of that ensemble also join Ospina for Tramontana: Greek bassist Petros Klampanis, who appears on “Recuerdos de un Reloj de Pared,” and percussionist Marcelo Woloski. “She’s an incredible singer and her music is amazing,” Ospina says of Ribeiro. “Working with her has been one of my most important musical experiences.”

“Todavía No,” an Ospina composition based on the Pasillo rhythm found in Colombia’s Andes Mountains, originally appeared in a small band arrangement on Ospina’s 2009 debut, BBB: Barcelona, Bogotá, Boston. Christopher Lyndon of Radio Open Source called the album, “a landmark. It stands with authority as a milestone pointing back and forward [and marks] the ‘arrival’ of Juan Ospina as a young master already having a uniquely valuable impact on listeners, professional musicians and ambitious artists of all kinds.” David Sumner of All About Jazz hailed BBB as “an absolutely welcome addition to the jazz landscape.”

It was there – after discovering the pianist through one of the comic videos he made with his brother – that Cuban jazz great Paquito D’Rivera first heard the song and decided to add it to his own repertoire. Ospina expanded the tune with D’Rivera in mind, and the legendary saxophonist contributes a graceful yet fervent soprano solo for the occasion. “It’s so inspiring for someone that has so much experience and has been on the music scene for more than 50 years is still so thirsty for new sounds,” says Ospina, who seized the opportunity to put down his conductor’s baton and take over the keyboard for one tune. “Paquito has a very strong personal identity that comes out in every single nuance that he adds to the melody, the small details or grace notes that add so much to the music.”

“Recuerdos de un Reloj de Pared,” which translates as “Memories of a Grandfather Clock,” was inspired by a timepiece that has stood watch in the house of the composer’s grandmother for decades, a silent witness to generations of stories. The recording features the expressive accordion of Magda Giannikou, who also co-produced the album. The two have worked together since 2005, with Ospina playing in her ensemble Banda Magda. She, along with guitarist Nadav Remez and drummer Dan Pulgach (both from Israel), all played the same piece ten years ago at its Berklee premiere.

The recording of the album at New York City’s iconic Sear Sound Studio was filmed by Grammy-winning director Andy LaViolette, who has produced a series of videos to accompany the release. Far from simple “music videos,” these pieces combine candid interviews with the composer set against the backdrop of the city, interspersed with key moments from the studio. The videos reveal a picture of an emerging composer as he crafts his modern take on big band music, as well as what it takes to pull off an independent project on such a massive scale.”