Harri Stojka – A Song for My Daddy
Concert & Conversation – Reflektor André Heller
Odes to survival
He is probably one of the most famous jazz musicians in Austria: Guitarist Harri Stojka has stood on the familiar festival and concert stages since the 1970s and has worked with many musical greats from John McLaughlin and Carlos Santana to Van Morrison and Herbert Grönemeyer. Despite his unique style varying between jazz, rock, punk and world music, he has always remained true to his musical and familial Roma roots as well as gypsy jazz. André Heller presents the guitar legend as part of his »Reflektor« festival with a very personal and historically important project.
Stojka’s father, Johann »Mongo« Stojka, was one of the few family members to survive the genocide of the Sinti and Roma by the Nazis, known as the Porajmos. As a 13-year old in the Buchenwald concentration camp, he wrote a little book with poems and drawings, which lay in various archives for eight decades, then reached the Holocaust Galleries of the Imperial War Museum in London. It was only there that it was attributed to Stojka – a minor sensation for the family.
The Austrian musician and journalist Robert Rotifer (FM4, Ö1, Deutschlandfunk Kultur, Rolling Stone) was there in January 2024 when Stojka saw the original copy of his father’s childhood creation for the first time. On the stage of the Elbphilharmonie, the two of them discuss the moving story of this remarkable discovery. Following this, Harri Stojka together with Claudius Jelinek will, in a furious acoustic guitar set, celebrate the immortality and vital courage of Romani culture in the face of discrimination and genocide in his favourite way – with the guitar under his agile fingers.
Please note: This event takes place in German.
Performers
Harri Stojka guitar
Claudius Jelinek guitar
Robert Rotifer talk
Programme
The concert takes place without a break.
Festival
Reflektor André Heller