NDR Bigband / Julius Gawlik / Geir Lysne

Born in Halle in 1997 and after a childhood in Landau in the Rhineland-Palatinate wine country, Gawlik couldn’t wait to get out into the world. He played in his school’s big band, then in the state jazz orchestra; he was a young student at the Mainz College of Music and then joined the national youth jazz orchestra. He chose to study in Berlin, where he soon attracted attention in the lively music scene as a highly versatile and dynamic sax player.

In his programme »Tauchen« (Diving), Gawlik aims to create a shimmering but also vaguely eerie parallel world in muted colours. Gawlik, who also took part in swimming competitions for a while, cites associations like warmth and haziness, peace and a certain uncertainty as his inspiration for »Tauchen«.

To give even clearer contours to the parallel world of his compositions, Gawlik adds two guest musicians from Berlin to the NDR Bigband. Percussionist Jim Black has been familiar with the NDR Bigband for years now, and ensures a very special balance between expressivity, variety of colour and kinetic energy. Gawlik’s own idea of the sound of this concert, on the other hand, is very closely linked to the playing of the Greek vibraphonist Evi Filippou. He finds exactly this shimmering blur in the sound textures of the vibraphone, located somewhere between the piano and the guitar, that he plans to make the focus of his music.