MO at Musikfest Bremen 2018

For the sixth year in a row, Metropole Orkest was present at Musikfest Bremen last weekend. In previous years the orchestra brought special guests to Bremen (and satellite locations in the region). Kurt Elling, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Laura Mvula, Gregory Porter, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Lalah Hathaway, Ibrahim Maalouf, Joshua Redman, Snarky Puppy and Christian Scott & Rik Mol – all under the helm of Jules Buckley. Reason for Musikfest Bremen to distinguish the Metropole Orkest and Jules with the Bremer Musikfest-Preis and to invite the orchestra for two special shows.

On Saturday September 8 there was the spectacular ‘double bill’ with Bokanté and Jacob Collier. The performance with world music supergroup Bokanté from band leader Michael League (Snarky Puppy) was a world premiere. The album ‘What Heat’ is released on September 29th and the orchestra and Bokanté are touring five cities in the Netherlands from that date: Eindhoven (29 Sept), Groningen (30 Sept), Amsterdam (1 Oct), Heerlen (2 Oct) and Utrecht (Oct. 3). Online magazine Written in Music was in Bremen and said: “A concert where so much happens musically as it did  this night is a rare occasion  Not just the songs, the performance but also those celestial arrangements in the masterful hands of the musicians of the Metropole Orkest – as always playing great – make for an unforgettable experience. There is so much going on that after listening to the very first song you are already longing to a second performance. Make sure you book tickets to go experience this in the Netherlands, you won’t want to miss this.”

A day later the MO Big Band traveled to Papenburg for a reprise of the concerts that the big band played in the Netherlands with singer China Moses. The Osnabrücker Zeitung reported the following: “Laughing, dancing, clapping, everything is allowed to the public, encouraged Moses, it should have fun. There was also plenty of applause for the successful orchestral solos. The jazz singer lived her songs in a voice that sometimes sounded throaty, sometimes cheered, sang of madness and deep pain, and sometimes of the great happiness of fulfilled love.”