UK Jazz News

Sparks & Visions Festival 2025

Theater Regensburg, Bavaria, 24-26 January.

corto.alto at Sparks&Visions 2025. Photo Peter Hundert

The full-hearted roar of a capacity audience in Theater Regensburg is something special. The theatre is a horseshoe-shaped opera house modelled after La Scala in Milan. It is at the heart of a cultural city with UNESCO world heritage status, charming streets with a remarkable number of independent cafes. But when everyone in the space, on all of its levels forgets about being genteel, just gets up on their feet at the end of a concert…and decides that the time has come to show their appreciation for great musicians who have descended from far-flung parts of Europe to their city… and to show it quite so LOUD and quite so strong…it definitely stays in the mind.

At this year’s festival I clocked that joyous noise twice. And both times – curiously – it was for bandleaders wielding trombones.

Robinson Khoury Trio. Photo credit Elmar Petzold

On the opening night, I wasn’t expecting it and it was a glorious surprise. The performance by Robinson Khoury’s trio with drummer Anissa Nehari and keyboardist Léo Jassef made music and conveyed an emotion and a passion which truly connected with the willing Regensburg crowd. Khoury is in the running for the Prix Django Reinhardt for French musician of the year, his explorations of his Lebanese heritage are highly affecting, and has a presence and charisma on stage which make it almost impossible to believe that he is not yet thirty. He also steps up to the plate in much larger contexts like Metropol Orkest, but this trio is personal, special, something he clearly gives his complete heart and soul to. There were a lot of reviewers covering the festival, and my betting is that this will (or ought to be?) the critic’s top pick.

The other band which completely won over the crowd was Glasgow’s corto.alto, led by Liam Shortall on trombone and electric bass. This band consists of five graduates of the jazz course founded by Tommy Smith at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, and clearly all like each other and enjoy working together. Drummer Graham Costello is another powerful presence. We hear a completely different side of Fergus McCreadie to the close-to-nature and close-to-folk world of his trio. But above all what is remarkable about corto.alto is the unity and empathy in a band which lives its high-wire jazz and its spiky rhythms, but also its sampling and its Kendrick Lamarr…and does it all with panache and massive enthusiasm.

Curtain call for corto.alto. Photo credit Elmar Petzold

They were just two of the eight acts which appeared at this year’s third Regensburg Sparks & Vision Festival. The event, held in late January has risen in stature with a rapidity, confidence and assuredness which are quite remarkable. There was a first edition just two years ago, in 2023. A nomination for the German Jazz Prize happened in 2024 in response to the second, which must be some kind of record. How does credibility and belief build quite so fast? One important factor here is that the festival received a major stamp of quality from Bayerischer Rundfunk demonstrated a justifiable belief in the quality of the programming, and has now recorded every concert of all the first three festivals. And there was more good news this January: at the opening formalities for this year’s third edition, the city’s Mayor Gertrud Maltz-Schwarzfischer confirmed that there will definitely be a fourth edition in 2026.

Was this festival simply born under a lucky star? Not really. There are many reasons for its success. The venue is one, but the festival also has a remarkable director, Anastasia Wolkenstein, who had the vision to bring programming of quality and an international – and particularly a European – dimension to the city. Wolkenstein’s many-sided involvement in the music business is somehow always accompanied by her undimmed sense of wonder and curiosity. I noted her remark in one of her onstage introductions: “I am genuinely curious how the energy is going to flow in this one.”

Of the eight concerts this year, I have written a separate review of the first, which showcased the talents of a group of younger musicians (link below), and was unable to attend the last, a performance by Marcin Wasilewski’s trio.

I really enjoyed the trio of Greek bassist Petros Klampanis, Israeli drummer Ziv Ravitz and Estonian pianist Kristjan Randalu on the first night. All three brought balance, complementarity and real quality. Each of these musicians has the benefit of maturity, and to hear them interacting and leading each other to achieve real greatness was totally inspiring. It was the pianist above all who caught my ear in the Polish quartet O.N.E. Kyiv-born Kateryna Ziabliuk is a subtle and clever musician. In German/Afghan singer Simin Tander’s set I was mesmerised by the way in which bassist Björn Meyer kept a wonderful flow going. And there was a real joy and fantastic empathy in the way North Sea String Quartet combined compositions and improvisation.

Sparks & Visions is a young festival with a very clear sense of what it needs to do – and does it superbly.

North Sea String Quartet. Photo credit Elmar Petzold

Sebastian was the guest of Sparks&Visions Festival

Share this article:

Advertisements

Post a comment...

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Wednesday Morning Headlines

Receive our weekly email newsletter with Jazz updates from London and beyond.

Wednesday Breakfast Headlines

Sign up to receive our weekly newsletter