In the organizer's words:

CURATED BY CHRISTIAN LILLINGER

January 10, 2026 | Konzerthaus Berlin

6:15 pm Curator's Talk with Christian Lillinger | 7 pm start of concert

Zentrum-under-construction.berlin: The fourth stopover of the project from January 8 to 10, 2026 at Konzerthaus Berlin shows the extensive possibilities that the creation of a center for jazz and improvised music in Berlin would offer: STOP OVER 4 - Perspectives.

Ingrid Laubrock, Julia Hülsmann and Christian Lillinger are three renowned musicians who have each curated a concert evening with their highly personal perspectives on jazz and improvised music. The line-up for all three events has now been finalized. Before each concert, there will be an introductory discussion with the curators about their perspectives and the curated program.

SET 1

Kaja Draksler & Irena Z. Tomažin

Kaja Draksler, Trboje: piano, composition

Irena Z. Tomažin, Ljubljana: voice, performance

Kaja Draksler and Irena Z. Tomažin share a deep passion for poetry and sound. Their artistic collaboration began in Pittsburgh, where they developed an audiovisual performance for City of Asylum during the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the course of their collaboration, their artistic closeness grew - especially during a project inspired by the poetry of Slovenian poet Anja Zag Golob. Their contribution to STOP OVER 4 is their first live performance together as a duo.

Draksler and Tomažin draw from a variety of influences - poetry, performance, traditional folk music, jazz, the art collective New Slovenian Art and music theater. The duo moves through soundscapes in which sound, noise, unfinished gestures, halting words and emotional fragments collide. Their music explores the spaces in between where these elements overlap, creating an acoustic world that thrives on the immediacy of unspoken feelings, missed encounters and the haunting beauty of the imperfect.

SET 2

Elias Stemeseder Trio

Elias Stemeseder, Berlin / New York City: piano

Henry Fraser, New York City: double bass

Kayvon Gordon, New York City: drums

Based on transcriptions and analyses of antiphonal chants, dance forms and instrumental pieces, the Elias Stemeseder Trio creates a protofolkloric cosmos. Cultural artefacts - brought into a new light and written down through the prism of a contemporary understanding - form the cornerstones of a program that reflects musical archetypes across time and region. Structural rigor and simple songfulness, virtuoso precision work and mantric circling, compositional diversity and spontaneous design are condensed into a musical language whose questions are negotiated in improvisational discourse by an ensemble trained in a variety of disciplines - jazz, drone, early and new music as well as Afro-Cuban batá.

SET 3

Lorenzo Soulès and Ensemble Apparat perform Iannis Xenakis' Eonta & Elliott Carter's 90+

Lorenzo Soulès, Cologne: piano

Ensemble Apparat:

Mathilde Conley, Berlin: trumpet

Paul Hübner, Berlin: trumpet

Weston Olencki, Berlin: trombone

Johannes Lauer, Berlin: trombone

Till Künkler, Berlin: trombone

Max Murray, Berlin: conducting

In 1963-1964, Iannis Xenakis wrote his work Eonta for piano and brass ensemble, which was groundbreaking with its powerful energy, mathematical complexity and expansive sound design. The composition is based on stochastic processes and symbolic logic and requires extreme virtuosity and physical presence, especially from the pianist. The piano part is explosively percussive, characterized by dense cluster chords and fast passages that seem superhuman. Although completely different in scope and style, Elliott Carter's 90+ - much like Eonta - embodies a rigorous, intellectually driven approach to composition that pushes the boundaries of rhythm, texture and form.

Lorenzo Soulès lends both works a powerful clarity with his characteristic precision and virtuosity. His interpretations reveal the architectural complexity of the compositions. The brass ensemble Apparat navigates the scores with intensity and coordination, bringing them to life with a bold, expansive presence.

SET 4

HPRIZM
HPRIZM, New York City: synthesizers, sampler, tape

HPRIZM is the pseudonym of Kyle Austin, also known as High Priest and one of the founding members of the avant-garde hip-hop group Antipop Consortium. Trained as a visual artist, he operates at the intersection of poetry, hip-hop and experimental arts. As a composer, producer and media and sound artist, Austin breaks genre boundaries to create immersive, conceptual works rooted in Afrofuturism, urban memory and meditative practice. HPRIZM creates a sound of sparse, fragmented beats, microtonal or detuned textures, field recordings and overlapping atmospheres. Instead of melodies, the focus is on texture, space and the decay of sound; an emotional and spatial depth emerges from repetition, silence and raw signal processing.