Monday, March 24, 2025: F.I.M. meets Copenhagen scene / The Community

In the spirit of networking, the F.I.M. annually invites a national/international initiative of improvised music to a musical exchange. This year, the F.I.M. is inviting musicians from the Copenhagen scene to “The Community”.

In five formations, 4 musicians from “The Community” will meet 4 musicians from the F.I.M.

The Community / Copenhagen

• Maria Dybbroe - Altosax, Clarinet
• Nana Pi Aabo-Kim - Tenorsax and preparations
• Jonathan Aardestrup - Double bass
• Halym Aabo-Kim - Drums

• Ulrike Schwarz - Saxophon, Flute
• Liz Kosack - Keyboard
• Marcel Daemgen - Electronics
• Devin Gray - Drums

+ Guest musicians

Tickets Box office: 15 €, reduced 12 €, Kulturpass 1€
Advance booking: 12 € plus fees here!

Maria Dybbroe (f. 1993), is a very active improviser, composer, saxophonist, and clarinetist living in Oslo and Copenhagen, who has released 9 albums in her own name, and contributed to more than 20 albums of others. She is the leading force of the double-trio Caktus which gave her the nomination as ‘Composer of the Year’ at the Danish Critic’s Prize ‘Steppeulven’ in 2020, as well as the nomination ‘Album of the year’ at Danish Music Awards Jazz. In 2021 she also won the title ‘New Name of the Year’ at Danish Music Awards Jazz with the collective band Maraton. Maria Dybbroe has a distinct voice on the saxophone and is a strong improvisational force both dedicated to working collectively in bands creating original music with; Køs, Bloomers, Dynastiet, Orsa, JUMP, Sidechains and Coriolis, but she is also an active free improvising soloist travelling around the world playing solo or in adhoc-constellations. As a soloist she has been featured in various ensembles from Danish Radio Bigband to Kasper Staub Trio, and as a sidewoman she is part of the Copenhagen Clarinet Choir, Aspen4 and Jacob Anderskovs ‘Spirit of the Hive’. Most of her work is centered around improvisation and she collaborates with dancers, poets, electronic musicians and pop-artists, among others she has played with; Pia Tafdrup, P.O. Jørgens, Pat Thomas, Steve Beresford, John Edwards, Marilyn Mazur and Bon Iver.

Nana Pi Aabo-Kim is a saxophonist, composer and conductor from Copenhagen who mainly works within the experimental jazz scene. She has developed her own unique vocabulary on the saxophone using objects and extended techniques. In addition to playing the saxophone, she is known for conducting improvisation with her music sign language "Extemporize", for which she received the P8 Jazz Award "Årets Ildsjæl" in 2020. Her latest release with "Tactical Maybe" (Barefoot Records, 2022) has received reviews such as "If anyone is wondering what exciting free jazz in 2022 is, just open your ears and your other senses to Tactical Maybe - they sure have served up something that could be the answer to that very question." - Tor Hammerø. In 2021, her quintet "Nezelhorns" was nominated for "Jazz Release of the Year" at "DMA Jazz" for their release "Sentiment" (Barefoot Records, 2021).

Halym Kim is a drummer and composer based in Copenhagen. He works in the context of experimental, free improvised and contemporary music and is active in Denmark and Germany. In his own music he is researching for new possibilities to transfer elements from the traditional Korean music into the contemporary experimental music. To do so he was studying at RMC from 2021 to 2023 for his artistic research called "Gravity and Breathing as an Integrated Musical Frame". Therefore he is also taking lessons in traditional Korean music and traveling to South Korea to extend his musical language in experimental and improvising music. Besides performing as an experimental and free improvising musician he also performs traditional Korean music in Europe.

Jonathan Aardestrup is a free-spirited bass player who is always seeking to break new ground in denial of pointless repetition, leading to a continuous investigation in composed original music, improvisation and the correlation of the two. In the past years he played with Makoto Sato, Radim Hanousek, Louis Moholo-Moholo, Laura Toxværd, Signe Emmeluth, Niels Mestre, Paul Wacrenier, Michal Wroblewski, Marie Takahashi, P.O. Jørgens, Andreas Røysum, Maria Dybbroe, José Lencastre among many others.

Liz Kosack is a synthesizer player and mask maker based in Berlin. She has performed with countless collaborators in experimental music scenes in Europe, New York, and worldwide. With mask and visual works, she creates and supersedes issues of identity. As a synthesist, her singular work pursues organic expression, pushing the capabilities of electronic instruments. She received the prestigious SWR Jazzpreis in 2019. Her website is zardkom.com.
Some of her numerous projects include: VAX w/ Devin Gray and Patrick Breiner, MeoW! w/ Jim Black, Cansu Tanrikulu, Dan Peter Sundland, Nick Dunston's Skultura w/ Cansu Tanrikulu, Eldar Tsalikov, Mariá Portugal, The Hero of Warchester w/ Anna Webber and Nathaniel Morgan, trio w/ Farida Amadou and Dag Magnus Narvesen, duo w/ Okkyung Lee, trio with Ute Wassermann and Andrea Parkins, SPOILER w/ Julia Reidy, Samuel Hall and Brad Henkel, The Liz w/ Liz Allbee and Korhan Erel, etc. She also plays with Andrew D’Angelo, Tony Malaby, Kevin Shea, Gebhard Ullmann, Steve Heather, Kyungmi Lee, and many others.

Ulrike Schwarz is at home in the Frankfurt improvisation scene as a saxophonist and flautist. She plays jazzy improvised music and original compositions with Uwe Oberg (p), Carl Ludwig Hübsch (tuba) and Mariá Portugal (dr), among others. She has been performing in the Rhine-Main region with the trio USU Sauer|Schwarz|Schiffelholz since 2018. She is also on stage as a performer in interdisciplinary projects, including the Fluxus project with the art.ist collective in Wiesbaden, as a member of the performance collective PingPengPerformances and as a musician in Lea Walde's piece “TOUCH” at Landungsbrücken Frankfurt.
In addition to her work as a musician, she is active in jazz education and research. Ulrike Schwarz teaches at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts, including free improvisation, the basics of jazz education in the master's degree course in big band and jazz with children. In her children's jazz format Jump into Jazz, which she developed together with Corinna Danzer, she recently took to the stage of the hr Sendesaal as a presenter. She was involved in the conception and realization of the ImproCamp for Kids 2023 for the Jazzfest Berlin.
Ulrike Schwarz researches aesthetic criteria for improvised music in children and presents her findings at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics and at the Jazz Education Network Conference in Atlanta, USA, among others.

Marcel Daemgen, born 06.01.1965 in Frankfurt am Main, has been a freelance composer, producer of song arrangements, stage and film music and live musician in the field of improvised music since 1989.
Since the mid-1980s, numerous concert and stage projects in Germany and abroad, including with Sophie Agnel, Oliver Augst, Christine Bürkle, Rüdiger Carl, Michaela Ehinger, Jörg Fischer, Stephen Galloway, Alfred 23 Harth, Keiji Heino, Sven-Åke Johansson, Schorsch Kamerun and Mette Rasmussen ... at the following venues: Künstlerhaus Mousonturm-, Alte Oper and Bockenheimer Depot-Frankfurt, Sophiensaele-Berlin, DLF-Kammermusiksaal-Köln, FFTDüsseldorf, TR-Warsaw, Wien Modern im Künstlerhaus-Wien, Ars Electronica-Linz, Steirischer Herbst-Graz, Fylkingen-Stockholm, Knitting Factory-New York City, San Juan Evangelista-Festival-Madrid, DOM-Moscow ...
In co-production with Deutschlandfunk and together with Oliver Augst, the new album “1945 before/after” was released in fall 2024.
Commissioned music for ballet, theater and film.
2018 Youth Theater Prize KARFUNKEL of the City of Frankfurt am Main.

Devin Gray

Devin Gray (1983) was born and bred in Maine, Gray became a New Yorker in 2006 and currently splits his time between Berlin and Brooklyn. He has worked alongside such jazz sages as saxophonists David Liebman and Gary Thomas, and his other collaborations include the 2020 album 27 Licks, which documents Gray’s longtime duo with close friend and master drummer Gerald Cleaver. Recent global appearances have been with his Melt All the Guns trio with Ralph Alessi & Myslaure Augustin at the Berlin Jazz Festival, a project with Tim Berne and Michael Formanek, and a trio with Zoh Amba and Micah Thomas. As a sideman, Gray has worked with Nate Wooley, Tony Malaby, Andrea Parkins, Satoko Fujii, Marc Ducret and Eve Risser, among many others. In summer 2023, the drummer released his first solo drums and electronics recording Most Definitely while extensively touring in Europe and North America.