British rock meets afro-sound from Gambia. The sound of a nation with no borders, a place that needs no passport, no visa. This is where the deep roots of African music nourish the raw electric groove of rock and roll, where Gnawa spirit rhythms come up against Chicago distortion, where snaky N’awlins rhythm has a West London howl, and a Sahel Wail.
Razorlight play Avo Session
Razorlight is one of today’s best Britpop bands. After his earlier incarnation as a solo acoustic singer songwriter, supporting bands like The Libertines, bandleader Johnny Borrell fashioned Razorlight as an intense electric rock band with catchy songs and took the band out on the road.
Mary J. Blige plays Avo Session
With over 40 million albums sold worldwide, nine Grammys and just as many albums not to mention the unequivocal title ‘Queen of Hip Hop Soul’: Mary J. Blige is a true diva in the best sense of the word. Her music is as big as her personality and like any true diva this native New Yorker is also a style icon.
Justin Nozuka plays Avo Session
The Canadian singer-songwriter, Justin Nozuka is an exceptional talent. On his debut album ‘Holly’, which has been released in Europe, Canada, Japan and the United States, he was compared with such greats as Marvin Gaye, Jeff Buckley and Ben Harper – even though Nozuka was only 19 years old at the time. His follow up album ‘You I Wind Land And Sea’ was released in 2010 and it proofs that Justin just got even better.
Sheryl Crow plays Avo Session
On her album, ‘1000 Miles From Memphis’, Sheryl Crow takes us back to her formative years in Kennet, Missouri, 100 miles from Memphis, where, as a little girl in the sixties, she learned the honesty and simplicity that would become the foundation of her worldwide success. Her music was shaped by the sounds of her hometown: bluesy soul, with just a touch of Motown. Sheryl’s retrospective is a continuation of that successful career. At the Avo Session she performs her legendary hits as well as songs from her new album.
Joy Denalane plays Avo Session
The daughter of a South African father and a German mother, Joy Denalane, was named the ‘Queen of German Soul’ by MTV, but her musical vision and stylistic diversity are more important to her than chart success. Good music runs deep.
Carlos Kleiber – I Am Lost To The World
Carlos Kleiber, the eccentric and reclusive conductor was a fabled perfectionist who was known as much for the rarity of his appearances as for the brilliance of his interpretations. Georg Wübbolt’s film sheds light on the relationships with his family, including his father and mother, traces the development of Kleiber’s career and covers the ‘mythologizing’ that started during the lifetime of the maestro.
Komeda – A Soundtrack for A Life
Krzysztof Komeda – Jazz pianist and film composer. With compositions like the lullaby for “Rosemary´s Baby” from Roman Polanski, Komeda succeeded in writing his own chapter in the history of soundtracks. As a Jazz musician he gained cult-status in Poland. As a film composer he made it into Hollywood’s first ranks. But there his career came to a sudden end. The film essay „KOMEDA – A SOUNDTRACK FOR A LIFE“ is a reflection on Komeda’s soundtracks, which changed the common film scores forever. It is a contemporary document about the attitude to life in a time of social, political and cultural change after war, about work and exodus of Polish artist in the 50s and 60s. Directors who worked with Komeda and who are also friends will talk about him: Roman Polanski, Jerzy Skolimowski, Henning Carlsen and Andrzej Wajda. His wife, Zofia Komeda, and his sister, Irena Orlowska, remember him.
Inside The Infernal Comedy
John Leake, who spent 3 years researching the Unterweger case in minute detail (‘entering Hades’), in conversation with Michael Sturminger
the author and director of the Infernal Comedy. Martin Haselböck, the conductor of the Vienna Academy Orchestra, illuminates the beginnings and musical conception of this utterly new form with classical 18th century arias and the fate of a 20th century serial killer to create a profound evening of musical theatre. The truth and nothing
but the truth.
Antonio Vivaldi – The Red Priest
This fascinating film tells the exciting life-story of the world-renowned composer Antonio Vivaldi, the redhaired priest. Famous artists and musicologists describe the great importance of Vivaldi’s music for our time. Highlight of the film is the terrific world premiere of Vivaldi’s great choral work ‘Dixit Dominus’, which was attributed to his contemporary Baldassare Galuppi for more than 200 years. Recorded at original locations in Venice, Vienna and Dresden and others.