Berlin’s Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra is made up of 18 young musicians with a multiplicity of musical and cultural roots. Founded in 2006, the formation is characterized by “courageous curiosity and openness for almost anything” (H. Sieverts) and plays the ensemble director and saxophonist Daniel Glatzel’s compositions with a high level of precision. The pieces are beyond jazz, new music, classical or pop and give space to every instrument in this unusual lineup.

“Where pop meets jazz and new music, genre borders meld: with its debut album, Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra advances into the unknown” (Die Zeit, 09): while the critics ascribed a pop perspective to Take Off, in the new program BUM BUM, electronic music and its re translation into the acoustic are more in the focus and assignments in the individual and collective playing fields are rearranged. The cuts between individual idioms and positions are sharper and the attacks more progressive. Coupled with the ensemble’s high level of lightness and their thrilling joy in playing, the Band enthuses the broadest of audiences with its high-energy, carefree approach.

At home in concert halls, jazz clubs and – during common concerts with the band The Notwist– big venues and pop-festivals, this unique hybrid of big band, chamber ensemble and progressive rock orchestra is an event that mixes up and re-orders old expectations and habits.

The Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra has been celebrated by critics (Süddeutsche Zeitung, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Die Zeit, Neue Zürcher Zeitung …) and has played among others at the Jazzfest Berlin, Philharmonie/Berlin, Volksbühne Berlin, Kampnagel Hamburg, Paradi-so/Amsterdam, German JazzMeeting/Bremen, Gasteig Munich, Philharmonie Cologne, Porgy & Bess/Vienna, Dresdner Jazztage, JazzBaltica, Gare du nord/Basel and toured in South Korea, Kazakhstan and South America.

„…Daniel Glatzel has formed a unique ensemble that almost succeeds in fitting a square peg into a round hole. It’s music that is young rebellion but incredibly wise in its realization, completely exhausts the range of instruments’ potential while creating a clearly defined group sound without making the addition of just one instrument superfluous; and is, above all, profound and serious but simultaneously as funny as anything found in the field of serious music.”
(Süddeutsche Zeitung, 5.8.2010)


Orchestra:
Daniel Glatzel (composition, clarinets, saxophones), Oliver Roth (flutes), Laure Mourot (flutes), Sebastian Hägele (bassoon), Johannes Schleiermacher (saxophones, flute), Ritsche Koch (trumpet), Johannes Lauer (trombone), Karl Ivar Refseth (vibraphone, percussion), Jörg Hochapfel (synthesizer, sampler), Anna Viechtl (harp), Kalle Zeier (guitar), Andreas Lang (contrabass, electric bass), Andi Haberl (drums), Matthew Lonson (violin), Grégoire Simon (violin), Johannes Pennetzdorfer (viola, recorder), Martin Stupka (viola, recorder), Isabelle Klemt (cello)

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