Common Ground plays music that pushes into new areas, preserving the commitment to expand feel, harmony and pulse. Matthias Akeo Nowak's new album ORIMUSIC features compositions of all four band members, inventing sound narratives with high intensity and a sovereign, calm fire.

1989: the wall falls – freedom at last! What could be more obvious than a German/ German jazz band. The musicians claim it as the first German/ German jazz band, as contact among them already existed before the wall came down. Not the form, but the musicians and their being are the quintessence - the form adapts. Every note, a statement. It's about creativity and improvisation. 1992 is the time. 30 years after the fall of the wall, much has changed in Germany. The mood is completely different. It is no longer a time of change and exploration, and now uncertainty and radicalization dominate. The music sounds different, but remains just as brilliant. Polyphonic melodies and rhythms characterize the sound. Jazz becomes even more of a home. The metamorphosis succeeds! The music fits into the new era.

Himself a viola player, Adrian Jones constructed his six-part concerto Nybyggnan, a folk music saxophone concerto in chamber music format, using a set of newly written tunes in a folk idiom imbued with elements from jazz, heavy rock and classical music. Written for chamber forces it also forges a bridge between the folk and chamber music scenes. Nybyggnan was composed for Daniel Reid, a saxophonist and something of a pioneer in Swedish folk music. Also heard are Mr. Reid’s own Rings on Water as well as Adrian Jones arrangement of the traditional Tingsmarschen (‘The District Court March’).

Agoraphilia is an invitation to raise awareness and love for open spaces, spaces of Being and visual spaces. This is the reason why this work offers a strong synergy between musicians, eras, repertoires and literary hymns, responding to the particular situation of closure and forced introversion caused by the pandemic events. The Duo Agorà, formed by Domenico Luciano on Saxophones and Eugenio Catone on Piano, was born in 2008 with the aim of exploring new repertoires, starting from sharing the urban sound space and from the sensorial message that the languages of new music bring to the modern society. Defined by the critics as two courageous pioneers (criticaclassica.it) and exceptional virtuosos (Novi List), they propose original works composed by living artists, but also pieces composed by themselves or dedicated to them, using different types of saxophones and electronic instruments during their concerts. They received numerous awards in international chamber music competitions including TIM competition, Rovere d'Oro Award, Zinetti Award.