Improviser

The city of Moers has a town musician since 2008. The improviser in residence enriches and enlivens the cultural live in the city and the whole region, connects people, invites to mini concerts at his home, works with the Schlosstheater and of course presents one big project at the festival stage. Every improviser has the freedom to distinctively shape his one year residency and put his own mark on the city. Angelika Niescier rocked the club scene of Moers, Hayden Chisholm took a walk with a bag pipe and kilt down Steinstraße, Carolin Pook formed a youth orchestra, Simon Rummel founded singing groups and built instruments, Ingrid Laubrock invited her New York friends to the Lower Rhine, John-Dennis Renken enchanted with children's music and Josephine Bode with light installations… There is no limit to the improvisers fantasy and creativity. This results in an every year curiosity: the debut concert concert of the new artists is the highest frequented of the season!

The improviser in residence program is made possible with the generous support of Kunststiftung NRW, Stadt Moers and moers festival.

moers festival is happy to introduce one of the most exciting voices of the bubbling scene of Chicago: Tomeka Reid is the 16th improviser in residence!

She will be enriching and enlivening the cultural live in the city of Moers and the whole region for one year.

Reid is from Washington D.C. and went to Chicago for studying where she met one of the most vibrating music scenes in the world. Names like Art Ensemble of Chicago, the AACM, Anthony Braxton or Muhal Richard Abrams speak for themselves.

Here she could bloom and says about herself that she only became an actual musician in the metropolis at Lake Michigan. Soon she began working with the names mentioned above, e.g. in Braxton’s ZIM Sextet

Her instrument alone, the cello, shows that she is not only at home in the field of Jazz but also in contemporary composed music. As a crossover musician he creates multifarious music.

She has her own special feeling for groove and a special colouring in her harmonic and melodic.

Tomeka strongly identifies with many artists of her adopted home town: besides all love of experimentation there is always also a focus on origin and tradition especially of the Afro-American art. Or, as the motto of the Art Ensemble states: Great Black Music from the ancient to the future!

Reid is a cosmopolitain, is fluent in five languages and played and taught around the globe. Currently she is working on a project with Ethiopian artists. In 2019, Reid was appointed Darius Milhaud Distinguished Visiting Professor at the prestigious Mills College in Oakland, CA.

We are looking forward to an extraordinary sound artist, that already brings numerous ideas for her one-year residency to the table.