Concept: Patricija Maličev and Srećko Horvat

Critical Cabaret returns to Cankarjev dom. The series begins with a young celebrity sociologist Nikolaj Schultz, who is making his first-time visit to Slovenia. 

Born in 1990, Nikolaj Schultz is a Danish sociologist whose research focuses on the consequences of climate change for social theory. He co-authored On The Emergence of an Ecological Class (Polity Books, 2022) with acclaimed French philosopher Bruno Latour (1947–2022).

Critical praise 

Schultz is also the author of Land Sickness, a hybrid text he describes as an “auto-ethnographic essay” on the sociological and existential issues of the Anthropocene. In recent years, he has become one of the founders of the “new existentialism for the Anthropocene.”

These are just some of the issues that Croatian philosopher Srećko Horvat will address with Nikolaj Schultz
 

Brian Settles, tenor saxophone; Luke Stewart, double bass and composition; Gerald Cleaver, drums

US bassist Luke Stewart had already made his mark in the jazz landscape when in the time of COVID-19 the magazine Downbeat selected him as one of the '25 for the Future', key figures of the current generation who will determine the future of jazz. At the time he was a vital component of about 11 bands, including playing in the prominent trio of saxophonist James Brandon Lewis, being one half of the experimental duo Blacks' Myths, leading his own Exposure Quintet and working in the bands he co-started, Irreversible Entanglements and Trio 000 (incidentally, he previously appeared on our stage in the group Irreversible Entanglements alongside saxophonist James Brandon Lewis and the poetess Moor Mother at the 63rd Jazz festival Ljubljana in 2022). He has performed with artists including Archie Shepp, Hamiet Bluiett, Wadada Leo Smith, Miriam Parker and Ken Vandermark. Despite being involved in various projects, his musical and moral compass has always pointed in the same direction; to review everything – even the fundamental basis of how we perceive music, and some of the oppressive influences that have been imposed on those perceptions.

Luke Stewart grew up in Mississippi and played saxophone, violin and guitar as a child before switching to electric bass in high school. He studied International Relations in Washington DC, worked at the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, and, after college, co-founded CapitalBop, a non-profit dedicated to promoting jazz in the US capital. He hosted a weekly Jazz and Justice radio programme and wrote music reviews, thus co-shaping a vision of an independent and experimental music scene in Washington DC.

He is at home in a variety of musical settings, from avant-garde jazz and post-bop to art punk and rock. This time appearing at the CD Club with his current Silt Trio, the combo leans towards spiritual jazz in the tradition of Albert Ayler, which entails undertones of the blues from Stewart’s birthplace Mississippi. In composing all the songs fluidly, with free rhythms and grooves, Stewart gave ample improvisational room to his bandmates Brian Settles on saxophone and Gerald Cleaver on drums. The concert is to exemplify his musical idea: highlighting the non-hierarchical nature of free improvisational music and challenging the concept of the capital-C composer and how it affects our perceptions of music. 

The Cankarjevi torki concerts are available at a discounted price as part of the AD HOC subscription series.
 

Running time: The concert lasts approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes

Jure Pukl, saxophone; John Escreet, piano; Joe Sanders, double bass; Christian Lillinger, drums

A musical imitation of analogue artificial intelligence. Broken, technically sophisticated rhythms, modern lyrical bass lines, robust saxophone sound and unpredictable improvisation constitute the language of this new band of old friends. Their musical expression is a response to AI, as they insist that music is still at its most powerful, most beautiful, most wild, lyrical, and sensual when performed by musicians in the moment and before a live audience. After making their debut at the CD Club, the band leader, Jure Pukl, one of Slovenia’s musicians with the most successful international career, and his Analog AI are embarking on a tour to present the material from their forthcoming album. 


The Cankarjevi torki concerts are available at a discounted price as part of the AD HOC subscription series.

Kaja Draksler, composition, piano; Laura Polence, voice; Björk Níelsdóttir, voice; Ada Rave, tenor saxophone, clarinet; Ab Baars, tenor saxophone, clarinet, shakuhachi; George Dumitriu, violin, viola; Lennart Heyndels, double bass; Onno Govaert, drums, percussion

In her music-making, pianist and composer Kaja Draksler moves between composition and improvisation, drawing from a variety of styles, places and historical periods. The Octet is Draksler’s attempt to realize some of the musical ideas collected during her jazz and classical composition studies at the prestigious Conservatorium van Amsterdam, as well as the experiences she later gained as an active free improviser. The project Sčasoma / In Time brings together a colourful group of eight international musicians, hailing mainly from Amsterdam, where the octet was formed. 

The Octet premiered In Time, a new set of music inspired by Matsuo Basho’s poetry, in 2021 at Concertgebouw Brugge. Draksler later made new arrangements and added new pieces, to be premiered in Slovenia this coming April under the title Sčasoma / In Time, produced by the Sploh Institute.  

The Octet has so far released two highly acclaimed albums, both on Clean Feed. The first, a double album Gledalec, came out in 2017, and their second recording, Out for Stars, containing musical settings of poems by Robert Frost, was released in 2020.

The event is held in collaboration with the Sploh Institute's Razsrediščenja concert series and the Better Live project, co-funded by the EU Creative Europe programme.

The Cankarjevi torki concerts are available at a discounted price as part of the AD HOC subscription series.

Urban Planning Institute of the Republic of Slovenia, in collaboration with the Chamber of Architecture and Spatial Planning and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Spatial Planning of the Republic of Slovenia, is organizing a lecture and round table discussion featuring Professor Carlos Moreno on the topic of "The City of Short Distances."

Carlos Moreno is a professor and scientific director of the "Entrepreneurship – Territory – Innovation" chair at the Sorbonne University in Paris, France. His work focuses on the challenges faced by cities, regions, and metropolises in the 21st century. He leads the development of the Global Observatory of Proximities within the framework of the World Urban Forum in collaboration with organizations such as UN-Habitat, C40 Cities, the United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG), and other partners.

Professor Moreno is the creator of several urban development concepts, including the "Human Smart City" and the "30-Minute Territory." He gained international recognition in 2020 with the incorporation of his "15-Minute City" concept into the urban plan for Paris. This concept revolves around creating neighborhoods, towns, and urban areas where all essential needs are easily accessible within a 15-minute walk or bike ride. It represents an effort to transform car-centric urban environments through a combination of traditional spatial and transportation planning tools and modern approaches to digital accessibility.

His perspectives on urban development are highlighted in publications such as Urban Life and Proximity During COVID-19 (2020), The City of Freedom – From Global to the 15-Minute City (2020), and numerous scientific articles. For more information (in French): www.moreno-web.net.

At his lecture in Ljubljana, Professor Moreno will present current trends in urban planning and their potential for shaping settlements in Slovenia.

The lecture will be held in English.

Christian Kühn, guitar, vocal, composition; John Dikeman, tenor saxophone; Ziv Taubenfeld, bass clarinet; Esat Ekincioglu, bass, vocal; George Hadow, drums

Not only the band name is martial. In their „Jazz Rock Psychedelia", the band KUHN FU of guitarist, composer and master of ceremonies, Christian Kühn, turns everything through the improvisational wolf. Zappa meets cabaret, surf sounds and metal riffs ride the Chattanooga Choo-Choo, while Shakespeare, Brecht and Monty Python are the godfathers. 

KUHN FU has developed a unique and very idiosyncratic form of jazz rock ( or rock jazz ), between parody and a great seriousness with which they allude to musical blinders. The comedy that is always present in KUHN FU's music does not take away from its intensity.

2023 KUHN FU celebrated their 10th anniversary with a blast: the double album Jazz is Expensive/Live in Saalfelden and the Tantalos Nonet EP was released on Berthold Records and Tantalos was nominated for Deutsche Jazzpreis Composition of the year 2023. On October 25th 2024 they will release their sixth studio album Katastrofik Kink Machine on Berthold Records. KUHN FU has played over 400 concerts in 23 countries.

The Cankarjevi torki concerts are available at a discounted price as part of the AD HOC subscription series.

Each concert lasts 45 minutes. There are 15-minute breaks between concerts.

18.00
Mladi Raziskovalci VIII. – Neža Okorn – Intima
Neža Okorn, vocals; Maximilian Gerstbach, piano; Nina Feldgrill, bass; Jonas Zink, drums

Written mostly in 2024, Neža Okorn’s original compositions stem from a vulnerable inner core and the desire to capture feelings in different life situations – the music and lyrics reflecting the composer’s states of mind at a given point of time. For her latest project, Okorn recruited Austrian musicians she met as a student in Vienna. 

She started out on her musical career at the Grosuplje Music School, playing violin for six years, and then went on to study singing. After attending the Conservatory of Music and Ballet Ljubljana for three years, she decided to study jazz music at the Musik und Kunst Privatuniversität Wien. She regularly participated in seminars and festivals such as Jazzinty, Jazz Klinik and Jazz Festival Ljubljana, thus honing her skills with world-renowned artists such as Ben Wendel, Mike Moreno, Joe Sanders, Gregory Hutchinson, Jure Pukl, David Binney, Joel Ross, Femi Temowo and others. Her other passions are writing poetry, taking photos and painting.

19.00
Blaž Švagan – Absolute Candor
Blaž Švagan, tenor saxophone; Tjan Šoštarič, double bass; Arsenije Krstić, piano; Gaj Bostič, drums

After presenting his debut album, Sound in Time, at the 9th edition of the Snowdrops and Primroses Festival, the Maribor-based tenor saxophonist and composer Blaž Švagan now demonstrates his growth as an artist with a new release, Absolute Candor. For his quartet, Blaž Švagan recruited double bassist Kim Cass, pianist Marek Črnčec and drummer Kush Abadey and recorded the album in September 2024 in New York City. The New York ensemble brough an exciting modern sound to the new material, which also taps into death metal and science fiction. Occasionally breaking the rules of counterpoint, the complex structure also allows for a space of calm during the highly charged moments. The main track, Kolinahr, taking the form of a suite, illustrates the ritual of the transition towards absolute control over emotions and a commitment to logic. Švagan will present his latest release with his ‘Viennese’ band.
 

20.00
Lenart De Bock – A Plea for Tenderness 
Lenart De Bock, saxophone; Tomaž Gajšt, trumpet; Tomaž Zevnik, bass clarinet; Melani Popit, vocals; Rok Zalokar, Rhodes piano; Miloš Čolović, double bass; Sebastian Baumgartner, drums

Saxophonist and composer Lenart De Bock is finishing his studies in jazz saxophone at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz. A permanent member of Zhlehtet, he has released five albums with the collective over the last three years. With Miloš Čolović and Sebastian Baumgartner De Bock co-leads the trio Soothsayer, which released his first album, Paleontology, featuring his own original music in May 2024. Accompanied by an ensemble of distinguished musicians, De Bock will present A Plea for Tenderness, his most recent project and the first made entirely in his own name. His music is grounded in the tradition of spiritual jazz, but also draws on ethno and classical music.
 

21.00
Timotej Kotnik – Via Ad Aeterna 
Timotej Kotnik, trumpet; Vid Jamnik, vibraphone; Jure Praper, guitar; Marko Čepak Maki, guitar; Miha Koren, bass; Gaj Bostič, drums

Slovenian trumpeter and composer Timotej Kotnik's debut album, Via Ad Aeterna, unfolds like an eclectic modern mass, whose liturgy extols influences from Afrobeat to Balkan, all the while infused with the omnipresent, eternal spirit of Miles Davis. Progressing through the album’s six tracks, the jazz fusion weaves a narrative of redemption from start to triumphant finish. The elated music, punctuated with dynamic soli and melodic riffs, allows the musicians to express their own artistry.
Kotnik, a professor at Berklee College of Music in Valencia, has played and recorded with an array of prominent musicians, including Souad Massi, Peric Sambeat, Magos Herrera, Ivan "Melon" Lewis and Danilo Perez. He has toured in Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon, Finland and Norway, each of these varied experiences informing and deepening his own signature sound of playing and composing.  

The Cankarjevi torki concerts are available at a discounted price as part of the AD HOC subscription series.

Running time: 75 minutes

Sylvie Courvoisier, piano, Drew Gress, double bass, Kenny Wollesen, drums 

With each concert and new album, the vision of this celebrated trio becomes clearer – Sylvie Courvoisier, Drew Gress and Kenny Wollesen play music that is both intricately detailed and ambiguously wide open. The compositions of the celebrated Swiss pianist, a naturalised New Yorker for over twenty years, are rigorously organised, calling for ensemble precision, but the music is also mysterious, dreamy, profound, poignant and spacious. They also do that good stuff that makes us love jazz – the laid-back swinging, the synched playing when they make complex material sing, and the flying apart when the players explore it on their own.  

Winner of Germany’s International Jazz Piano Prize in 2022, Courvoisier has earned renown for balancing two distinct worlds: the richly detailed European chamber music and the grooving, unpredictable and engaging exuberance of the avant-jazz scene in New York City. 
NPR writes “Some pianists approach the instrument like it’s a cathedral. Sylvie Courvoisier treats it like a playground.”

In addition to her long-running trio, she is currently touring jazz festivals around the world with her newest ensemble, Chimaera, a sextet that exudes the ethereal symbolist dreaminess and fantastical images in the paintings of artist Odilon Redon, which inspired Courvoisier in composing music for the project.

The trio released their last two studio albums on the Swiss label Intakt. Their new compositions will be recorded live this coming spring; on a European tour whose first stop is Ljubljana. 

A fresh start for an established trio of jazz greats.

The Cankarjevi torki concerts are available at a discounted price as part of the AD HOC subscription series.

Running time: The performance lasts approximately 50 minutes

19:00 Jani Moder Solo – Traces and Places
Jani Moder: guitar, effects
World-class guitarist Jani Moder enjoys international renown and has long been considered one of Slovenia’s foremost music artists. He has contributed his musical ideas to more than 60 international releases of jazz, pop, and rock projects. The current solo project is his seventh album as a bandleader and composer of most of the songs. He recorded his debut songwriting album, Momentum, in 2008, followed five years later by Sky High Low Down and Jani Moder's Brain Blender: Abacus, both of which are inspired by mathematical patterns in music. He has released two albums with his regular band, Ecliptic, which regularly plays local and international stages, as well as another one with Ground Rituals. His latest release of original compositions, however, is a solo outing, Traces and Places, to be launched at the CD Club. It is an album of unique sonic postcards, an exploration of nylon-string solo guitar, underpinned by a meticulously selected palette of electronic effects. It combines traditional guitar skills with innovative sonic approaches and techniques.

Moder thus comments on his first solo album: "Playing solo guitar is always a challenge. You have to attend to the melody, harmony, rhythm, and hundreds of other factors. This album reflects my musical influences, from classical music, which was my first love at the age of seven, to jazz and experimental music. All the music and soundscapes were created in real time, with no overdubs, no loops, and no synthesizers, just straightforward guitar playing."

Jani Moder graduated with distinction from the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston and completed his master’s degree at the Academy of Music in Graz, Austria. He now teaches jazz guitar at the Academy of Music and the Conservatoire of Music and Ballet in Ljubljana. He has thus shared his thoughts on sincerity in music, which is most strongly expressed in solo performances: "When playing, you always have to be deeply involved and completely honest. No matter how you feel, you have to be ready to give everything you’ve got at a given moment. There are many factors that can make things go wrong. Before I go on stage, I tend to ask myself two simple questions: what the music means to me and how I want to deliver it to the audience. Then it all goes smoothly."

www.janimoder.com
Running time: The performance lasts approximately 45 minutes

20:00 Mind Tree
Matic Štemberger, piano; Peter Smrdel, bass; Žiga Smrdel, drums
When the young pianist Matic Štemberger had to form a trio for his graduation concert at the Conservatoire of Music and Ballet in Ljubljana, he opted for a rhythm section, which was the logical choice. He solicited the help of his bass professor, Peter Smrdel, and his brother, the renowned drummer Žiga Smrdel, both members of various bands (WCKD Nation, Vazz, Okustični, Smrdel Brothers Collective, etc.). All of them based in Ilirska Bistrica, the three musicians suddenly clicked on a musical, emotional and spiritual level and followed up their collaboration with a debut album, Catharsis (2023). The title track earned Štemberger the Jazzon Jury Prize for best Slovenian jazz composition, presented by the Jazzinty Festival. In their musical interplay, the artists seek to underline the power of community, assigning it priority over individualism, and their jazz compositions draw on the structures of classical music, reflecting the influence of genres close to their heart, from hip-hop and rock to metal. 

At the CD Club, Mind Tree will play their latest original material, which is to be released on a new album. Just a few days after the premiere of their new songs at the CD Club, the album will be recorded in concert at Vienna’s celebrated Porgy & Bess. 


The Cankarjevi torki concerts are available at a discounted price as part of the AD HOC subscription series.

Guests: Dr. Mirjam Milharčič Hladnik, Muanis Sinanović and the winners of the literary competition

Marking the 30th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide, the literary competition Srebrenica and the Unheard Stories of the Future highlights the importance of memory and creativity. Reflecting on the theme The Same Human: Words against Silence, young authors have explored human identity and universal issues such as violence, compassion and the search for justice.

After the awards ceremony – acknowledging works that best reflect human responsibility and solidarity, Mirjam Milharčič Hladnik will host a talk with Muanis Sinanović and the award winners. The event includes a public reading of the winning literary work, a young generation’s way of preserving the memory of Srebrenica.


The literary contest and event form part of the commemorative programme "8372 Living Memories" marking the 30th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide. The programme is implemented by the MKC Cultural and Educational Institute in cooperation with and through the support of partners. The semi-annual commemoration includes various activities aimed at preserving the memory of the victims and raising public awareness. For more information on the programme activities and the Srebrenica genocide please visit www.srebrenica.si.

The memorial events 8372 Living Memories marking the 30th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide is held under the auspices of the President of the Republic of Slovenia Dr. Nataša Pirc Musar.