Cinema Tribuna: "Sarah Chaksad" in Ilanz

Line up:
Sarah Chaksad (comp, as, ss)
Fabian Willmann (ts, bcl, cl)
Simon Heggendorn, violin
Ronny Spiegel, violin
Vincent Brunel, viola
Sebastian Braun, cello

For over ten years, Sarah Chaksad has been enriching the European jazz scene with larger to large formations. The Swiss alto and soprano saxophonist and composer is internationally acclaimed for her productions and concerts. "The concert was a real triumph. Chaksad's writing and arranging is first class and the enthusiasm shown by the band was very evident," Jazzwise noted in January 2023 about a concert in Iceland. "Sarah Chaksad's pieces skilfully juggle with insistent motifs, subdued sounds, gentle layering," said Jazz Thing 2019, and the Jazzpodium highlighted her "cunning compositional tricks with numerous motivic cross-references within the pieces, development-like theme processing and finely chiselled, through-composed backgrounds of the improvisations". The Weltwoche attested to Chaksad "her own, subtle musical signature" and referred to George Gruntz and Mathias Rüegg, the magazine Rondo praised: "Her strength is differentiated, well-worked out, carefully considered scores, in which she plays virtuosically with the timbres of her formation."

Sarah Chaksad now surprises with new compositions and arrangements for string quartet and saxophone - a project called WINTER SONGS, which presents music that fits into the winter season and the sometimes cold, gloomy months from November to February. The musicians will play their own compositions by Sarah Chaksad, as well as arrangements of selected winter songs.