EJC 2026 - Showcase-Programm Tag #3

The international jazz world is coming to Cologne as part of the European Jazz Conference 2026. Over 400 organizers, festivals, labels and industry representatives from all over Europe will meet in the city to discuss the future of jazz and improvised music.

A centerpiece of the conference is the public showcase festival: selected German ensembles present themselves live in front of an international audience of experts - and in front of you. For three days, you will experience some of the most exciting current voices in German jazz in special Cologne venues.

A rare opportunity to discover tomorrow's scene today.

Showcase Program Day #3
26.09.2026

16:15 - 16:45 | Concert hall
Rabih Lahoud MASAA

Masaa is Arabic for evening. The time when the contours are still visible, but much is already blurred in the twilight. This is also how the improvisational music of the quartet Masaa around the singer Rabih Lahoud, who was born in Lebanon in 1982 and has lived in Germany for a long time, can be described. With Reentko Dirks (guitar), Demian Kappenstein (drums) and Marcus Rust (trumpet), Lahoud celebrates the coming together that often takes place in the evening. It is the transformation of shared storytelling and reporting into a piece of music, it is an ignoring of borders - the imaginary ones between people, but also the concrete ones between countries. Together they bring together the classical music of Europe and the jazz of the USA, the connection between the two genres is in turn the meandering, melismatic melody of the Arabic maqam and the concise style of Lahoud's mother tongue, in which he sings the songs.

18:15 - 18:45 | Concert hall
NEON DILEMMA

Neon Dilemma is a collaborative band featuring Elias Stemeseder (piano) from Austria, who divides his time between Berlin and New York, and Robert Landfermann (bass) and Leif Berger (drums) from Cologne. Using acoustic and electronic instruments, three protagonists of jazz-based improvisational music develop a discourse on the possibilities of contemporary interplay in historical instrumentation. Concepts and ideas from different geographical and temporal origins are transformed into novel organizing principles that enable the ensemble to harmonize supposedly disparate musical elements. Delicate counterpoint and prancing polyrhythms sound effortlessly alongside raw towers of sound, vehement chord clusters and simple vocalism.

The concerts are partially seated. There is no entitlement to a seat.

The concert hall is wheelchair accessible | The JAKI can only be reached via a staircase and is therefore unfortunately not wheelchair accessible

Photography is not permitted.