»NICA exchange« at Cologne Jazzweek: Bonsai Panda

Guitarist Jelle Roozenburg and trombonist Louk Boudesteijn are the founders of the Dutch band Bonsai Panda. Their artistic vision: to make music that expresses today. In the interpretation of these young composers, this means writing genre-crossing pieces in which it is possible to find hints of their personal musical influences, while at the same time transcending them. Modern classical music, blues, rock and jazz are part of Roozenburg's and Boudesteijn's musical education. Based on these influences, something new emerges - improvising and sometimes electronically experimenting, the quintet creates a danceable, exalted sound that knows about its roots and at the same time makes them seem forgotten in the free flow of ideas. "Music with short-term memory" is what Bonsai Panda themselves say about it, and they want to stay in the memory for a long time with it.
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NICA exchange takes place in cooperation with the NICA artist development program and Cologne Jazzweek. The main focus of the concert series, initiated in 2022, is to create spaces of exchange for a young, experimental generation of musicians, to encourage networking and creative exchange, and at the same time, in the context of the festival, to initiate a connection with an audience open to discovery.