Rarely a debut album by a young instrumentalist has evoked such enthusiastic reactions as quickly as “Schumann Kaleidoskop” by the Berlin-based, award-winning pianist Johanna Summer. On the album she uses music from Robert Schumann's "Kinderszenen" and "Album für die Jugend" as starting points for completely free improvisations, thus creating completely new music with every run. The fact that Johanna Summer takes on the supreme discipline, solo piano, for her debut shows that she is an artist who never goes the easy way.
"Johanna Summers music is full of imagination and without categories. Coming from European classical music, with a wonderful touch, she has created something perfect and unique. Beautiful music from A - Z. A new star in piano heaven,” writes piano icon Joachim Kühn about his young colleague Johanna Summer. And piano poet Malakoff Kowalski raves: “Scandalously good. I am thrilled and amazed by Johanna Summer. An artist who seems to fearlessly pursue her own music.”

Johanna Summer (piano)

Manz and Summer are two of the most outstanding talents to emerge from the young German jazz scene in recent years.
As a duo, their dialogue is intimate, open and scintil-lating.
The saxophonist (b. 2001) has shown above all through his band the Jakob Manz Project that he is a passionate exponent of contemporary jazz-rock, playing “amazingly sophisticated, powerful, soulful-funky music with groove” (Jazzthing).
In partnership with Johanna Sum m er (b. 1995), he also shows his mastery of the quiet and the lyrical. German jazz icon Joachim Kühn admires his young pianist colleague, and is full of praise for her “music, so full of fantasy and beyond category”.
With Summer, nothing is ever done for the sake of surface effect; it is all about the storytelling, and her fully-formed instincts for dramaturgy, dynamics and harmony. From the very first note, it is evident how perfectly matched Manz and Summer are. A magic and freedom emerge in the way they play together.
Inspired by the spirit of discovery, they have the courage to surrender to the moment and be totally spontaneous, fresh and carefree in their musicmaking. Any flaws just become part of the charm. Manz and Summer's “Gallery Concert” is a musical prologue: one can still only guess where and how this artistic relationship, still in its early stages, might develop.

Jakob Manz (Saxophone), Johanna Summer (piano)