Zafraan stands for music that reflects today’s life, today’s society, today’s reality in all its facets. In interaction with other art forms, Zafraan observes, explores and processes what surrounds us: the people, the events, nature, the technologies, the normalities and the absurdities of today.
The group, which consists of ten permanent members from Spain, France, New Zealand, Australia and Germany, was formed in Berlin in 2009 and plays current repertoire that is covered by the core line-up. In collaboration with conductors like Nodoka Okisawa, Manuel Nawri or Titus Engel, with artists like Chiharu Shiota, Rimini Protocol, Aneesh Pradhan, Bahauddin Dagar, Julia Rommel, Alexej Tchernyi and Wu Zhi, with composers like Sarah Nemtsov, Cathy Milliken , Zeynep Gedizlioğlu, Uday Krishnakumar, François Sarhan, Samir Odeh-Tamimi, Yoav Pasovsky, Elena Mendoza, Stefan Keller, Lula Romero, Johannes Schöllhorn and Eres Holz push themselves to the limit, take risks and create something new.
A trademark of the ensemble are dramaturgically cleverly designed programs, but also staged concerts or immersive formats in which there is a connection with art movements such as theater, performance, installation and dance.
In the field of musical theater, the ensemble brought Hèctor Parra’s “Hypermusic Prologue” to the stage in 2013 at the Sophiensaelen Berlin and the Gare du Nord Basel. This was followed by pieces by Ulrich Rasche in Stuttgart as well as the Sophiensaelen, Kampnagel Hamburg and Frankfurt. The ensemble has also been engaged by the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Berlin State Opera and the Hamburg Opera. In 2015, with Aliénor Dauchez, the ensemble presented the immersive concert format “Démesure” in the former silent film cinema Delphi Berlin with works by Franck Bedrossian, Christophe Bertrand, Raphaël Cendo, Martin Grütter, Johannes Kreidler, Sarah Nemtsov and Alexander Schubert. In 2018, Evan Gardner’s “Whole Body Like Gone” (director: Ulrike Schwab) premiered at the Radialsystem Berlin.
The concert program “Klangrede” with commissioned compositions by Johannes Boris Borowski, Eres Holz and Stefan Keller was performed under the direction of Titus Engel in 2016 at the Ultraschall Festival Berlin, SWR ars nova and the Impuls Festival Saxony-Anhalt and also as a studio production in Baden-Baden recorded. The concert experiment “alif”, which premiered at MaerzMusik, was created with Samir Odeh-Tamimi, Stefan Goldmann and Chiharu Shiota.
In 2017, the ensemble started the “Match Cut Festival” at the Musikbrauerei Berlin, which had its second edition in 2019 at the Volksbühne Berlin. The ensemble explored the musical interfaces with adjacent genres together with the audience, who were involved by Invisible Playground, and with groups such as the Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra, Squintaloo, Babylon Orchestra or Phillip Sollmann and John Gürtler. The third edition will take place in June 2022 together with Brandt Brauer Frick and the Academy for Early Music Berlin.
The ensemble took its tenth anniversary as an opportunity to hold joint concerts with other groups such as L’Itiniraire, Court-Circuit and KNM Berlin. From September 2020 to October 2021, the ensemble created a ten-part concert series that presented important Berlin premieres since A. Schönberg’s “Pierrot Lunaire” and placed them in artistic contexts. In 2022, the ensemble curated its own series “ACUD Sessions”, which focused on F. Sarhan’s LOGBOOK entries. The card game “LOGBOOK”, developed together with F. Sarhan, will be released in 2024. The “On the Road” series has been taking place in Dock 11 since 2023, where the musicians present their favorite pieces. In 2024, the ensemble will make its debut at the Transparent Sound New Music Festival Budapest, the House of World Cultures and the Festival Musica Strasbourg, among others; and is part of a collaboration with the ICE Ensemble from New York at MaerzMusik 2024.
A successful collaboration with Rimini Protocol began in 2021 with the piece “All Right. Good Night” and its stations HAU Berlin, Volkstheater Vienna, PACT Zollverein Essen, Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, Theaterspektakel Zurich, Impulse Theater Festival Mühlheim, the invitation to the Theatertreffen 2022 at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele and the Fundación Teatro a Mil in Santiago de Chile.
In addition to the constant activity with numerous concerts in Berlin, regular guest performances throughout Germany, Switzerland, France, Spain and China document the ensemble’s activity. The Zafraan Ensemble passes on its knowledge of new compositions and their performance in workshops to young composers, instrumentalists and conductors, such as at the Beijing International Composition Workshop in China, as part of the Deutsche Bank Stiftung’s Academy of Music Theater Today, at the music colleges in Rostock and Saarbrücken, and not least with its own series “Takeoff” in collaboration with the Klangzeitort Institute of the Berlin music academies. The younger generation also plays a role in the Zafraan Ensemble’s projects. The format “Like Tears in Rain” in the version for children was awarded the “Young Ears Prize 2022”.
The ensemble’s high live presence is regularly combined with visits to recording studios; Most recently, productions were made for the Contemporary Music Edition at Wergo with the composer Lula Romero as well as recordings for WDR, SWR and several times for RBB. The CD releases “Palimpsesto” on Testklang (2014), “Borowski, Holz, Keller: Klangrede” on bastille musique (2016) and “Samir Odeh-Tamimi: Chamber Works” on Kairos (2018) each met with a very positive international response and were put on the longlist by the German Record Critics’ Prize. The complete recording of Christophe Bertrand’s instrumental works, made together with the Ensemble KNM Berlin and the WDR Symphony Orchestra, also won this award, as well as the annual prize.
The Zafraan Ensemble consists of the following members: Liam Mallett (flutes), Miguel Pérez Iñesta (clarinets), Martin Posegga (saxophones), Anna Viechtl (harp), Daniel Eichholz (percussion), Clemens Hund-Göschel (piano), Emmanuelle Bernard (violin/viola), Josa Gerhard (viola/violin), Martin Smith (cello) and Beltane Ruiz Molina (double bass).
Since 2013, the ensemble has received annual basic funding from the cultural administration of the state of Berlin.
Zafraan Ensemble has been a member of the IETM network https://www.ietm.org/en since 2024.
