Pascal von Wroblewsky, Lora Kostina, Daniel Werbach and Tom Friedrich present their new project - the "DEFA Songbook"
It is the years 1961-89 and the entire GDR is occupied by censors. The whole GDR? No. A village populated by indomitable artists does not stop resisting the invader. And life is not easy for the actors, musicians and directors who work as a crew in the fortified DEFA camp. And they created works of film art that were often banned or used satire or intellectual mimicry to describe life in the GDR and speak between the lines.
The songs from these films are still full of power and beauty, they remind us of the time in which they were heard, sung and carried on. Pascal von Wroblewsky and Lora Kostina, now a dream team, are now bringing a selection of these songs to the stage in arrangements newly created by Lora Kostina, based on the compositions of Boris Pasternak's poems, and thus looking back. Not in anger, but critically and lovingly.
Pascal von Wroblewsky, born in East Berlin in 1962, has been an integral part of the German jazz scene since the 1980s and has shaped numerous formations with her four-octave voice. After gaining her first stage experience in a school choir, children's theatre and a folk band, she studied singing at the Hanns Eisler School of Music in Berlin. Her first LP "Swinging Pool", which was awarded gold, was released while she was still a student.
Since then, she has performed with Joe Pass, Dizzy Gillespie, the Swingle Singers and major orchestras such as the HR and WDR Big Band, among others, and has released eight solo albums. In addition to jazz, she is increasingly focussing on crossovers between classical and jazz, collaborates with musicians from a wide range of genres and is committed to supporting young musicians, for example with the Anhalt Youth Big Band at the Kurt Weill Festival in Dessau.
