Cheikh Lô

Senegal

A giant of African music. And the voice of Cheikh Lô is unique, cosmopolitan, graceful, slender and high-pitched, pulsating irregularly.

Cheikh Lô has forty years of music in his dreadlocks. He started out as a drummer. “From Bobo Dioulasso to Dakar”, summarises the chilled-out guy. Born in 1955 in Burkina Faso’s second city, where his father was a jeweller, this passionate Senegalese man took his first orchestral steps with Volta Jazz. The ensemble, one of the best in post-independence West Africa, revisited Cuban song, classics from the Congolese Tabu Ley Rochereau and created Creole-style dance pieces. In 1995, Youssou N’Dour offered to produce Lô’s debut album, Ne La Thiass, which became a global success. In 2000, Lô sang alongside Ibrahim Ferrer on “Choco’s Guajira”, from Cuban pianist Rubén González’s album hanchullo.

In 2002, he appeared on two tracks of the Red Hot Organization’s tribute album to Fela Kuti, Red Hot and Riot. He collaborated with Les Nubians and Manu Dibango on one of the tracks, “Shakara / Lady (Part Two).”

Sharon Mansur

Israel

Sharon “Shasha” Mansur, pianist, producer and sought-after keyboardist in the Israeli music scene. After years of performing around the world as a keyboardist in various ensembles, Sharon presents two solo performances for the first time, expressing her works that unfold between two musical extremes.

Sharon has performed and recorded with many artists, including: Orphaned Land, Yossi Fine and Ben Aylon, ANNA RF and more.

Leopold Lô

Senegal

Léopold Lô belongs to one of the well-known griot families of Senegal. He has been drumming since childhood. Founded his group African Roots Percussion in Senegal in 1988. He has been living in Germany since 2011 and has also brought together musicians and dancers here under the name African Roots Percussion. It is a great pleasure for him to share a concern about his culture through music and dance.

Tomáš Liška

Czech Republic

Studied double bass at the J. Ježek Conservatory in Prague and subsequently completed his master’s degree at the prestigious Jazz Institut Berlin, under the guidance of renowned American players and teachers Greg Cohen and John Hollenbeck.

Tomáš performs at jazz festivals and concert halls around the world. He has won awards at several major jazz festivals and workshops, chiefly in Poland, Belgium and Spain. His first band Invisible World is highly respected thanks to their distinctive voice and sensitive fusion of jazz and world music. They have won several awards, including the Andel Award˝for the album Hope (2020) and tour around the world.

Petr Smékal

Czech Republic

He began his musical education in childhood and while he studied the recorder and clarinet at the Brno Conservatory he is basically self-taught on the saxophone. He has attended several jazz workshops and taken private lessons with renowned saxophonists Gintra Kočí and Radek Zapadl. Stylistically, he tends towards fusion, funk and pop-jazz, which has greatly influenced his sound, phrasing, articulation and modal approach to improvisation. He is a member of the Big Band Cotatcha Orchestra and the band Point of Few on whose debut album he collaborated with the famous keyboardist Jason Lindner from New York, who you may know from David Bowie’s last and iconic album Blackstar.