From Thursday, November 19 through Saturday, November 21, Kunstfabrik Schlot becomes a concentrated map of present-tense jazz. The seventh rejazz-festival places six female-led or co-led projects across three 20:30 bills, with the room’s regular jazz-club function giving the weekend a useful scale: audiences can follow a programme over successive nights, hear its internal contrasts, and remain close to the details of the playing. The festival’s stated focus is female bandleaders and co-leaders, with international guests meeting Berlin’s scene.[1][2][3]

That fit between room and programme is the point of this venue spotlight. Kunstfabrik Schlot has operated as a Berlin-Mitte jazz club since 1993, beginning as a small live stage in Prenzlauer Berg before moving near Nordbahnhof, where it now sits in the Edison Höfe on Invalidenstraße. Its booking identity is built around live jazz as a continuing local practice. rejazz uses that continuity for a three-night sequence whose artists approach composition, improvisation, electronics and ensemble interplay from sharply different directions.[1][2]

A three-night festival built for close listening

Thursday opens with Ariel Bart Trio and Silke Eberhard Trio. Bart is a harmonica player and composer whose current trio format is built around harmonica, cello and piano; its own description points to lyrical improvisation, original compositions and Middle Eastern influences. At Schlot, Bart appears with pianist Arseny Rykov, bringing a small-group texture that places an unusual lead instrument at the centre. Eberhard’s trio follows with Jan Roder on bass and Kay Lübke on drums, marking 20 years for the group and shifting the evening toward a deeply established Berlin improvising unit.[3][4]

Friday, November 20 brings Kika Sprangers Quintet and Liz Kosack’s **Y**. Sprangers presents river, river with a five-piece line-up including vocalist Anna Serierse, piano and Wurlitzer player Koen Schalkwijk, bassist William Barrett and drummer Wouter Kühne. The festival describes the project through broad dynamic and orchestral colour, a useful cue for a set that brings a composed, ensemble-minded frame into the club. **Y**, centred on Kosack’s synthesiser work, then pulls the programme toward space-jazz and free-rock. That pairing makes Friday the festival’s clearest encounter between acoustic quintet writing and electronically charged experiment.[3][1]

Saturday closes the run with Julie Campiche solo and Aki Takase alongside DJ Illvibe and dancer Kofie da Vibe. Campiche’s Unspoken uses harp, electronics and voice; the project is built around stories of women, drawing its starting point from Virginia Woolf’s line about anonymous women in history. Her official project page identifies the music as original compositions and foregrounds a personal extension of harp through electronic effects. In Schlot’s festival sequence, it gives the final evening an intimate, electroacoustic opening before Takase’s larger cross-disciplinary encounter.[5][3]

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The closing bill expands the club’s frame

Takase’s collaboration with DJ Illvibe and Kofie da Vibe gives Saturday a clear sense of movement across generations and disciplines: piano, turntables and dance share the bill as equal elements. The festival presents the set as its finale, and that placement is telling. Across three evenings, Kunstfabrik Schlot moves from Bart’s chamber-like trio language and Eberhard’s long-running saxophone trio to Sprangers’s quintet textures, Kosack’s synthesisers, Campiche’s solo electronics and Takase’s meeting of jazz, turntablism and dance. The room’s programming becomes legible through accumulation.[3][1]

This is a useful weekend for listeners who want a venue guide with an actual route through it. Attend Thursday for the compact-group contrast, Friday for the festival’s most overtly electronic rupture, or Saturday for the widest span of solo sound, piano, turntables and choreography. Taking in all three nights offers the fuller picture: a long-standing jazz club temporarily shaped by one curatorial idea, with each double bill giving that idea a different musical consequence.[1][2][3]

Doors, tickets and access

Each rejazz-festival night at Kunstfabrik Schlot begins at 20:30, with doors at 20:00. The club lists individual advance tickets, a three-day festival pass, and box-office sales subject to availability; its event pages also state that box-office payment is cash only. The festival site lists barrier-free access and an elevator, with assistance from admission staff. Recheck the official Kunstfabrik Schlot and rejazz-festival pages before travelling for current ticket, access and programme information.[1][3]

Sources

  1. Kunstfabrik Schlot Berlin – Jazz-Club — Kunstfabrik Schlot
  2. rejazz-festival: Home — rejazz-festival
  3. rejazz-festival: Program — rejazz-festival
  4. Ariel Bart Trio — Ariel Bart
  5. Julie Campiche Solo – Unspoken — Julie Campiche