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Carte Blanche: Tizia Zimmermann

Pascale Diggelmann10-18-20242 min. read

Accordionist Tizia Zimmermann is one of the nine musicians who received a Carte Blanche in the 24/25 season. The Carte Blanche is awarded to outstanding musicians on the Swiss jazz scene and offers them the opportunity to further develop their current musical work and try out new things. In this interview, Tizia Zimmermann tells us what she has planned for her three Carte Blanche evenings.

Tizia Zimmermann was probably born with a fascination for the accordion: «It was always clear that the accordion would be my instrument,» says Tizia Zimmermann. «My mum listened to a lot of music that featured accordions or the bandoneon. So the accordion was always there. I then got a small toy accordion, which I took with me everywhere and always played it.» Tizia Zimmermann really started playing the accordion at the age of 8. She would have liked to have taken lessons even earlier, but there were no such small accordions back then. A good 20 years later, Tizia Zimmermann is a professional accordionist and plays in various formations with a focus on improvised and contemporary classical music. And now she has been given carte blanche at Moods.
«The carte blanche came at the perfect moment,» says Tizia Zimmermann. «I was in New York at the time. The Carte Blanche gives me the opportunity to continue new projects that were created there straight away.» The accordionist received a studio grant from the City of Zurich and had the opportunity to live in New York for six months, where she met many musicians and initiated new music projects. For example, with drummer Jason Nazary, with whom she plays one of the Carte Blanche sets: The two met in New York and immediately recorded together; the album «particularly irrelevant» will be released on 1 November on the label «Wide Ear Records». She also met bassist Tim Dahl, who will perform solo, and drummer Chris Corsano, with whom she will play in a trio with saxophonist Chris Pitsiokos, in New York.
««It was always clear that the accordion would be my instrument.»»
Tizia Zimmermann
In addition to New York, Berlin is another source of inspiration for this Carte Blanche series: Tizia Zimmermann experienced the trio «Neon Dilemma», consisting of Elias Stemeseder, Robert Landfermann and Leif Berger, who will be playing on the second evening, live in Berlin and was thrilled: «The concert was incredibly gripping, the whole room was captivated.» She also knows the vocal and performance artist Lorena Izquierdo, who will be performing on the third Carte Blanche evening, from Berlin. Only the duo with guitarist Manuel Troller was created in Switzerland. Manuel Troller and Tizia Zimmermann have previously played together in various constellations and have now formed a duo at the beginning of the year. As part of the Carte Blanche series, they will give their first concert as a duo. When asked what the common thread running through the Carte Blanche evenings is, Tizia says: «There's a lot of free improvised music, but not everything. It's musicians I've seen live in the last year and people I've met. It's a mix of everything that has inspired and inspired me in the last year.»

Tizia Zimmermanns Carte Blanche-Abende

  • Carte Blanche

    Tizia Zimmermann

    • Zimmermann / Nazary

      ExperimentalContemporary JazzExperimental Jazz
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  • Carte Blanche

    Tizia Zimmermann

    • Tim Dahl Solo

      Experimental
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  • Carte Blanche

    Tizia Zimmermann

    • Zimmermann x Troller

      Experimental
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  • Carte Blanche

    Tizia Zimmermann

    • Neon Dilemma (Landfermann, Stemeseder, Berger)

      JazzContemporary Jazz
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  • Carte Blanche

    Tizia Zimmermann

    • Lorena Izquierdo Solo

      Experimental
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  • Carte Blanche

    Tizia Zimmermann

    • Zimmermann/Corsano/Pitsiokos

      JazzExperimentalAfrica
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