Resident Music Collective

Ganna Gryniva is a Ukrainian jazz singer who came to Germany from Ukraine with her parents in 2002 at the age of 13. In her music she unfolds her different cultural roots: in her ethno-jazz quintet GANNA, performing for “Airing Out” in the Schlüterhof,  and solo with loops/electronics she combines Ukrainian folklore with jazz and improvised music. Inspired by research trips to different regions of Ukraine, Ganna is committed to spreading Ukraine’s cultural heritage internationally. Her new album HOME was celebrated by the music press as “Album of the Year” (Ulrich Habersetzer, DLF Kultur) and “Jazz Highlight of the Year” (Roland Spiegel, Bayerischer Rundfunk).

Currently Ganna Gryniva lives in Berlin and tours regularly in various European countries with her own bands, as a sidewoman and as a lecturer for jazz and improvised voice.

www.ganna-gryniva.de

Elli Sooss (b. 1995) is a Berlin-based jazz saxophonist, arranger, and composer. She studied saxophone at the Jazz Institute Berlin (UdK & Hanns Eisler) under Prof. Peter Weniger. Her collaborations include work with James Morrison, Jiggs Whigham, Letieres Leite, Lennert Axelson, Lutz Büchner, Ingolf Burkhardt, Bridget Fogle, Maria Baptist, Jörg-Achim Keller, among others.

Firmly rooted in big band jazz, Elli played in the state youth jazz orchestras of Brandenburg, Berlin, and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. She has also performed in a wide variety of ensembles, both as a sideperson and as part of a horn section—ranging from traditional swing to fusion, Latin, ska, reggae, and pop, all the way to modern groove and neo-soul. With the eight-piece band Fred Garden, she blends odd meters with crossover neo-soul on the baritone saxophone. She is also a member of the reggae group Berlin Boom Orchestra and participates in numerous other projects. Since 2024, she has been performing with the State Police Orchestra of Brandenburg.

Mohamad Fityan, born in Aleppo in 1984, is a Syrian musician and composer especially known for his outstanding skills on the flutes ney and kaval. In 2009 he graduated from the Academy of Music and was a soloist with the Syrian Orchestra and the Syrian Jazz Big Band from 2003 to 2013. He has been living in Germany since 2014, where he has performed as a soloist with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, the Brussels Jazz Orchestra, and the Bavarian Philharmonic Orchestra, among others, reaching an ever-growing audience through radio, television, and the internet. A master of the ney, Mohamad Fityan represents his instrument on the Elbphilharmonie’s YouTube channel.
He was awarded, among others, the Best Nay Player Award at the Contest of Syrian Youth Musicians in Syria (2002) and Best Conductor Award at the Contest of Syrian Youth Musicians in Syria (2003).

www.fityan-music.com

Khadim Ndome ist ein italo-senegalesischer Vibraphonist und Perkussionist, der derzeit in Berlin, Deutschland, ansässig ist. Seine musikalische Reise begann in seiner frühen Kindheit mit westafrikanischen Perkussionen. Die Liebe zu Perkussionen führte ihn dann dazu, klassische und orchestrale Studien am Konservatorium von Bozen (Italien) zu verfolgen, während er gleichzeitig ein starkes Interesse an der Welt der Improvisation im Jazz-Genre entwickelte. Dies brachte ihn dazu, sich in diese Richtung weiterzuentwickeln, indem er Jazz-Vibraphon am Jazz-Institut Berlin bei David Friedman und Julius Heise studierte. Derzeit ist er als Vibraphonist, Paukist und Perkussionist sowohl in Jazzbands, zeitgenössischen Musikprojekten als auch in klassischen Orchestern aktiv.

Moussa Coulibaly comes from a large “griot” family from Burkina Faso and Mali. He plays all traditional instruments like balafon, ngoni, djembe, doundoun and talking drum with virtuosity and sings with an expressive voice. His musical education began at the age of 6. Moussa has played with renowned groups in Burkina Faso and on various tours in Europe and has been living in Berlin since 2012. He plays traditional West African rhythms and improvisations, he composes his own pieces and songs and he accompanies salsa, reggae, jazz and techno music. He takes part in workshops and performances of traditional and contemporary African dancers and teaches all traditional West African instruments individually and in groups.

Shih-Che Lee is a classical and jazz musician. He was born in Taiwan and initially studied trombone with Prof. Ehrhard Wetz at the Mannheim State University of Music and Performing Arts. He then moved to the Jazz Institute Berlin, a cooperation between the Berlin University of the Arts and the “Hanns Eisler” Academy of Music. He has performed at international festivals such as the Fusion Festival and the International Trombone Festival. He has played in the Deutsche Oper Orchestra and the Jeju City Orchestra, Korea. He has been working with media artists Lien-Cheng Wang and Diana-Elena Păun since 2023, including in the project “Architectures of Hearing”.

Born in Isla de la Juventud, Cuba, Ernesto Robles is a passionate musician currently immersed in the world of jazz. He is dedicated to his craft, studying full-time at the EUJAM program at the Jazz Institute Berlin and currently participating in an Erasmus program at the Conservatory of Amsterdam. As a guitarist and tresero, Ernesto combines technical skill with a deep appreciation for musical expression, continually exploring new avenues of creativity and collaboration.

K’boko is a Brazilian artist based in Berlin, working as a DJ, producer, percussionist, music therapist, and social worker. Specialized in Afro-Brazilian diasporic music, he has collaborated with artists such as Guy One (Ghana), Alemayehu Eshete (Ethiopia), Idris Ackamoor (USA), and Polyversal Souls (Germany).

Florian Rynkowski, born in Dresden and raised in Weimar, studied electric bass, double bass and composition in Weimar, Helsinki, Ghana and Cologne.
He is a member of various ensembles that move between jazz, early music, minimal music and pop. In his work, he primarily pursues interdisciplinary and programmatic approaches. For his project momentum, he brings together new and old instruments, improvisations and compositions in the church space. Since 2012, he has arranged, composed and rehearsed numerous stage scores for various theatres and opera houses. He writes film scores and works with dance and light art. Preparing and building instruments is a recurring theme in his work.
In 2017, he won the New German Jazz Award as the bassist of the Philipp Brämswig Trio.
In 2019, he was nominated for the German Record Critics’ Award with “Luciel – …and that’s all I remember”.

www.florianrynkowski.de

Clemens Rynkowski is a composer, thereminist and musical director. He lives in Berlin and works transdisciplinary for orchestra, chamber ensembles, film, dance, theater and music theater. Previous positions: Berliner Ensemble, Bavarian State Opera Munich, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe, Saarländisches Staatstheater Saarbrücken, Nationaltheater Weimar, Staatstheater Braunschweig, Goethe-Institut Ramallah. He is lecturing at the art universities of Berlin (Ernst Busch), Weimar, Rostock, Erfurt. In addition to being the musical director of the Resident Music Collective, he is also the musical director for “Build up! Tear down! Theatre Spectacle about the Palace of the Republic” at the Humboldt Forum.

mokeyanju (Jumoke Adeyanju) is an interdisciplinary sound artist, multilingual writer, dancer and vinyl collector and is living in Berlin. She is the founder of ‘The Poetry Meets… Series’ and hosts her own radio show “Sauti ya àkókò” on Refuge Worldwide.

https://www.instagram.com/mokeyanju/

Carolina Chimoy is currently serving as an international correspondent, reporting primarily from Deutsche Welle’s studio in Kyiv and from cities near the front lines in Ukraine. Previously, she worked as a foreign correspondent for DW in Washington, D.C. and across Latin America, and also hosted the international talk show Auf den Punkt gebracht. She has conducted interviews with numerous heads of state and government, as well as with prominent international figures.

In addition to her reporting, Carolina has moderated panel discussions on foreign and security policy for institutions such as the German Federal Foreign Office, the Humboldt Forum in Berlin, the Meridian International Center in Washington, D.C., and the German Marshall Fund in Brussels and Morocco.