NICA live: Sophie Emilie Beha pres. James Banner class-work

It was not for the first time that curator Sophie Emilie Beha, NICA artist since September 2022, became aware of James Banner in the context of the 46th Leipziger Jazztage. The British double bassist and composer had applied for last year's edition of the festival under the motto "talkin 'bout my generation" with his project class-work. The project, whose starting point is the personal experiences and stories of the musicians involved, was premiered in the fall of 2022. In the run-up to the live premiere, Beha moderated a panel discussion entitled "Jazz & Class" and took the opportunity of her third "NICA live" evening to invite the ensemble and also to make a complementary connection to the topic of classism by means of a theoretical discussion.

class-work brings metal and punk aesthetics to the stage with an ensemble of soloists from the European scene of improvised and contemporary music. Self-reflexively, the music tells of the impact of individual working-class origin stories: daily life, social mobility, cultural hegemony, cross-generational self- and class identities are addressed, and personal joys and sorrows are explored.

The edited texts come from the ensemble members, their families, social media, and political commentary. The result is "an enriching and meaningful contribution to the class question. A topic that is far too underexposed because of its perennial, painful relevance," says Tim Mettke on the Leipziger Jazztage blog.

So before the concert, there will also be a 15-minute impulse lecture by education researcher Janina Banaszkiewicz: Cultural Capital- What is it? How can we as a society create access to cultural capital and what does art, culture and music have to do with it? In a short introduction to the topic of classism, we will explore these questions.

Janina Banaszkiewicz is part of fakE - autonomous unit for anti-classist empowerment at the University of Cologne.