Monika Roscher Bigband is comprised of 18 musicians and exists somewhere between math-rock, prog-jazz, avant-pop and experimental electronics.
Formed in in Munich in 2011 the band soon made waves with their thrilling live performances and the boundary bashing ideas of Monika Roscher, their founder, singer, guitarist and conductor. Their first two albums Failure in Wonderland (2012, Enja / Jazz Echo Newcomer of the Year award) and Of Monsters and Birds (2016, Enja) were met with acclaim in press, radio and TV. The band played at many prestigious Jazzfestivals in Germany (e.g. Jazzfest Berlin, JazzBaltica, Jazzfest Burghausen) as well as at the philharmonic concert halls of Hamburg (Elbphilharmonie), Cologne and Munich. They were invited to rock, dance and art festivals alike (e.g. Zappanale, Fusion Festival, Stroke Art Fair) and also caused a stir abroad, playing in Salzburg, Prague and Istanbul, with the US magazine DownBeat naming them as 'Rising Stars'.
The band have now been playing together for over a decade. Virtuosos as individuals, they are nevertheless close-knit as a group and feed on the musical challenges set during recording sessions, while each of their rousing live shows is a celebration of the musical freedom and inspiration they offer each other.
Their third album Witchy Activities And The Maple Death (2023) is stunning proof of how exhilarating and fresh a big band can sound today. Superbly recorded, it achieves a breathtaking balance of intimate fragility and symphonic intensity that lets the full sonic spectrum of a big band scream and shine in every colour imaginable. Roscher's tension- filled and intricately detailed compositions evoke otherworldly landscapes that at times enchant with their elegiac beauty, but at others wreak havoc like the unleashed frenzy of a witches' sabbath thick with haze. At the same time the pieces always leave room for spontaneous experiments and improvisation. Lyrically, questions of human-technological interdependence are explored, nocturnal ocean sceneries open up and worlds are reborn. This is the sound of a band that loves the adventure, that is driven by a hunger for musical symbiosis and is constantly seeking to surprise and reinvent itself.
Released to overwhelming critical acclaim, the album thrilled journalists versed in indie, metal and jazz alike. Some of the biggest German outlets wrote glowing reviews, among them Spiegel, Stern, Süddeutsche Zeitung and Frankfurter Allgemeine. The album won the German record critics award 2023 and was nominated as Album of the year for the German Jazz Prize 2024. The song 8 Prinzessinnen was awarded the German Jazz Prize 2024 as composition of the year. Roscher founded her own label Zenna Records for the release of the latest album.
