Ensembles
Duo Saltamontes – cross-genre music for children
In the fall of 2021, Johanna-Leonore Dahlhoff and Peter Klohmann founded the “Duo Saltamontes” in Frankfurt with the goal of bringing good, cross-genre music for children to the stage in moderated concerts. In doing so, they incorporate their experience with various concert formats for children as well as their expertise in different musical traditions. In this way, they provide children and parents with a joyful and contemporary approach to songs and instrumental music of various genres.
Using flute, voice, saxophone, guitar and many other instruments, Duo Saltamontes tells, sings and plays music and stories for children ages 4-8 and their families. The children and families are invited to participate under the current hygiene rules.
The band members come from different musical traditions (classical and jazz) and are both well-versed in transcultural music. In the duo Saltamontes, they come together to create a children’s program that transcends genres. The ensemble has been touring mainly in the Rhine-Main area since the fall of 2021 and also plays concerts in schools and kindergartens.
Johanna-Leonore Dahlhoff, flutes/twin whistle/vocals
Peter Klohmann, flutes/guitar/vocals
Grupo Maloka was founded in the fall of 2018 as part of Bridges – Musik verbindet in Frankfurt and combines Latin American music with Persian sounds, Eastern European folk songs and Irish folk: from all corners of the world, this group comes together to musically build a house – Maloka. The word Maloka comes from the indigenous peoples of the Amazon and refers to a simple house made of straw and wood, which is at the same time a hostel, a place for community, celebrations and ceremonies, thus creating space for a whole society. Grupo Maloka arranges traditional music from the musicians’ countries of origin as well as other folklore in the typical Bridges style: musical instruments and styles that are not traditionally played together find a common home here.
The musicians of Grupo Maloka:
Andres Rosales, tiple/guitar (Colombia)
Johanna-Leonore Dahlhoff, flute (Germany)
Reza Rostami, percussion (Iran)
Samira Memarzadeh, harp (Germany/Iran)
Diana Dinu, vocals (Romania)
More info: www.bridgesmusikverbindet.de
Book: info@bridgesmusikverbindet.de
Founded in 2021, the ensemble Eliá draws on the musical traditions of its musicians and presents, among other things, genre-crossing original compositions with Latin American and Arabic influences as well as contemporary, transcultural arrangements of traditional songs from the Mediterranean region. All four musicians are also members of the Bridges Chamber Orchestra.
Instrumentation:
Johanna-Leonore Dahlhoff, flute/quena
Eleanna Pitsikaki, kanun
Youssef Laktina, percussion
Andrés Rosales, guitar
Johanna-Leonore Dahlhoff is the daughter of a musical couple and studied flute in Hamburg and Hannover as well as music therapy in Berlin. She was a scholarship holder of the German National Academic Foundation and the DAAD and a member of the European Union Youth Orchestra. Concert tours have taken her to numerous EU countries as well as to Argentina, Brazil, Japan, Madagascar, Mauritius, Russia, Switzerland, South Africa and the USA. Since 2016, she has been the artistic director of Bridges – Music Connects. Johanna-Leonore Dahlhoff regularly arranges baroque and classical works for the Bridges Chamber Orchestra as well as the Bridges ensembles.
Eleanna Pitsikaki was born in Heraklion, Crete. In 2010, she discovered the kanun and from then on took summer seminars with kanun virtuoso Göksel Baktagir. Although she was not lucky enough to have a teacher, she represented Greece at the 2nd Kanun Festival in Istanbul back in 2015. She has been living in Germany since 2016 and successfully completed her Bachelor’s degree in World Music at the Popakademie Mannheim in 2021. Since 2017 Eleanna Pitsikaki is a member of Bridges – Music Connects, playing in the Bridges Chamber Orchestra and several Bridges ensembles as well as in her band “EPI Music”. She is currently studying jazz improvisation at the Cologne University of Music and Dance, as well as a second degree in systemic psychology.
Youssef Laktina is from Damascus, is a multi-percussionist and specializes in frame drum and percussion instruments from the Mediterranean region. He has been living in Germany since 2015 and has been studying percussion at the Popakademie Baden-Württemberg in Mannheim since 2018. Versed in a wide variety of musical styles, he composes and arranges diverse works for the Bridges Chamber Orchestra as well as the Bridges ensembles.
Andrés Rosales is a composer as well as a multi-instrumentalist specializing in stringed instruments such as guitar, electric guitar, bass, tiple, ukulele and mandolin. He studied jazz guitar as well as composition at the Conservatorio Autonomo de Bucaramanga (Colombia) and at the Manhattan School of Music (New York). In addition to his international concert and composition activities, Andrés Rosales writes arrangements of traditional music from a wide variety of cultures and is the author of compositions and arrangements for the Bridges Chamber Orchestra as well as the Bridges ensembles. His composition “La Suite” appeared on the chamber orchestra’s award-winning debut album “Identigration”.
More info: www.bridgesmusikverbindet.de
Booking: info@bridgesmusikverbindet.de
Image: Ensemble Eliá © Salar Baygan
The ensemble RIZA came together in 2021 within the transcultural music initiative Bridges – Music Connects. RIZA means roots (Greek: Ρίζα) and stands for the origin of life, growth and further development. The musicians Eleanna Pitsikaki (Kanun), Johanna-Leonore Dahlhoff (flute) and Nicola Vock (double bass) let their roots and musical traditions come together anew in their own arrangements and present works from the Mediterranean region and Latin America as well as European classical music.
Concert stream Kulturkonturen with RIZA, June 3, 2022, Kanal 21 Bielefeld.
Instrumentation:
Eleanna Pitsikaki, Kanun
Johanna-Leonore Dahlhoff, flute
Nicola Pacha Vock, double bass
Eleanna Pitsikaki was born in Heraklion, Crete. In 2010 she discovered the kanun and from then on took summer seminars with kanun virtuoso Göksel Baktagir. Although she was not lucky enough to have a teacher, she represented Greece at the 2nd Kanun Festival in Istanbul back in 2015. She has been living in Germany since 2016 and successfully completed her Bachelor’s degree in World Music at the Popakademie Mannheim in 2021. Since 2017 Eleanna Pitsikaki is a member of Bridges – Music Connects, playing in the Bridges Chamber Orchestra and several Bridges ensembles as well as in her band “EPI Music”. She is currently studying jazz improvisation at the Cologne University of Music and Dance, as well as a second degree in systemic psychology.
Johanna-Leonore Dahlhoff is the daughter of a musical couple and studied flute in Hamburg and Hannover as well as music therapy in Berlin. She was a scholarship holder of the German National Academic Foundation and the DAAD and a member of the European Union Youth Orchestra. Concert tours have taken her to numerous EU countries as well as to Argentina, Brazil, Japan, Madagascar, Mauritius, Russia, Switzerland, South Africa and the USA. Since 2016, she has been the artistic director of Bridges – Music Connects. Johanna-Leonore Dahlhoff regularly arranges baroque and classical works for the Bridges Chamber Orchestra as well as the Bridges ensembles.
Nicola Pacha Vock is a freelance double bass player, managing director and part of the artistic management of the Kammerphilharmonie Frankfurt. She develops her own projects, is pedagogically active in the school project “Response – Neue Musik in die Schule” of the HfMDK Frankfurt and taught at a school with a special focus on language from 2018 to 2021. Nicola studied orchestral music at the HfMDK Frankfurt and business administration at the FernUniversität Hagen. She was a member of the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie, an intern in the orchestra of the Staatstheater Darmstadt and played in the Frankfurt Opera and Museum Orchestra during a temporary contract. At the same time, she has always been interested in a life outside of music and has been active in the Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit, Eschborn, among other organizations. She is a founding member of the associations “Pädagogische Arbeitsgemeinschaft Kontrabass (PAK) Deutschland e.V.” and “Yachai e.V – Verein zur Unterstützung der Schule Milton Jurado Yepez, Archidona, Ecuador”.
Photos: Ensemble RIZA © Salar Baygan
Johanna-Leonore Dahlhoff performs in various duo and ensemble formations, e.g. with cello, double bass or piano. The programs range from baroque to film music.
Booking: info@johanna-leonore-dahlhoff.de
The Bridges Chamber Orchestra, founded in 2019, brings together approximately 25 Bridges musicians and their instruments from the Orient and the Occident, the Far East and Latin America; in this way we expand the classical European orchestral culture. We see ourselves as a democratic, participatory orchestra, because instrumentation and repertoire depend on our musicians. We take music from all the musical cultures of the musicians involved and combine it with classical European orchestral playing, creating a special blend. By learning from each other and getting involved in new terrain – e.g. as European musicians on Arabic quarter-tone scales or as Oriental musicians on classical orchestral playing – we clarify our idea of integration.
More info: https://bridgesmusikverbindet.de/orchester/bridges-kammerorchester/
