HI Five Jazz Music Award 2025
The Rotary Club Hildesheim is awarding the HI Five Jazz Music Award 2025 for the third time, endowed with 10,000 euros.
The first awardee, Vincent Meissner, is referred to by the trade magazine Jazz thing as “the shooting star among young German jazz pianists.” “A new hope for German jazz,” recognized mdr kultur, which was further boosted by Deutschlandfunk: “a band that will take off like a rocket.” The American Down Beat heard “tension and enthusiasm” in Vincent Meissner's debut album “Bewegtes Feld,” produced by his mentor Michael Wollny, released in 2021. The pianist was just twenty years old at that time and already well decorated with awards. However, his young acoustic piano trio, with bassist Josef Zeimetz and drummer Henri Reichmann, had hardly any opportunity to present and develop the rich material, entirely composed by the bandleader, live due to COVID-19. From an now grown fund, the trio has chosen a conceptual framework defined by a closeness to pop music. They want to present their art offensively and position themselves. The new chapter of the Vincent Meissner Trio is a consistent next step that already makes you crave for more. This band is on the way.
With his project BERLIN PEOPLE, the second awardee, saxophonist Tobias Meinhart, takes the stage with some of the most exciting young talents in the German jazz scene: Ludwig Hornung on piano, Tom Berkmann on bass, and Mathias Ruppnig on drums. Their second album, "DARK HORSE," is characterized by the ambiguity of the term "dark horse," which refers to a person with hidden talent or an outsider. Each composition on the album contains hidden elements or double meanings that reveal themselves only at the end. The music is marked by powerful unison lines and is simultaneously humorous, atmospheric, and captivating. Besides many awards, Meinhart was nominated for an ECHO and won the prestigious soloist award at the Spanish Getxo Jazz Festival.
Hallo, ich bin Maya.
