Wednesday Night Prayer Orchestra

Since the beginning of the year, the Wednesday Night Prayer Orchestra has been pursuing its plan to create a top-class evening of big band music every week. Sixteen musicians from different corners of the Viennese improvisation scene founded a permanent orchestra outside of the short-lived project mechanics and are developing their dynamic sound from traditional big band literature to collective improvisation.

Charles Mingu’s song “Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting” gives the new big band its name and is groundbreaking. The name comes from the fact that the regular workshop concerts always take place on Wednesdays. Groundbreaking because Mingus captures the intense interplay between choir and congregation from the gospel music of his childhood and places it in the burgeoning free jazz of the 60s.

The Wednesday Night Prayer Orchestra takes its hat off to the greats of the big band cosmos, Jimmy Lunceford, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Thad Jones, Gil Evans and Carla Bley. It reinterprets their classics, breaks them up in energetic play, improvises in a sixteen-part collective and performs new compositions and arrangements from their own pen.

The new Viennese big band brings together three generations of well-known soloists from the Viennese improvisation scene. The foundation of piano, baritone saxophone, bass trombone and double bass is firmly in female hands. (press release)

Program and cast

Ludwig Bekic, Robert Schröck, Jakob Gnigler, Christian Gonsior, Monika Geyer: reeds
Markus Pechmann, Walter Fend, Thomas Berghammer, Lukas Hartl: trumpets
Phil Yaeger, Karel Eriksson, Mario Vavti, Christina Lachberger: trombone
Stephanie Weninger: piano
Helene Glüxam: bass
Lukas Aichinger: drums