tickets:
regular: 14,- €uro
students, disabled persons: 7,- €uro
doors: 7.30 pm CET
concert starts:
approx. 8.00 pm CET
Fare is a piano trio from Berlin. With their debut album Ant Mills (Enja Records), the group presents a selection of free improvisations in which listeners can follow the musicians as they create in the moment; where form and direction are constantly changing and evolving, yet still form part of a larger arc. Released as a double album (Ant Mills I + II), both collections function as two different approaches to creating a larger arc of tension through a flowing narrative from piece to piece, filled with a variety of small stories.
Pianist Valentin Gerhardus, bassist Felix Henkelhausen, and drummer Marius Wankel are longtime musical companions who have developed their own language of musical gestures and textures over the years. Together, they attempt to break free from the roles of their instruments and form a collective soundscape in which the boundaries between the musicians blur and an equal interplay free of conventions emerges.
Based on the phenomenon of ant mills, in which ants run in a vortex until they are exhausted, this dark natural event, reminiscent of modern humanity, gives rise to a narrative that addresses decay and its consequences, painting a harmonious, circular picture of becoming and passing away. Accompanied by a text by Sophia Koh, Fare’s music lends this image a peaceful, contemplative, and at the same time liberatingly light dimension. It is music in which one can lose oneself and which at the same time opens up a path — always in the sense of circular motion as a symbol of natural progress.
Valentin Gerhardus, born in Munich in 1997, is a pianist and sound artist based in Berlin. He began classical piano training at the age of 7 and studied jazz piano with Prof. Michael Wollny at the HMT Leipzig from 2015 to 2020. At a young age, he was already a prize winner at the 2014 Jugend Jazzt national competition and part of the 2016 Jazzfest Esslingen young talent band.
During his studies, he developed an interest in electronic music and spent a lot of time exploring improvisational approaches in experimental music and the relationship between acoustic and electronic sounds. He is currently working on a soundtrack for a feature film and is active as a producer, freelance pianist, and laptop musician. Gerhardus has shared the stage with musicians such as Philipp Gropper, Nick Dunston, Matthias Bauer, Wanja Slavin, Peter Bruun, Uli Kempendorff, Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra, Johannes Enders, Roy Nathanson, Tony Lakatos, Ludwig Wandinger, trngs, Evi Filippou, and others.
Since 2022, he has been part of the Berlin concert series Future Bash and has already played at festivals such as: Copenhagen Jazzfest, Finale Neuer Deutscher Jazzpreis 2022, Transmediale CTM Vorspiel Berlin, Jazzahead, Cologne Jazzweek, SHARE Frankfurt, etc.
Felix Henkelhausen, born in Oldenburg in 1995, received classical piano and cello lessons before his interest in the double bass was awakened. At the age of 16, he began studying at the HfK Bremen with Prof. Detlev Beier. In 2014, he went on to study at the Jazz Institute Berlin with Prof. Greg Cohen and Marc Muellbauer, graduating in 2019. In 2022, he played with his quintet in the finals of the New German Jazz Prize, and in 2023 he was nominated for the German Jazz Prize in the bass category. Henkelhausen has already played with nationally and internationally renowned artists such as Andrea Parkins, Dave Liebmann, Eric McPherson, Jim Black, Jochen Rueckert, Kathrin Pechlof, Lotte Anker, Marc Copland, Dianne Reeves, Nate Wooley, Pablo Held, TAU5, Gerald Cleaver, Mark Feldman, and many others.
In 2017, he launched the Future Bash concert series together with Ludwig Wandinger, which has been running since 2024 with seven other musicians and won the 2025 Applaus Federal Prize.
Marius Wankel, born in Heidelberg in 1996, is a drummer and lives in Berlin. Growing up in a family of musicians, he won several awards as a drummer and pianist at a young age in competitions such as Jugend musiziert and Jugend Jazzt. After graduating from high school, he began studying percussion with Bill Elgart at the University of Music in Würzburg before transferring to the Jazz Institute of the Berlin University of the Arts in 2018, where he completed his bachelor’s degree in 2021. Since then, he has been an active member of the jazz and improvised music scene in Berlin and plays in numerous national and international projects. In 2024, he was nominated for Band of the Year at the German Jazz Awards with the Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra. Since 2023, he has also been part of Future Bash, a concert series for improvised music. In addition to his jazz projects, Wankel also plays in the post-punk band Nip Slip, produces music, and, despite his young age, has already collaborated with artists such as Myka9, Wanja Slavin, Ronny Graupe, Camila Nebbia, Philipp Gropper, Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra, Daniel Derro Regan, Lola von der Gracht, Tim Novikov, and Isaiah Barr.
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