Get ready for the Summer Bummer Festival 2024. Back for a second time at Trix, one of Belgium’s premier multi-space music venues, we celebrate adventurous music with a stellar international lineup, unique collaborations, and both pioneering and emerging artists. Featuring surprising headliners, an incredible record fair, a surprising expo, delicious homemade slow food and broadcasted live by Radio Centraal, it’s an event you won’t want to miss.

This ninth edition of the Summer Bummer Festival showcases a remarkable span of talent, with an age difference of 80 years between the youngest and oldest artists, bringing the future of music to the present. Embracing diversity and community, the festival highlights artistic collectives, small group performances, and solo acts. Plus, there will be no overlapping performances, ensuring you won’t miss a moment—a rare and valuable feature these days. Guy Peters (Enola, JazzLab, Klara) will talk you safely through the line-up between shows and who knows, maybe he will give away some more gems while he’s at it …

The collectives:

For this ninth edition, the Summer Bummer Festival is addressing the request of Mats Gustafsson, Johan Berthling, Anna Lindal, Mats Äleklint, Alexander Zethson and Mads Forsby to kickstart a community-based activity (CBA) of the renowned Fire! Orchestra in Antwerp. What’s more, the festival opens with Fire! Orchestra CBA Youth – featuring young guest musicians between the ages of 8 and 12 – and concludes with Fire! Orchestra CBA, an inspiring version of the Orchestra with over 20 musicians in its ranks.

Anu Vanhoeck, Amedeo De Ridder, Hanna Kleykens, Nette Eijkelenburg, Lena Eijkelenburg, Wiljan Stessels, Emil Horckmans, Lou Buyst, Sumter Melvinio, Uri Serebrenick Dekoning, Janne Martens, Océanne Ignat, Ella Jansen, Viktor Janssens, Sándor Rosa, Wout Jespers, Wannes Ielegems, Seppe Ielegems, Decombes Paola and Manon Campbell-MacMillan, Gerard Craen, Sen Gevorgyan and Maria Gevorgyan are the young talents between 8 and 12 years that will join Mats Gustafsson, Johan Berthling, Anna Lindal, Mats Äleklint, Alexander Zethson, and Mads Forsby in Fire! Orchestra CBA Youth.

Mats Gustafsson, Johan Berthling, Anna Lindal, Mats Äleklint, Alexander Zethson, and Mads Forsby form the core of Fire! Orchestra CBA. For Summer Bummer, they are joined by international guests Lia Kohl, Steve Marquette, Helen Money, Sakina Abdou, Clara Levy, Nadia Daou, Paed Conca, and Ornella Noulet, while the Belgian delegation with Cel Overberghe, Adia Vanheerentals, Jasmijn Lootens, Frederik Leroux, Lisa van Campenhout, Charel Maes, Lucas Schreel, Michiel Los, Marieke D’Hose, Hanna Vandergoten, and Stanzi Cresens swells the ensemble into a formidable orchestra.

Another collective at Summer Bummer is Ensemble Nist-Nah. Led by Australian drummer Will Guthrie, this nine-member gamelan beast delivers a percussive punch that seamlessly transitions from restrained Javanese gamelan Sekatan to delirium-inducing Jathilan and contemporary Balinese Salukat, all seasoned with a healthy dose of experimentation and free jazz.

The trios:

In addition to the collective musical events, there is also attention for smaller ensembles (trios and duos), individual performances (solos), multimedia, and even more cross-pollinations between young and old:

With the improvisation pioneers Evan Parker (saxophones), Barry Guy (bass), and Paul Lytton (drums), one of the longest recording and best trios ever will grace the Summer Bummer stage. The legacy of adventurous music will further be spontaneously passed on to younger generations in the unprecedented collaboration between free jazz pioneer Cel Overberghe (saxophones) and the 60 years younger reed players Ornella Noulet and Adia Vanheerentals.

The British trio of reed player Rachel Musson, drummer Mark Sanders, and bassist Olie Brice just released Immense Blue their highly acclaimed debut for West Hill Records and will be performing on a Belgian stage for the first time. Bassist Nils Vermeulen met Norwegian alto saxophonist Heidi Kvelvane during the previous Summer Bummer edition and now presents a brand new trio featuring Tollef Østvang – one of the most active drummers on the Norwegian scene. Armed with 16 mm film projectors and analog electronics, Jérôme Noetinger, Xavier Quérel, and Christophe Auger, performing as Cellule d’Improvisation Metamkine, deconstruct the concepts of viewing (film) and listening (concert) and do everything with them, except what you expect.

The duos

Farida Amadou (bass) and Heather Leigh (pedal steel) will play for the first time as a duo on stage. They previously graced the Summer Bummer stage – albeit separately – with the legendary reed player Peter Brötzmann, who passed away in 2023. During a tribute to Brötzmann in London this year they – in collaboration with a host of freejazz mainstays – jointly delivered quite some sonic fireworks on stage. And Sonic fireworks are exactly what the Lebanese-Swiss tandem of clarinet player Paed Conca and multi-instrumentalist Nadia Daou offer under the name The Mad Laboratory Of Anti-Matter.

Drummer Mauricio Takara has collaborated with artists like Pharoah Sanders, Yusef Lateef, Naná Vasconcelos and Damo Suzuki, while Carla Boregas is known from the avant-punk band RAKTA and her superb solo work – check ‘Pena ao Mar’ for iDEAL Recordings. Takara and Boregas, both mainstays of the São Paulo experimental music scene, recently relocated to Berlin and shake up jazz, kraut, experiment, improvisation and composition as genre-defying drums and electronics duo.

Cellist Jasmijn Lootens‘ contribution to the success of the world premiere of The Death of Kalypso (Angles) during Summer Bummer 2023 did not go unnoticed, earning her an invitation to Fire! Orchestra CBA. But there’s more to Lootens and her adventurous cello, as will be evident during her duo with the French, Brussels based violinist extraordinaire Clara Levy. And there’s more string power on the horizon. Alison Chesley (Helen Money) who prefers to let her cello roar while standing, often performs with the renowned players like Anthrax, Bob Mould, Thalia Zedek, or Jarboe and finds a perfect partner in guitarist Steve Marquette (The Few, Marker, Instigation Orchestra/Festival) for Liminal Rites, a duo that navigates between noise and sheer beauty in their cinematic soundscapes.

The solos:

And then there is the more than necessary space for the solo activities of a number of musicians who often serve or collaborate with other musicians and collectives. Guitarist Ava Mendoza (Quok, Nate Wooley, William Parker, …), saxophonist Sakina Abdou (Trapeze, Muzzix, …) and cellist Lia Kohl (Makaya McCraven, Circuit Des Yeux, Steve Gunn, …) are offered a forum to share their unique and individual musical approach to the Summer Bummer audience.

The framework:

Like the central photo exhibition in 2023, images from previous Summer Bummer editions will again be shown in a surprising way and a second festival magazine, with interviews from central festival guests and a handy timetable, is in the making. The high-quality record fair and the live broadcast by Radio Centraal during the Summer Bummer Festival has become a tradition, both for the artists and for the visitors. And of course there’s that other Summer Bummer tradition, a stand with freshly made slow food, rich flavors and pure ingredients prepared with love and care by the Summer Bummer crew.

With the support of: