artists
Marlies Debacker
Rousing the silence and creating sound worlds.
A room and a grand piano: surrounded by silence until Marlies Debacker captures both and brings them to life in a concentrated way. The pianist, who was born in Belgium in 1992 and lives in Cologne, knows how to create music that explores the intensity of her instrument’s possibilities and in particular stages, its rich world of sound - solo or in combination with her fellow musicians.
Debacker, who first studied at the Koninklijk Conservatorium Antwerp, moved to the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln for her Master’s degree and followed it up with a Master’s degree in contemporary music at the Folkwang Universität der Künste Essen, sees herself as a musician at the interface of jazz, improvised and contemporary music.
In autumn 2022, she released the solo album “Shimmer” on the Spanish label Sirulita Records. “My first solo album offers a glimpse into the music that has been developing in my head over the last few years,” she says and continues: „Listeners are invited to get involved and discover their own associations with these forms and sound worlds, in the hope that everyone can enjoy the deep exploration of the spectral world of the piano as much as I do …”. Debacker was nominated for the German Jazz Award in the category “Piano/ Keyboards” in 2023.
In addition to her impressive solo performances, Debacker appears nationally and internationally as an active improviser with her duo Debacker/ Javaid, the piano duo Wegmann/ Debacker or the trio Debacker/ Hübsch/ Javaid, among others. Debacker is also the curator of the platform of Nicht Dokumentierbarer Ereignisse (non-documentable events) - a concert series for improvised music that has a tradition of over 15 years in Cologne - and is a member of the Cologne improvisers’ collective impakt.