artists
Theresia Philipp
Taking a stand while breaking through genre boundaries.
“I believe that in order to grow as an artist and find the essence of what I want to achieve, I must strive to break through genre boundaries that limit our thinking about music,” says Cologne-based saxophonist, clarinettist and composer Theresia Philip about her aspirations for her artistic work. One focus of her work is the Trio Pollon, founded back in 2013, with bassist David Helm and Thomas Sauerborn on drums. In 2022, Philipp was awarded the WDR Jazz Prize in the category “composition”.
Born in 1991, Philipp began her musical career at the Landesgymnasium für Musik Carl Maria von Weber in Dresden and went on to study at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln (saxophone) and the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Mannheim (composition). She was a member of the Jugendjazzorchester Sachsen as well as the Bundesjazzorchester. The WDR recently described her as “one of the most sensational musicians of the younger generation of German jazz”.
For Philipp, creating art means taking a stance and expressing herself politically. This is what she does, for example, with her project Ain’t I? with the participation of Shannon Barnett, Rajiv Jaraweera, Defne Sahin and Robert Lucaciu. Speeches by famous feminists - people Philipp feels inspired by - from different cultures and times are taken up by her here to show the global and overarching nature of sexism/feminism.
As a bandleader, it is particularly important to Theresia Philipp to blur and hopefully dissolve musical boundaries. One of the ways she tries to achieve this is by exploring and combining many genres and encouraging exchange with musicians from different cultures and backgrounds.