Sparks & Visions Jazz Festival, Regensburg, Germany - 2026 line-up announced.

Tuesday, November 11, 2025

The international jazz festival Sparks & Visions, founded by Anastasia Wolkenstein, will take place from 23–25 January 2026 with eight concerts at the historic Theater Regensburg. Press release att.

We have received the following press release;

International Jazz Festival Sparks & Visions (23–25 January 2026) – a young festival with impact

The International Jazz Festival Sparks & Visions has quickly become a fixture in the European festival landscape. Founded three years ago by Anastasia Wolkenstein, the festival in Regensburg combines a programme of exceptional artistic quality with a unique atmosphere in the classical three-tier theatre of the UNESCO World Heritage city.

What began as a bold experiment has evolved into a platform that attracts renowned artists as well as exciting new voices in jazz. Sparks & Visions stands for discoveries beyond the mainstream and a curatorial signature that inspires and surprises. The programme spans from poetic chamber music and folkloric colours to energetic avant-garde sounds, broadening the perspective on the diversity of music we call jazz.

The very first edition was nominated for the German Jazz Prize in the category Festival of the Year—an early sign of the festival’s radiance. Since the premiere, Bayerischer Rundfunk has accompanied the festival and will also record all concerts in 2026 for later broadcast on BR-Klassik.

A key element of Sparks & Visions is its venue: the historic Theater Regensburg, with its horseshoe architecture and excellent acoustics, creates an intimacy between performers and audience that turns each concert into an intense experience.

The stage design by artist Karl Iaro, with its suspended glass mobiles, has become the visual signature of the festival. It highlights the aesthetic dimension of Sparks & Visions and reinforces the core idea of presenting jazz in a coherent, inspiring setting—as an open, vibrant and accessible art form.

In this spirit, the festival creates a space that invites both dedicated jazz listeners and curious first-timers to engage with sound and encounter.

From 23 to 25 January 2026, curator Anastasia Wolkenstein—once again in collaboration with Theater Regensburg—presents eight concerts featuring outstanding musicians from twelve countries. Carefully considered dramaturgy and balance shape a weekend that offers stylistic and instrumental breadth within a cohesive whole. This year, the festival also looks across the Atlantic for the first time—with a performance by three-time GRAMMY-nominated American harpist Brandee Younger and her trio.

Thus, Sparks & Visions confirms its place in Regensburg’s cultural calendar and beyond—inviting shared discoveries and letting musical visions shine.

Friday, 23 January 2026

Leïla Martial & Valentin Ceccaldi (FR)
With their duo Fil, vocalist Leïla Martial and cellist Valentin Ceccaldi open the festival with a radically poetic journey between improvisation, chanson and contemporary expression. Their programme Le Jardin des Délices fuses fragile quietness and expressive energy into an intense dialogue between voice and instrument—dissolving boundaries and turning attentive listening into an adventure.

Nitai Hershkovits (IL)
Israeli pianist Nitai Hershkovits, known for his work with Avishai Cohen and Oded Tzur, presents his ECM solo programme Call On The Old Wise—a quiet masterpiece between jazz and classical lyricism. With refined harmony and touching calm, he turns the piano into a resonant space for intuition and depth—music that sets silence in motion.

Marius Neset Quintet (NO/SE/UK/IR)
Norwegian saxophonist Marius Neset stands for breathtaking energy, technical brilliance and compositional scope. With his European all-star quintet he brings Cabaret to the stage—a theatrical sound spectacle balancing precision and wildness, uniting virtuosity and emotion.

Saturday, 24 January 2026

Zsófia Boros & Björn Meyer (HU/SE)
A night of quiet tones: guitarist Zsófia Boros and bassist Björn Meyer—both on ECM—meet in a finely woven dialogue of folk, minimal music and jazz. Two solo sets and a shared improvisation merge into a meditative conversation on resonance, proximity and the art of listening.

Makiko Hirabayashi “Weavers” (JP/DK)
With her ensemble Weavers, Japanese-Danish pianist Makiko Hirabayashi interlaces baroque motifs by George Frideric Handel with contemporary jazz. The result is a transparent fabric of sound and emotion—poetic, structured and deeply moving, a quiet glow between past and present.

Reuben James (UK)
Singer, pianist and songwriter Reuben James brings funk, jazz and soul to the stage with disarming joie de vivre. A former musical partner of Sam Smith and a leading figure of the new UK soul generation, he stands for groove, charisma and musical intelligence—an energised finale to the festival’s Saturday.

Sunday, 25 January 2026

Velvet Revolution & Jelena Kuljić (DE/UK/RS)
For the festival matinee, Daniel Erdmann’s Velvet Revolution and Jelena Kuljić join forces for an intimate project between jazz, chamber music and song. Their re-readings of The Velvet Underground unfold a quiet intensity where melancholy, beauty and poetic rebellion meet.

Brandee Younger Trio (US)
With Brandee Younger, a three-time GRAMMY-nominated harpist and composer, a US artist appears on the Sparks & Visions stage for the first time. She brings the harp into a modern, groove-driven context between jazz, soul and spirit—powerful, elegant and luminous.

The International Jazz Festival Sparks & Visions is presented by a non-profit limited company (gUG) with Anastasia Wolkenstein as managing director and festival curator, supported by the City of Regensburg and several sponsors. Wolkenstein has worked in the music industry for 17 years as an agent for acclaimed, award-winning artists in contemporary jazz, has served twice on the main jury of the German Jazz Prize, and was artistic director of the international festival Jazz&TheCity in Salzburg in 2023 and 2024.

Tickets
Day tickets and festival passes in five categories are available from Monday, 10 November 2025 from Theater Regensburg (box office and online).
Programme information: http://www.sparks-and-visions.com