Nubiyan Twist

Expect ultra-tight musicianship and unstoppable energy as Nubiyan Twist bring their electrifying blend of jazz, afrobeat, soul, hip-hop and dance music to the stage with abrand new line-up and live show for 2026. Known for their powerful big-band sound and uplifting live shows, the collective fuse global grooves with UK jazz finesse, percussive fire and deep, infectious rhythm. Following their acclaimed collaborations with musical icons including Nile Rogers, Tony Allen, Seun Kuti and Fatoumata Diawara, the band continue to push boundaries uniting cultures, generations and genres through music that celebrates connection, freedom and groove. Formed in Leeds and now one of the UK’s most respected live acts, Nubiyan Twist have earned MOBO and AIM Award nominations, sold-out tours and praise from NPR, Rolling Stone, Jazzwise and Bandcamp Daily.

Sammy Bacca

Warm Up & Hang Out 

Sammy Bacca is a down-to-earth, laid-back lad from Zurich who has cultivated a love of good music since childhood. When he was finally &quot;old&quot; enough to start collecting records, that’s when it all began – his world was taken over by music and records. At home, there’s hardly a moment when a record isn’t playing. He’s recently started sharing some gems from his record collection on Instagram – do have a look! With various residencies in and around Zurich and his enduring connection to the local scene, he’s stood behind various DJ decks over the past 20 years, whilst continuing to perfect his skills as a selector. His sets encompass a wide range of genres and hidden gems that tell his story.

Vocals

Baritone Saxophone

Trumpet

Guitar

Electronics

Keyboards

Fender-Rhodes E-Piano

Bass

Drum Kit

Divanhana

Kultur Shock & Moods present

Divanhana from Sarajevo return to Moods with their unique blend of urban influences and traditional Balkan sounds. With passion and musical sophistication, they bring sevdah in all its beauty and diversity to stages around the world. They’re bringing their sixth studio album, *Radio Sevdah*, a tribute to a cultural institution in Bosnia: Radio Sarajevo. On this album, Divanhana demonstrate once again why they are among the most exciting voices in contemporary Balkan music. They gently guide Sevdah into new sonic realms without losing its soul, telling stories of love, home, and memory that resonate far beyond Bosnia. The band’s new singer, Selma Droce, plays a central role on the album. With her expressive voice, which effortlessly shifts between tenderness and passion, she lends both traditional songs and new compositions a special depth. In recent years, Divanhana has wowed audiences at renowned European festivals such as the Paléo Festival in Nyon, the Rudolstadt Festival, and the Bardentreffen in Nuremberg. With “Radio Sevdah,” they continue this international success story—bridging tradition and modernity, connecting Sarajevo with the world!

Mario Peric

Warm Up & Afterparti

The BalkanEkstra Parti doesn&#x27;t stop at oriental sounds or Arabic rhythms – the main thing is to dance! With the legendary concert and party series Kultur Shock, Mario Peric is one of the pioneers of the Balkan scene as an organizer, DJ and producer. He has been thrilling audiences for many years with his varied, explosive and crazy sounds. His musical spectrum cannot be pinned down to one direction. The main thing is that it rocks!

Accordion

Piano

Percussion

Zurich Jazz Orchestra feat. Sarah Chaksad

Female Composers Series

For over a decade, Swiss composer and alto and soprano saxophonist Sarah Chaksad has been a leading figure on the European jazz scene. Her trademark is her narrative, richly textured musical language, which combines compositional precision with great formal freedom. The international press hails her as an outstanding composer and arranger. Raised in a musical family, Chaksad discovered her passion for the saxophone and composition at an early age. She studied saxophone and music education at the Jazz Institute of the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW). She gained significant inspiration from international masterclasses and collaborations with musicians such as Guillermo Klein, Maria Schneider, Django Bates, and John Hollenbeck. In 2012, she founded the Sarah Chaksad Orchestra, with which she performed regularly on European stages for ten years and recorded the albums “Windmond” (2016) and “Tabriz” (2019, with Wolfgang Muthspiel). With the internationally cast Sarah Chaksad Large Ensemble, she released the album “Together” in 2023, which was praised by critics for its richness of timbre and musical depth. Chaksad is committed to the further development of the jazz scene. She directed the Jazzcampus Club Basel from 2015 to 2020, has co-led the international development program Focusyear with Wolfgang Muthspiel since 2016, and has been a co-director of the Institute of Jazz at the FHNW since 2025. She also co-founded the booking agency Esteam Music and the label Clap Your Hands.

Regie

Composition

Altsaxophon

Tenorsaxophon

Leitung

Trombone

Bassposaune

Waldhorn

Tuba

JazzBaragge Wednesday Jam

ZHdK @JazzBaragge

The JazzBaragge Wednesday Jam offers an important platform for the Swiss jazz jam scene. After the musical opening of the jam band, lively and exciting sound conversations begin between musicians who spontaneously meet on stage, reflecting the diversity of jazz in all its facets. The JazzBaragge Wednesday Jam is supported by the non-profit association JazzBaragge. There is no presale for JazzBaragge, only box office.

Berther / Mello / Sartorius / Koch

Sartorius / Koch

Luca Pilu Koch & Marina Mello: worldbuzzpoems II

Julian Sartorius and Luca Pilu Koch will open the second evening of worldbuzzpoems. Drums and voice. Two of the most archaic instruments of all. Skin. Air. Wood. Body. Julian Sartorius makes the drums speak, crackle, roll, and tremble. Luca Pilu Koch writes and recites poems about movements beneath the surface. About pressure. About closeness. About what can barely find a place in language. Rhythm meets breath. Words meet resonance.

Carte Blanche artists Marina Mello and Luca Koch have assembled bands for their worldbuzzpoems that improvise with a fresh, urgent, and powerful energy. Martina Berther lays down bass lines that shift, tremble, and suddenly vanish. Julian Sartorius approaches the drums not in terms of measures, but in terms of movements, friction, and leaps. Marina Mello weaves threads through the space with her harp – delicate yet unyielding at the same time. Luca Pilu Koch layers voices, sounds, and colors on top of one another until language becomes sound and sound becomes language. There’s rustling, crackling, humming, and growing. Individual elements become landscapes. Impulses become songs. Two days of controlled loss of control.

Harp

E-Bass

Mello / Koch

Luca Pilu Koch & Marina Mello: worldbuzzpoems I

Two days of improvised music and poetry. Marina Mello’s harp screeches. Luca Koch writes poems about bubbling, humming, and trembling. About pressure. About heat. About movements beneath the surface. We seem to be living in a giant pressure cooker. It’s getting hotter. The pressure is rising. Don’t let anyone lift the lid. So let’s let off some steam. In sound. In language. In air turbulence and sound waves. Carte Blanche artists Marina Mello and Luca Koch have put together two bands for this event that improvise in a fresh, urgent, and powerful way. They grab hold of the words, drive them forward, break them down, and carry them onward. The poems buzz. The music responds. We all hum along. Songs of sound clouds accumulate. It hisses, crackles, throbs, and pushes its way through the room. Fragments gather, condense, and dissolve again. No lid. No valve. Just two days of controlled loss of control.

Mayas / Mello / Voutchkova / Koch

Carte Blanche artists Marina Mello and Luca Koch have assembled bands for their worldbuzzpoems that improvise with freshness, urgency, and power. Magda Mayas is a poet of piano keys and strings. Biliana Voutchkova draws an entire orchestra from her violin. Marina Mello’s harp enchants from the ears down to the pit of the stomach, while Luca Pilu Koch paints with every shade of the human voice. Together, they reach for words, propel them forward, take them apart, and carry them onward. The music buzzes. The poems catch the waves. We all hum along. Sound-cloud-songs accumulate. They hiss, crackle, pulse, and move through the room. Fragments gather, condense, and dissolve again. No lid. No valve. Just two days of controlled loss of control.

Sylvie Courvoisier, Ned Rothenberg, Nasheet Waits

Short Cuts

Saxophonist/clarinetist Ned Rothenberg, pianist Sylvie Courvoisier and drummer Nasheet Waits – three of New York City’s top improvisers for the past three decades – have convened to form Short Cuts, a collectively led trio informed by the progressive jazz tradition from Ornette to Zorn (not to mention modernist chamber music and cross-cultural approaches). With Short Cuts, abstraction is tempered by earthiness, in the time-honored New York way. Experimental textures meet rhythmic depth, harmonic sophistication abets free-flying lyricism; this all-improvised music grooves and it sings, swerving to avoid cliché all the while. “It feels so natural to improvise with Ned and Nasheet,” Courvoisier says. “They are such beautiful players, and they both love grooves, even in a freely improvised setting. Winds, piano, drums also make for a relatively uncommon trio, but not having a bass player gives Ned and I more room to play in the lower register, just as it gives Nasheet more freedom with his bass drum. And these guys love to take risks, like I do.”

Clarinet

Frente Cumbiero für Famillien

With a long and successful career, FRENTE CUMBIERO has become one of the biggest representatives in the exploration of cumbia’s sonic identity in Latin America. Headed by Colombian songwriter and producer Mario Galeano Toro (also founding member of Ondatrópica and Los Pirañas), Frente Cumbiero is recognized as a spearhead of Colombia’s new cumbia movement. Among Frente’s most remarkable live appearances they have played New York’s MoMA, Festival Estéreo Picnic, Roskilde Festival, Womad, Womadelaide, Womex, Sónar, and Fuji Rock. They have toured across Latin America, Africa, Europe, the U.S., Russia, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. They have released vinyl records in the UK, the U.S., Spain, Japan and Mexico. Frente Cumbiero’s catalogue has had successful contributions with legendary musicians such as Mad Professor, the Kronos Quartet, Orquesta La Delio Valdez, and Minyo Crusaders, proving to expand the frontiers of cumbia and Latin folk music. As a live band, Frente Cumbiero performs in a quartet format, which focuses on delivering a powerhouse tropical sound to the dance floor by combining two wind instruments, live percussion and electronic sounds/dubbed sequences. Concert duration: 50–65 minutes - Children of all ages are welcome at this concert. - We ensure that the volume is appropriate, but still recommend hearing protection for young children. - Children under 12 can attend the concert free of charge, but we kindly ask you to reserve a free ticket. - Young people between the ages of 12 and 16 pay half price. - Can&#x27;t afford a ticket? Send us a message at info@moods.ch.

Saxophon

Euphonium

Frente Cumbiero

With a long and successful career, Frente Cumbiero has become one of the biggest representatives in the exploration of cumbia’s sonic identity in Latin America. Headed by Colombian songwriter and producer Mario Galeano Toro (also founding member of Ondatrópica and Los Pirañas), Frente Cumbiero is recognized as a spearhead of Colombia’s new cumbia movement. Among Frente’s most remarkable live appearances they have played New York’s MoMA, Festival Estéreo Picnic, Roskilde Festival, Womad, Womadelaide, Womex, Sónar, and Fuji Rock. They have toured across Latin America, Africa, Europe, the U.S., Russia, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. They have released vinyl records in the UK, the U.S., Spain, Japan and Mexico. Frente Cumbiero’s catalogue has had successful contributions with legendary musicians such as Mad Professor, the Kronos Quartet, Orquesta La Delio Valdez, and Minyo Crusaders, proving to expand the frontiers of cumbia and Latin folk music. As a live band, Frente Cumbiero performs in a quartet format, which focuses on delivering a powerhouse tropical sound to the dance floor by combining two wind instruments, live percussion and electronic sounds/dubbed sequences.

Buzz (Boss Hi-Fi)

Warm Up & Afterparty

BUZZ needs no introduction. 16 Tons: fantastic records, beautiful furniture. Boss Hi-Fi: best reggae DJs He will play one of his fantastic cumbia sets after Frente Cumbiero ¡Fuego!

Red Bull Dance Your Style

The Red Bull Dance Your Style World Final is coming to Zurich on 24 October 2026, and the city will become a hub for the international street dance scene as early as the week before. As part of Dance Week, the Schiffbau in Zurich will host a diverse programme centred on street dance, including side events for the community and anyone interested, as well as the pre-finals, which will bring the week to a close. National winners from many countries will compete in exciting 1-on-1 freestyle battles for the final places in the grand finale at the Hallenstadion. For more information on the programme and tickets, visit https://www.redbull.com/ch-de/events/red-bull-dance-your-style-world-final-2026-zurich/dance-your-style-dance-week

Naïssam Jalal

Spirit Music Society & Moods present

Naïssam Jalal is a flautist, vocalist and composer, drawing inspiration from music that shares a diversity of relationships with the world and a profound spiritual dimension. Thanks to encounters, imaginations and memories, each new creation becomes a unique piece. Leading various bands and travel the world&#x27;s stage, Jalal has produced 9 albums, unveiling her personal musical universe with each, in turn giving her meaning to the word freedom. With &quot;Landscapes of Eternity&quot;, Jalal explores the fundamental connection between music, nature, and spirituality at the heart of the Hindustani tradition. Traveling alone in North India for several months, she journeyed through landscapes and sacred sites, met masters and musicians, and immersed herself in this singular experience, inviting us to discover a new way of listening to the world. From this immersion emerged an intimate, contemplative, and profound repertoire, where the flute becomes the vehicle for an inner journey rooted in the breath of all living things.

Flute

Tanpura

Elec. Tap Dance

Klaus Koenig Jazz Live Trio

90 Jahre Koenig

Klaus Koenig worked as a sound engineer at Radio Studio Zurich starting in the 1960s and founded the legendary Jazz Live Trio with Peter Frei and Peter Schmidlin. As part of this group, he accompanied soloists such as Johnny Griffin, Dexter Gordon, Clark Terry, Slide Hampton, and many others in over 100 live broadcasts. After a 15-year hiatus due to illness and a cautious return, the Jazz Live Trio celebrated its comeback in 2012 with new, young musicians. Speaking of celebrations: This evening is dedicated entirely to Klaus Koenig’s 90th birthday. Moods extends its warmest congratulations! To celebrate this birthday, Klaus Koenig will be performing twice: first with the Jazz Live Trio, and then with his quintet Seven Things. The Jazz Live Trio’s latest CD &quot;Autumn Girl&quot; was released just in 2025, and their next album &quot;Songs without Words&quot; is coming out soon – and Klaus Koenig has no plans to stop anytime soon.

Klaus Koenig Seven Things

After a tentative start with the rejuvenated Jazz Live Trio, the group expanded to include two wind players. This led to the formation of the quintet Seven Things in 2013. Their fifth album &quot;An Homage to Celia&quot; was launched on Klaus Koenig’s 88th birthday at Moods in Zurich and received five stars in both Jazz’N’More and the Austrian magazine Concerto. The album &quot;Past and Presence&quot; will be released in the summer of 2026. the music was composed by Klaus Koenig himself and will be launched at Moods on the occasion of his 90th birthday. 

Disk Jockey

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Streaming

Over 700 video-on-demand and 40 live streams per year from jazz, global, blues, funk, soul and rap await you. Curated with playlists and recommendations from our program team. In addition, 70% of the subscription revenue goes directly to the musicians. With a subscription you support the artists and this project.