Rotraut Jäger SONAMBIQUE
Rotraut Jäger is a Zürich-based flautist, composer and educator. Trained in classical music and jazz her full, warm and flexible tone on different flutes delights her audience. Her captivating compositions are a colourful and unique blend of jazz, latin, world-music and oddmeters. With her quartet Rotraut Jäger SONAMBIQUE she takes her audience on a multi-stylistic hike, not only through manifold moods, but also through a whole series of regions of this planet.
“…she spreads her telepathic songs far beyond jazz.” (Citizen Jazz)
“…elicits passages from the transverse flute that may point to a new direction in terms of the role of the instrument in jazz.” (Jazzpodium)
“…vibrant rhythms and joyful chants…” (Latins de Jazz)
Video: ALMA ROJA live at Dakar Music Expo (SN)
Video: SOUTHERN SPICE live at Jazz in Dübendorf (CH)
Rotraut Jäger SONAMBIQUE
Rotraut Jäger – flutes*, compositions
Christian Pabst – piano
Abdourakhmane Fall – electric bass
Omar Diadji Seydi – drums
*flutes: C-flute, altoflute, bassflute, piccolo, bansuri
DYNAMITE
recorded in co-production with Radio SRF 2 Kultur
released on 6 October 2023 by
Rotraut Jäger SONAMBIQUE
LC 100378 redplanet records
The German/Swiss Rotraut Jäger, who lives in Zurich, is a flutist with a passion. On her second album“Dynamite“, she manages the remarkable feat of calibrating herself completely to the flute and yet not recording a flute album. Because the focus of her music, which is refreshing in every respect, is without exception the respective song – the melody, the groove, the mood and the mental environment in which the song was created. With a relaxedness that is rarely heard in jazz, she simply plays.
Rotraut Jäger is a gifted storyteller. Just by playing different flutes, very different voices come into play, which act like the characters in a plot.
The record as a whole seems like a multi-stylistic hike, not only through manifold moods, but also through a whole series of regions of this planet, without ever getting a flat global village feeling.“For me, the central question is always, what music do I want to listen to myself? What interests me?“
Good thing. Because“Dynamite“ is nothing less than an explosive outburst of undisguised joie de vivre that depicts life in its interaction of banal ordinariness and complexity.
Video: DYNAMITE
Video: live at JazzChur March 2024
Rotraut Jäger SONAMBIQUE
Album-Release-Tour DYNAMITE
22 February 2025, Dakar Music Expo, Dakar
21 February 2025, Le Phènix Jardin, Dakar
19 February 2025, Swiss Embassy, Dakar
19 January 2025, KAFF, Zürich-Affoltern
18 January 2025, Hot Jazz Club Lyon
17 January 2025, Duke’s La Scéne, Lausanne
16 January 2025, ESSE Musicbar, Winterthur
18 October 2024, Jazz im Refektorium, Rottweil
4 October 2024, Jazz in Dübendorf
10 May 2024, UpJazz, Fribourg
25 March 2024, Jazz Chur
24 March 2024, Auswanderermuseum, Oberalben
23 March 2024, Terminus, Saarbrücken
21 March 2024, Fondation Suisse, Paris
11 November 2023, Jazzclub Allmend, Oberengstringen
5 November 2023, Abbaye de Neimenster, Luxembourg
4 November 2023, Burg Lichtenberg, Kusel
3 November 2023, Kleines Theater im Rathaus, Saarbrücken, recorded by radio SR2 – JAZZ NOW
22 October 2023, Flute Trends Atelier, Niederrohrdorf
6 October 2023, Lebewohlfabrik, Zürich
First Album SONAFARI (2020)
Born in Saarbrücken/Germany Rotraut Jäger has been living in Zürich/Switzerland since 2007.
She studied flute at Peter-Cornelius-Konservatorium der Stadt Mainz (State Examined Music Teacher 2000, performance, 2002), at Zürcher Hochschule der Künste (performance diploma 2006 with Philippe Racine, jazz studies 2003-2006 with Günter Wehinger and Christoph Grab) and at Manhattan School of Music (jazz studies 2006-2007 with Dick Oatts and Steve Wilson).
During her studies Rotraut Jäger participated in workshops and masterclasses i.a. with Peter Lukas Graf, Robert Dick, Michel Debost and Moshe Epstein. Furthermore, she took part in a workshop Música Popular Brasileira in Brasil and had private lessons with i.a. Ali Ryerson, Frank Wess and Dave Liebman in New York.
As a freelance musician she is active with her own projects as well as a sideman at home and abroad.
She has performed with i.a. Miles Griffith (voc, US), Earle Davis (tp, US), Roland Gebhard (g, DE), Vicente Cortes (g, CH/ES), Karime Amaya (Flamencotanz, ES) and The Skatalites (JAM).
She also works as a private flute teacher and is in charge of various ensembles and workshops.
In March 2020 she released the first album – Sonafari – with her bandproject Sonambique. In October 2023 was the release of her second album – Dynamite – in co-production with the Swiss radio SRF2 Kultur.