The Great European Songbook

Lia Pale, a name that is still largely unknown in the Stuttgart region. This should and will change on Saturday, September 27, when the likeable Austrian and her band perform their very personal favorite songs by Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms and Hugo Wolf at the Stuttgart Theaterhaus. In terms of the program, this is a classical song recital, one might think... However, the singer and flautist Lia Pale is at home in jazz, where she has been very successful with various solo albums. But her heart also beats for German romantic art song - and so she has brought her two passions together! The result is the "Great European Songbook", Lia Pale's personal declaration of love for song with arrangements for voice, piano, violin, bass and percussion of songs that we all know very well in their original form, but which we can now hear and discover in a completely new way. Commissioned by the International Hugo Wolf Academy, Lia Pale has also worked for the first time on songs by Hugo Wolf, which will be performed as a kind of world premiere on September 27. www.liapalemusic.com

Press reviews of Lia Pale & Band:
...no "jazzing up", but witty arrangements close to the originals and yet at a clever distance from them. Which means: the originals never tip over into sentimentality in Pale's straight, finely vibrating voice." (Weltwoche)
Classical music obviously offers good material for jazz musicians. Nevertheless, it seems almost audacious to transform Romantic art songs into jazz songs. But it works, as the Classix Festival in Kempten has shown. What's more, the performance by singer Lia Pale and a jazz quartet opened up a new musical world to the audience in the Stadttheater. (Allgäuer Zeitung)
"...Lia Pale, who sings in English with a distinctive and unmistakable soprano, gives them all such ravishing expression that the great Romantic now grooves like hell for the first time. Brilliantly grounded by Hans Strasser and Ingrid Oberkanins, elegantly inspired by the spiritus rector at the piano, Robert Schumann sounds here sometimes waltzy ("The Maiden"), sometimes swinging ("I Cant Believe It" - sic!), sometimes in blue-grass opulence ("Sweet Violet") fresh as never before in enchantingly cheerful splendor of sound. (FonoForum)