Jazzfest Berlin 2026: Karoline Wallace

Eon

Karoline Wallace – Personengruppe in dunklem Raum, sitzt an Tisch mit Essen und Getränken, Person mit Hut steht am Fenster.

Karoline Wallace: Eon

(NO)

German premiere

Like several artists performing at the 2026 edition of Jazzfest Berlin Norwegian singer and composer Karoline Wallace refuses to submit her work to any kind of purity test. Her own projects have routinely drawn from a wide variety of sources and inspirations – folk, rock, free jazz, ambient sounds, art-pop – but there’s never any sense that she’s merely slapping disparate elements together. She’s been involved with a slew of projects over the last eight years, as a bandleader and as a side person and arranger, and considered cumulatively it’s no surprise that her latest quintet project Eon covers so much ground. While her previous endeavors as a leader have been promising, Eon achieves something stunningly unique. Trying to pick apart the different ingredients in this body of music is a fool’s errand, not because it’s particularly difficult, but because it misses the point.

Aided by a fantastic band – reedist Signe Emmeluth, who brought her BANSHEE project to Jazzfest Berlin in 2025, guitarist Karl Bjorå, cellist Joel Ring and drummer Martin Langlie – Wallace pushes and pulls her gorgeous, serpentine melodies through constantly morphing soundscapes. There are airy ballads where weightless electronic textures and endlessly inventive guitar gestures or licks from Bjorå dance around the singer’s voice. Other songs, like Atlas, generate a wild, woolly clatter, with Langlie sounds like he’s bashing on junkyard detritus as Emmeluth wails away on alto saxophone and Bjorå produces loud phrases and lines that cuddle up inside the raucous beats. Whether whispering her lyrics or caterwauling through them, Wallace holds the reins through thick and thin, her arrangements deftly balancing lyric beauty and all-out chaos. Her project Eon will celebrate its German premiere at this year’s Jazzfest Berlin. 

Line-up

Karoline Wallace – voice, electronics

Signe Emmeluth – alto saxophone, flute, electronics

Karl Bjorå – guitar

Joel Ring – cello

Martin Langlie – drums, banjo, electronics

Runtime: Thu, 29/10/2026 to Sun, 01/11/2026

Next date: Karoline Wallace: Eon

• Date Thursday, 29/October/2026 22:30
• Venue Quasimodo
• Address Kantstraße 12A, 10623 Berlin-Charlottenburg
• Price from €23.78

Book tickets for this date

Order online