With ‘Resonanzen’ (Resonances), Johanna Summer has extended her extraordinary art and deepened the way she re-tells the music of classical composers through improvisation.

The album spans a wide range, starting with Bach, Schubert, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Grieg and Ravel and ending with Mompou, Ligeti and Scriabin.

Johanna Summer’s deep insights into the two worlds of composition and improvisation are the result of the particular path along which she has developed as a musician. In her childhood and youth, she solely studied classical music. Jazz and improvisation came relatively late, but when they did, it was with a powerful focus.

Her classical grounding remained in place, and yet there were many things that she needed to re- learn for ‘Resonanzen’. As she says: “It was very important that I should master the original pieces first. That was particularly demanding for ‘Resonanzen’, because each of these very contrasting compositions makes very different demands on me as a player. At the same time, improvisation is also an art which you have to keep practising and developing, so that the music can attain its own natural flow. To do justice to both of these sides, and to find a balance between them, these really are lifelong tasks for me.”