NDR Bigband / Norma Winstone / Pia Maria de Vito / Nikki Iles / Ensemble Resonanz

When he plays, he imagines plays, complete with plots and dialogues in different moods. That is how guitarist Ralph Towner described his concerts.

“Improvisation is a further development of the basic ideas. Characters first appear—that’s when the theme is played—and then a story unfolds. That is the improvisation.”

To tell such stories, space is needed. Ralph Towner, born in Washington State in 1940, found that space in major chord progressions, open-sounding fourths and fifths, rather than traditional thirds and major-minor harmonies.

After studying classical guitar in Vienna, the guitarist opened up new horizons in music across all genre boundaries with melodic beauty and powerful grooves. He became known above all for his folk-classical-jazz band Oregon, founded in 1970.

In her fourth program for the ensemble, NDR Big Band chief conductor Nikki Iles expands Towner’s delicate, airy world of nylon strings into epic soundscapes, performed by Ensemble Resonanz and the NDR Big Band.

Iles’s suite Crossings reflects the intersection of Towner’s American chamber jazz roots with the European concert tradition, while also featuring singer Norma Winstone, who collaborated with Towner for many years.

Finally, the concert also serves as a tribute to Towner, a unique voice of modern jazz who passed away on January 18, 2026, at his home in Rome. “He was a man wholly devoted to his art,” says Nikki Iles. “This project is a reflection of a 50-year legacy as a storyteller of the abstract.”

- Henry Altmann