The Joni Project & Friends

Joni Mitchell, poet, painter, producer and one of the greatest living singer-songwriters turns 80 on November 7. The three Hamburg musicians Anne de Wolff, Stefanie Hempel and Iris Romen (The Joni Project) are celebrating this with a big birthday gala, to which they have invited the crème de la crème of German-speaking musicians to sing and interpret Joni Mitchell songs together with many instruments and voices. Among them are Gitte Haenning, Lisa Bassenge, Niels Frevert, Anna Depenbusch, Katharina Franck (Rainbirds), Martin Gallop, CATT, Fjarill and jazz newcomer Alma Naidu. The accompanying band features Friedrich Paravicini, Ulrich Rode and Rainer "Kallas" Hubert, as well as current German Jazz Award winner Lisa Wulff on bass. Joni Mitchell's genre-bending work will be honored on this evening with a cross-section through the decades, ranging from early "Laurel Canyon" folk, through the jazz-influenced pop of the mid-seventies, her collaborations with jazz legends such as Jaco Pastorius or Wayne Shorter, to her pop comeback in the early nineties.