Ivo Neame & Charles Kieny ‘Once In A Weill’

Musicians Charles Kieny (accordion) and Ivo Neame (piano) will be undertaking a tour of the South West of England in 2027. They will be performing both original music written by themselves and arrangements of the music of Kurt Weill, music which features on a recently recorded album by the duo entitled ‘Once in a Weill’.
The idea behind this presentation was to pick a historically recognised composer/songwriter but to reimagine and update the songs by using contemporary compositional techniques and approaches. Kieny and Neame will be redefining and exploring such well-known Weill songs as Speak Low, My Ship and Youkali. As a Jewish, German-born composer and songwriter, Kurt Weill was forced to flee Nazi Germany in 1933, arriving in the United States two years later; many of Weill’s songs are now associated with the canon of music known as the ‘Great American Songbook’. Throughout the history of jazz, musicians and composers have sought to extract their improvisatory ‘gold’ from this abundant seam of musical themes, by creating their own interpretations of this pre-existing material. As composers, Kieny’s and Neame’s ethos is to simultaneously respect and challenge the traditions and conventions regarding music written by composers associated with jazz such as Kurt Weill.