Some take families into their homes, others drive relief supplies to the border, while others believe the best way to serve the Ukrainian cause is as mercenaries in combat. Mulo Francel plays the saxophone. It’s his way of helping, with the resources of a professional musician. Opportunities to do this at benefit concerts are not uncommon these days. “If there are people who organize it, then I’ll be there,” he says. Last Wednesday, for example, he gave a concert in Ebersberg with other well-known musicians and ensembles such as the Rudi Zapf Trio and Nicole Heartseeker.
On Monday, May 2nd, Francel will give another benefit concert in his home town of Baierbrunn. Together with the jazz pianist Chris Gall, the award-winning saxophonist and clarinetist plays mainly pieces from the album “Mythos”, which the two released in 2019. The event is organized in the parish hall of St. Peter and Paul by the association “Mittendrin in Baierbrunn”. He originally wanted to win over the renowned local artist for a small, fine chamber concert in the new club rooms on Wolfratshauser Straße. The musician was impressed by the advances (“I think the club is good”), but changed the idea so that the whole thing should be made a little bigger and the performance should be given a benefit character.
Now the parish hall of St. Peter and Paul will be used as a concert venue, offering space for around 120 visitors. The acoustics there are not ideal, but Francel, who, as a member and head of the world music formation “Quadro Nuevo”, has won the Echo Jazz twice, is looking forward to the rather rare opportunity to show his skills in his home town – and bring a lighting technician with you. There is already a grand piano there, so it made sense to invite Chris Gall, who has often worked with Francel and also with “Quadro Nuevo”. The jazz pianist, born in Bad Aibling in 1975 and trained at the renowned Berklee College of Music, crosses the boundaries between musical genres and is also a successful composer. The interplay between Francel and Gall in “Mythos” is characterized by subtle grooves, unobtrusively impressionistic tones, idiosyncratic dancing melancholy – and above all by the fact that both give each other enough space in the dialogue, skilfully oscillating between temperament and restraint. The arrangements and original compositions are inspired by mythological figures and stories such as the Carthaginian queen Dido or Palinurus, the less well-known helmsman of Aeneas, but also draws on the Bible (Bach’s setting “Jesu bleibet meine Freude”). “I love stories and personalities that have shaped Western history for thousands of years,” says Francel.
Half of the proceeds also benefit refugee projects in Lebanon
Myths and legends often deal with journeys and escapes, adventure and danger, but also unexpected help from others. The concert in Baierbrunn is now also dedicated to refugee aid. The proceeds will benefit Ukrainian war victims and will be given to the “Pullach-Baryschivka-Beresan” partnership association from the neighboring community. The other half will go to the Munich association “Tent School”, which is mainly active in Lebanon and provides long-term support for refugees there. “We want to remind you that there are other trouble spots in the world,” says Stefan Erbacher from the “Mittendrin in Baierbrunn” association, pointing out that 95 percent of Lebanon’s wheat imports normally come from the Ukraine – the now of course missing. The association, founded in 2021, which has made it its mission to make the place more lively, bring different generations and milieus together and generally strengthen the sense of community, wants to introduce itself again at the concert. Local cultural support is also part of this. “We’re taking the opportunity to make ourselves better known,” explains Erbacher.
Above all, one hopes to recruit one or the other Baierbrunner as a member in order to be able to cope with future expenses for the association. So far, you can use the club rooms in the center of town rent-free, but that will change in the summer and should be managed, among other things, through membership fees. On Monday at the concert – the parish hall is available free of charge – a spokesman for the Pullach Partnership Association will speak. But the main thing that speaks is the music. From two musical greats from the region.
Tickets for the benefit concert, starting at 8 p.m., are available for 18 euros in advance at the Peter & Paul pharmacy in Baierbrunn and in the branches of the Isartal bookstore in Pullach and Ebenhausen.