About us

Pas­so Avan­ti brings clas­sics to new life with tremen­dous joy and vir­tu­os­i­ty; clas­sics that were out­ra­geous­ly mod­ern at their time. The so-called old mas­ters, com­posers like Bach, Brahms and Ver­di, were all musi­cal pio­neers, who loved to exper­i­ment and were open for new approach­es. What kind of music would they make today? Pas­so Avan­ti lets us catch a glimpse of that. The quar­tet trans­lates well-known works to a mod­ern musi­cal lan­guage and reshapes them with­out com­pro­mis­ing their orig­i­nal spir­it. On the con­trary, the unique arrange­ments make the pieces as excit­ing as they were back then. In doing so, they nev­er sound arti­fi­cial or forced, but with inher­ent nat­u­ral­ness. When play­ing, the four musi­cians cre­ate a vivid dia­logue between the indi­vid­ual voic­es that brings out won­der­ful new nuances of the orig­i­nals – they shine with new splendour.

Press

“Joy of beau­ti­ful tone — Pas­so Avan­ti excites the audi­ence in the Emper­or Hall with an emo­tion­al mix­ture of clas­si­cal music and jazz. (…) Those four excel­lent musi­cians live, breathe — they are music. (…) One can hard­ly expe­ri­ence a more intense and emo­tion­al con­cert. The excit­ed audi­ence insist­ed on three encores, stand­ing ova­tions includ­ed.“
Con­cert review Kaiser­saal Otto­beuren, Mem­minger Zeitung

“Besides all the curios­i­ty and love for exper­i­ments, the arrange­ments from the quar­tet were very sen­si­tive regard­ing musi­cal styles. Sub­tle Play­ing and a love for details made the con­cert a sophis­ti­cat­ed spe­cial treat for music lovers.“
Con­cert review Zweibrück­er Fes­thalle, Die Rheinpfalz

“The con­cert, which had been announced as a ’new sym­bio­sis of clas­si­cal music and jazz’ turned out as an inno­v­a­tive evening of a very spe­cial kind: Pas­so Avan­ti (…) per­formed a mag­i­cal music expe­ri­ence that opened up new hori­zons to the thrilled audi­ence. They offered no super­fi­cial mix of styles or arbi­trary com­bi­na­tions of bits and pieces from dif­fer­ent peri­ods, but a vital and lov­ing syn­the­sis, a new cre­ation out of the equal­ly mas­tered idioms from clas­si­cal and jazz styles. The phe­nom­e­nal blend­ing of these dif­fer­ent instru­ments should also be men­tioned.“
Con­cert review Bürg­er­haus Gräfelf­ing, Münch­n­er Merkur

“Unlike any­thing before- Alexan­der von Hagke goes new ways with Pas­so Avan­ti. Oth­er than the many shal­low crossover projects which sim­ply pro­duce clas­si­cal melodies with under­ly­ing jazz rhythms, Alexan­der von Hagke wants to fruit­ful­ly com­bine the advan­tages of both sides: The beau­ty of clas­si­cal tone with jazz’ free­dom of time and har­mo­ny.“
Sued­deutsche Zeitung

“These boys have devel­oped their own musi­cal lan­guage.“
Bay­erisches Fernse­hen (Ger­man pub­lic television)

Alexan­der von Hagke — clar­inet, bass clar­inet, flute and piccolo
Julia Bassler/Doren Din­glinger — vio­lin (alter­nat­ing)
Lucas Cam­para Diniz — guitar
Eugen Baz­i­jan — cello