The tails are in place. The concert ritual, on the other hand, is allowed to get a little out of hand.

Eleven musicians of Brass Band Berlin combine classical music, jazz and comedy – with the skill of orchestral players and the willingness to bring out the comic side of that skill. For one of our main concerts, the festival returns to the concert hall of the Kulturpalast after a break.

“Classic, Jazz & Comedy” is the motto. What lies behind it is not a mix of serious music with a few jokes in between, but a repertoire written especially for this line-up. The band performs only arrangements created for it. Its musical reference points range from Bach, Wagner and Ravel to Henry Mancini, Count Basie and Benny Goodman. Classical works are allowed to turn into jazz; gestures, facial expressions and unexpected gags are just as much part of the show as the notes.

Thomas Hoffmann founded the ensemble in 1989 and still leads it today. The long-time percussionist in the orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin takes on several roles at once here: he is bandleader, singer, narrator and percussionist. Between xylophone, microphone, gong and an arsenal of noise instruments there is plenty of room for a musician who does not stick to just one role.

His fellow players come from institutions such as the Deutsche Oper Berlin and the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin; the RIAS Big Band is also part of the ensemble's musical background. Their orchestral experience is the craft behind the humour. It is not set aside when a gag comes into play; rather, it is precisely what makes this interplay between musical precision and comic disruption the concept in the first place.

In the concert hall of the Dresdner Philharmonie, the band therefore encounters a setting that is familiar musical territory for them: a hall for orchestral music. Only these orchestral musicians do not take the ritual quite as solemnly as their attire suggests. The tails stay on. What the music makes of it follows the Brass Band Berlin's own arrangements.