Isabelle Bodenseh – Dignity

Description

Suite for Dignity – A Plea for Human Dignity by Jazz Flutist Isabelle Bodenseh

 With Suite for Dignity, composer and flutist Isabelle Bodenseh and her quartet extend an invitation to the audience — opening a door into a space of emotional resonance through jazz.

Marking the tenth anniversary of her quartet, Isabelle Bodenseh — who first chose the flute as a child, later fell in love with the freedom of improvisation, and ultimately discovered her unique voice as a jazz flutist — now opens a new chapter in her artistic journey.

Authentic and deeply personal, her work draws on her own experience as the mother of her severely disabled daughter, Juliette, transforming moments of lived dignity into the movements of a suite. While the suite form has its roots in early music and has been reinterpreted across centuries, it remains a rarity in jazz. By embracing it, Isabelle joins a lineage of great artists such as Duke Ellington in the 1940s, Oscar Peterson in the 1960s, Keith Jarrett in the 1970s, and more recently, Charlie Watts.

The Suite for Dignity is truly unique.

Each movement is dedicated to encounters with the people, institutions, and laws surrounding Juliette’s life. Here, “Dignity,” embodied by the flute, journeys through moments of deep hurt, despair, and courageous overcoming. What emerges, however, is anything but tragic or heavy-hearted. Instead, Isabelle Bodenseh illuminates the true essence of human dignity from her own personal and deeply felt ethical perspective.

As humanist, improviser, and jazz flutist, she has composed the Suite for Dignity using a variety of compositional tools and with such depth that her bandmates — Thomas Bauser, Johannes Maikranz, and Lars Binder — were unanimously inspired to bring this unique work to life and release it together as a collective artistic statement. At its heart lies a profound question: What undermines human dignity – and how can we uphold the universal right to be treated with respect?

The suite offers answers by showing how genuine emotional connection can transcend the rigidity of laws and regulations, fostering equality, sensitivity, and mutual respect.

In combination with the text-sound collage “Juliette”, to which Johannes Maikranz makes a meaningful contribution, and complemented by the composition “Masha” by drummer Lars Binder as well as the dynamic piece “Fly High” by Isabelle, this work unfolds as a powerful and profoundly moving artistic statement of exceptional significance.

Isabelle Bodenseh, C and bass flutes

Johannes Maikranz, guitar

Thomas Bauser, Hammond organ

Lars Binder, drums