Tightrope Dancer by Mariana Zwarg, Johannes von Ballestrem

Mariana Zwarg and Johannes von Ballestrem are two artists coming from quite different worlds: She is a flutist from Rio de Janeiro and goddaughter of the legendary Hermeto Pascoal, whose tradition she carries on, he is a Berlin pianist working in a wide variety of styles and has appeared with jazz greats like Kurt Rosenwinkel and Greg Cohen.
Mariana and Johannes met in 2017.

Since then, they have been touring regularly in Europe and Brazil with a larger group, Mariana's Sexteto Universal, appearing for example at XJAZZ Festival (Berlin), Pori Jazz Festival (Finland), Sunset/Sunside (Paris) and SESC Instrumental (São Paulo). In 2020, the sextet's highly acclaimed debut album, Nascentes, was released.

In the many hours of rehearsing and playing together, Mariana and Johannes developed an intense musical partnership and eventually a desire to work together as a duo as well. During the lockdown in 2020, both stuck at home (in Berlin and Rio, respectively), they began exchanging ideas and working together on new compositions specifically for this project.

A Goethe Institute scholarship supported this process. Using influences from both their worlds, Brazilian rhythms as well as jazz and improvisation, Mariana and Johannes started developing a very personal and unique language.

Mariana Zwarg represents the third generation of musicians playing and spreading the tradition of "universal music", created by her godfather, the musical genius Hermeto Pascoal from Brazil. Mariana is a flutist, saxophonist, composer and arranger and has been performing all over Latin America in the last 15 years.
Her group, the "Sexteto Universal", unites musicians from 5 different countries.