The LOFT in Cologne’s Ehrenfeld district is just that: a spacious loft. Since 1989, it has been home to the musical avant-garde, serving as both a scene backdrop and a testing ground, especially for jazz students. Since 1989, concerts have been held regularly on the top floor of a former perfume factory in the heart of Ehrenfeld, and since then, the LOFT has developed into a valued venue for improvised music, contemporary music, and jazz with national and international appeal. Most of the Cologne jazz musicians who have made a name for themselves nationally and internationally over the past 30 years took their first career steps at the LOFT, including Nils Wogram, Hayden Chisholm, Angelika Niescier, Florian Weber, Frank Gratkowski, Paolo Alvares, Philipp Zoubek, Robert Landfermann, Pablo Held, Jonas Burgwinkel, and Sebastian Sternal. The Cologne Triennial, WDR, and Deutschlandfunk organize concerts and recordings here, the LOFT and its scene have been invited five times to participate in projects at the Moers Festival, the LOFT’s own publishing house, 2ndFloor, selectively promotes musicians by releasing recordings, and over 1,000 recordings of live concerts and productions recorded in the LOFT recording studio have been released on other labels. The association 2ndFloor e.V. (since 2004) and the musicians’ collective “jungesloft” (since 2014) support the activities of the LOFT, enabling 214 events to take place last year (2018). Attracted by an excellent infrastructure (top-level instruments, e.g., Steinway D grand piano, one of the best concert grand pianos in a jazz club in Germany), the professional recording studio with its excellent sound engineers (multiple winners of ECHO Jazz and quarterly awards from the German Record Critics’ Association), and the special atmosphere, numerous well-known musicians from Germany and abroad have already performed at the LOFT, but the focus of the concert activities is on promoting Cologne-based musicians. Prominent musicians such as Adam Nussbaum, Alexander von Schlippenbach, Barre Phillips, Barry Guy, Bobby Previte, Carl Stone, Dave Bargeron, Dave Douglas, Dave Liebman, Evan Parker, Fred Frith, Han Benning, Jim Black, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Lee Konitz, Mal Waldron, Manfred Schoof, Marilyn Crispell, Mark Turner, Matthew Shipp, Michel Ducret, Michel Godard, Misha Mengelberg, Paul Lovens, Peter Brötzmann, Peter Evans, Rebekka Bakken, Tim Berne, Phil Minton, Steve Lacy, Steve Swallow, Simon Nabatov, and many others have already performed at the LOFT; the guest list is a “who’s who” of the world of improvised music and jazz. For this reason, the LOFT was and is not only an open space for the Cologne scene to take its first steps, experiment, and produce, but also offers listeners concerts with internationally renowned musicians and groups. Since its inception in 2009, the LOFT has received the NRW Venue Program Award from the Ministry of Culture and Science of North Rhine-Westphalia and the NRW State Music Council every year, which honors venues that have made outstanding contributions to the promotion of regional young talent.
The venue is located on the 3rd floor of Wißmannstr. 30. The hall can be reached via the staircase and an elevator. There is one step to overcome to reach the restrooms (also on the 3rd floor). Special seating can be arranged in the front row. Please notify us in advance if you will be attending a concert in a wheelchair so that the elevator can be opened in advance.