Opening concerts of MOTIVES FESTIVAL with Ola Tunji & Alex Koo

Ola Tunji and Alex Koo let Motives Festival 2026 explode in a whirlwind of groove, guts, and pure musical ecstasy - an opening that you not only hear, but feel to every fiber. Ola Tunji is a quartet from Brussels that has united around saxophonist Ornella Noulet in a shared dedication to the spiritual jazz of John Coltrane. Their music breathes the intensity and openness of the New Thing movement of the sixties, the movement that later gained fame as free jazz. In 2025 the band ended up in a rapid flow because they not only won the ‘Talent 2025 and Audience Award’ during Gent Jazz, but they also won the European Musical Springboard Prijs at the Jazz Festival van Avignon! Musical centipede Alex Koo - praised by Trouw as “of the same rare level as Keith Jarrett\" and included by Downbeat and De Standaard in the list of best records of 2025 with his Trio - takes a bold new step with his brand new live project Kimono Garden. Expect an organic mix of jazz, neo-soul, electronic music, ambient, and future beats - a sound world that is both playful and compelling, and that leaves the traditional jazz stage far behind. Influences blow in from the spheres of Flying Lotus, Hiatus Kaiyote, Erykah Badu, Björk and Thom Yorke, reinforced by a good dose of experiment, improvisation, and pure stage energy. The band consists of Lorena Del Mar (keys, vocals, loops), Andrew Claes (EWI, flutes, electronics, percussion) - one of the creative forces behind STUFF. and numerous innovative projects - and Trui Amerlinck (bass, cello, vocals), known from, among others, Ivy Falls, Tsar B, and NΔBOU. Especially for the JazzLab tour in Oct–Nov 2026, an exclusive vinyl re-issue of Kimono Garden will appear, with some new pieces in quartet and only available during the concerts. A collector's item that breathes new life into the dreamy, cinematic sound worlds of the original album from 2020 (at the time only released digitally). www.olatunjiband.com www.alexkoomusic.com