Open Day 2022Excellence in Jazz

22 July 2022

Photo: Karsten Helmholz

Piotr Michalowski (left) and John Hughes (right)

‘Spotlight: Written Artefacts’ was the title of the CSMC’s Open Day in June. At the end of the event, however, the spotlight was on two musicians: Piotr Michalowski – in his main profession a renowned Assyriologist – and John Hughes. Watch the full performance online.

In the academic world, Piotr Michalowski is primarily known for being an authority in Middle East Studies. He was appointed George G. Cameron Professor at the University of Michigan already in his early thirties and has since built an outstanding international reputation for his immense research output on the literary history, poetics, magic, religion, history, historiography, linguistics, epigraphy, and other aspects of ancient Mesopotamian manuscript cultures.

In view of this career, it is not necessarily obvious, but Piotr Michalowski is also an outstanding player of the bass clarinet and the sopranino saxophone, and well-known in the free jazz scene. At the end of the CSMC's Open Day in June, he gave a performance of his art.

He was joined by John Hughes on the double bass. The American has lived in Hamburg since 1998, frequently performs at concerts and is active in various jazz groups. Among other things, he has been part of Barner 16 for many years, an inclusive network of artists with and without handicaps in the fields of music, dance and performance, and film.

The entire performance can now be watched online.