2025 in review
One year ago - exactly to the day - I wrote a blog post about what had been going on in 2024 for me (musically) and and how these experiences helped me shape my musical path. Summarizing my year has felt quite good - it allowed me to see the steps that I had taken and the progress I made (which sometimes can be hard while you’re in the middle of a process). I now kind of like the idea to do a review once a year between other blog posts, because it makes me proud of what I have achieved already and I can see a little clearer what could be waiting for me in the coming months/ the near future. And of course I also like to share these things with you - who knows, maybe there is someone out there feeling inspired by it to turn a dream into reality or someone who is on a similar path and can relate.
2025 has treated me in very different ways. I think I could divide the year into two parts. The first part of the year (which lasted roughly until the beginning of July) I didn’t play a lot in public. I had a great concert at Rotbart in January playing my instrumental piano tunes in a cozy and winter-y atmopshere but after that I felt that I needed some time to relax and take it easy. At the same time some other topics came into my life (they had nothing to do with music and were absolutely far from being relaxing so there goes my time for taking it easy ). I felt like I needed some mental capacity to deal with them. During these months I also began to realize that there is a good chance my former band with Olivia Void (where I played bass) will probably fall apart (but she is still making music by the way) which made me sad but in a way opened up other possibilities for me.
Because there were no more band rehearsals and concerts I slowly started to experiment more with new instrumental ideas and songwriting. After a few attempts I was lucky to have found my way of writing lyrics (at least for now) that I feel confident to perform in public and that make me feel like I’m speaking from my soul (it happened around July, I also wrote a blog post about that :-) ). With that a whole new level was unlocked. I felt like I could finally use my voice which I wanted to do for such a long time. It also opened up more possibilities to play. I didn’t do a lot of booking but in the second half of 2025 I felt like most of the concerts were coming to me. At first I was still a bit nervous about singing with a mic but then I quickly learned how much fun it is, I am absolutely addicted! I went to a few open stages, got a lot of sweet feedback and stepped into a whole new scene. With my day job it’s not easy to do this a lot, especially not during the week, but I’m glad I know a few places now where the people are nice and where I can test new material in front of an auience.
In 2025, I also got to know great people with whom I can do more creative stuff together. I did another singing workshop and got better at the technics of piano accompaniment. I had some stress preparing concerts and workshops and juggling life but more importantly I also had a lot of fun! Sadly I didn’t play the bass as much anymore but I hope it will come back into my life because grooving is great! (Actually I’m pretty certain it will but I also had to learn - and still am - to be honest with me about the amount of time that I have for another instrument. Sometimes we simply can’t do all things at once)
So now here I am, a year older (and wiser ;-) ) with some more skills in my hands and more experiences about playing concerts and the life of a musician in general.
What will come in 2026? A lot of exciting stuff I guess. In contrary to last year I don’t feel like I need to take a musical break right now but with a full-time job and other responsibilities I want to find a good balance between doing musical things that are important to me and not being stressed out too much. I have a few options for concerts in my mind in and around Berlin, a more political project to prepare and some musical things that friends have asked me to do for them. So we’ll see. I’ll definitely update you here on what’s going on and I hope to meet some of you at one of my upcoming events/concerts!