Lotus Flowers: Bruno Angelini – Angelika Niescier – Sakina Abdou

Vapaat äänet, celebrating its 30th anniversary this autumn, brings French pianist Bruno Angelini’s Lotus Flowers trio to Finland in November 2026, featuring saxophonists Angelika Niescier and Sakina Abdou.

The lotus flower is a thing of beauty born from the mud, a metaphor for a troubled world. “When this flower blooms in the muddy marsh, the water clears around the stem! The lotus is a symbol of light!”, the late saxophonist Wayne Shorter says in a documentary about his life. This allegory inspired French pianist Bruno Angelini to compose a new repertoire. The resulting pieces pay tribute to the lotus flowers of our history – figures such as Wayne Shorter, Jane Addams, Berta Cáceres and Nelson Mandela, each of whom worked in their own way for the common good. At the heart of Angelini’s compositions are committed, purposeful melodies, interpreted by the pianist and saxophonists Sakina Abdou and Angelika Niescier with raw lyricism and great freedom.

Bruno Angelini is an experienced and highly respected musician on the French jazz scene. Originally from Marseilles and classically trained, the pianist has long led his own ensembles, including the quartet Open Land with violinist Régis Huby, bassist Claude Tchamitchian and drummer Edward Perraud. Over the years, Angelini has performed with musicians including Kenny Wheeler, Hélène Labarrière, Louis Sclavis, Catherine Delaunay, Andrew Cyrille and Reggie Workman. Founded in 2024, the Lotus Flowers trio has received an enthusiastic response and has performed extensively in France, Germany and Austria. The Abalone label released the album *Lotus Flowers* in spring 2025.

Angelika Niescier is an exceptionally versatile musician who for many years has played an active role in shaping the new jazz scene in both Europe and North America. She is an uncompromising artist bursting with energy, mastering a vivid palette of colours with virtuosic technique. Born in Poland, Niescier is based in Cologne. Her collaborators include Joachim Kühn, Tyshawn Sorey, Nicole Mitchell, Kris Davis, Gerry Hemingway, Nasheet Waits, Jim Black, Sylvie Courvoisier, Aki Takase and Soweto Kinch. The multiple award-winning Niescier received the Deutscher Jazzpreis in 2024. In this year’s *DownBeat* Critics Poll, she placed fourth in the Rising Star category.

Sakina Abdou is a versatile artist who began playing jazz and improvised music at the age of 14 with the Muzzix collective in Lille, northern France. While studying saxophone and recorder, she also attended art school. Since 2019, she has devoted herself fully to her career as a musician. Abdou performs in several international ensembles and participates in projects including the Franco-American collaborative programme The Bridge. In 2022, she recorded her first solo album, *Goodbye Ground*, in New York (Relative Pitch Records). Finnish audiences have previously heard her as a member of pianist Eve Risser’s Red Desert Orchestra (2024), and in November 2026 she will return to Finland to perform with the Colombian-French quartet !Ya Voy!.

Bruno Angelini Lotus Flowers
Bruno Angelini: piano, compositions (FR)
Angelika Niescier: alto saxophone (DE)
Sakina Abdou: tenor saxophone (FR)

The YouTube video features excerpts from a concert.

The YouTube video features excerpts from a concert

Photo: Jérôme Presbois

The concert is supported by City of Helsinki, Svenska Kulturfonden and The Finnish Music Foundation.