How and where one moves through Cologne is uniquely determined by the city’s (urban) architectural characteristics: two, or rather four, ring roads, a compact city centre, clusters of cultural venues – narrowness generally defines the landscape, while spaciousness is hard to come by. When you share common interests, such as jazz and improvised music, you inevitably bump into each other all the time. Thanks to the Cologne University of Music (where Barnett has been a professor of jazz since 2019), Westdeutscher Rundfunk radio, dedicated club and concert hall operators, and Cologne’s characteristic openness to all things good and artistic, the jazz scene has long flourished and continues to do so. It is surprisingly large, yet just small enough to avoid fragmentation. Anyone looking back at the past decade would have little trouble placing Cologne alongside major jazz cities like London or Amsterdam. Shannon Barnett herself is a prime example of this thriving scene: she came straight from New York to join the local WDR Big Band as a trombonist. By then she was already regarded as one of the most important ‘young voices’ in jazz worldwide. 

However, if you meet more frequently in and around the periphery of events, the conversation soon turns to other, non-musical topics. At The Prequel of the Monheim Triennale festival, we’re not talking about music – or the remarkable solo concert by trumpeter Peter Evans that we’ve just experienced – but about sports in Australia. “You have to understand,” Barnett explains, “that when the English colonised the world, they left behind peculiar sports that are largely ignored outside the Commonwealth.” These include not only cricket or the Australian “Aussie Rules” version of football, but also netball, which can be described as ‘basketball without the dribbling’. Barnett plays netball – and this is significant because, through sport, she finds a sense of home in her Australian identity. 

An Aussie in Cologne

Although Australia may be seen as a country with more similarities than differences to Central Europe, Barnett notes that the cultural differences are still quite pronounced. When she moved from Melbourne to New York in 2009, the transition was effortless, but when she arrived in Cologne four years later, she needed a longer period of adjustment. The differences in the way things are done here became apparent as soon as she auditioned for the WDR Big Band: “When I was preparing, I was told that in Germany they tune the A pitch to 442 Hz, not like in Australia where it’s 440 Hz.” She laughs and says that’s typical - it’s always the little differences that confuse her. That’s why she needs her retreats; in the absence of Australian bars, it’s netball.

Nevertheless, Barnett’s long stay in Germany, and especially Cologne in particular, has been a success story. The Australian is one of the most impressive and important trombonists on the global jazz and improvisation scene, and her quartet’s albums such as Bad Lover and Hype have been widely acclaimed. In 2020, Barnett won the WDR Jazz Award in the improvisation category, and in 2022 she was awarded the German Jazz Award in the brass category. Drawing on a vast repertoire of techniques and phrasing, she is in demand as a collaborator, sidewoman and band member, known for her versatility and distinctive sound.

European customs, however, made her feel insecure at first. The audition with WDR, which was successful thanks to her quick adaptation to the local tuning, gave Barnett a different, new perspective on her profession: “This is a serious job and that’s how it’s approached here. In New York or Melbourne we’d go out for drinks after rehearsal; here it’s straight home.” This level of professionalism certainly has many advantages – social security, good pay.” For a long time, she says, she found the strictness quite intimidating. Her art suffered as a result. “I mean, when you’re recording every day, with new guests all the time, when you’re always rehearsing and getting new material every week,” Barnett reflects, “it has two effects: on the one hand it motivates you to perfect your technique, on the other hand you don’t have the time or headspace to develop your own creativity and projects.” 

She herself, however, says that she is simply too sensitive for such an approach to music in the long run. Her contract lasted four years – during which time Barnett took the opportunity to reflect: what did she really want to achieve musically? This led her back to her homeland. 

Where's home, Mum?

She originally wanted to learn a cool instrument like the clarinet in her high school’s music programme, but the band already had clarinettists, so she was given a trombone instead. It wasn’t a happy turn of events at first: “I thought the instrument was way too loud – and it didn’t seem to suit me as a shy person.” But by the end of the evening, she was in awe. She played the slide, practised producing notes, and was given the sheet music for The Muppet Show theme – and it was soon clear she was hooked. The school band was led by an improviser who had a lasting influence on her approach to music, as he made improvisation central to his teaching. Barnett later moved to Melbourne, where the scene proved to be neither closed, narrow-minded, nor one-dimensional. On the contrary: “One night you’ll be playing salsa, the next you’ll be a sidewoman in a quartet, then in a big band, or playing solo… in all styles.”

It is this openness that Barnett has sometimes lost in Germany, and which she has missed. 

“In Melbourne and New York, there is no rigid idea of what you can or should do as a musician, especially as an instrumentalist. You don’t feel you can go wrong by experimenting.” As a result, there is often a greater variety of forms and a freedom that allows for experimentation. An example of this is the musician Aurora Nealand, with whom she has been in constant contact ever since. In 2023, Barnett invited her as a guest to the Cologne Jazzweek. Equally influential is David Helm, who plays (double) bass in Barnett’s band, is one of Cologne’s up-and-coming bassists and runs several projects that exist, if anything, on the fringes of jazz. Under the name Marek Johnson, he has ventured into the world of singer-songwriters, and now appears on two albums. “A truly important source of inspiration,” is what Barnett calls this untamed variety of forms and musical approaches, one free of rigid conventions. 

Finding Oneself

In a way, How Much is the Moon? – her latest album and the foundation of her Monheim Triennale signature project –, is the result of a search for herself. This album brings together years of thoughts, encounters, friendships and relationships, all woven into a deeper, almost existential question of what it really means to ‘call a place home’. What is home, where do you call home, including a musical home? 

There are no easy answers, and Barnett avoids slogans, rigid ideas or grand statements on this album. Instead, How Much is the Moon? is a deeply personal and passionate act of self-reflection. She has travelled to Australia several times in recent years for self-reflection, which has made her more aware and conscious of many things: “I was never driven by the idea of being the world’s best jazz trombonist.” Over time, she has managed to free herself from external pressures – including those she puts on herself. “Of course that has something to do with my professorship at the Cologne University of Music and Dance – and the financial security that goes with it. But that’s only part of it. I’ve become braver. I don’t feel the need to prove anything to anyone,” she says. In Australia, James Gilligan – who recorded the album – was a particularly important influence. “In Australia, and especially with James, there’s no tendency to overanalyse things. Instead, you just do what feels right – and the result feels so much better.” 

Signature project: Hwo much is the Moon

For How Much is the Moon, Barnett put down her trombone and for the first time sings on every track, having previously only occasionally used her voice. She is also responsible for the songwriting. There are several clear references here: The title track, which also opens the LP, exudes the charm of 2000s American indie folk, reminiscent of bands and artists from Omaha and the Midwest. The guitar’s intricate picking gives the track its rhythm, driving through the piece like a train, while the fiddle and western guitars gently weave in and the drums echo across the prairie. The eight tracks move playfully from this bluegrass-country feel to the Rhodes piano ballad of Burning Alive, which mixes elements of chamber pop. On the final track, Schubert’s Grave, Barnett fuses the theatrical and the intimate into a pop gem. No trombone, no jazz – instead, for the first time in full detail, Barnett’s voice takes centre stage, sounding more vulnerable than ever. “James created an environment where I could open up, and finally do what I’ve wanted to do for a long time: an album influenced by songwriters like Regina Spektor, Rufus Wainwright and Joni Mitchell.” 

From the US and Canadian musicians mentioned, a vast network can be drawn that also includes notable figures such as Randy Newman and neo-vaudeville singer Tom Waits. According to Barnett, both were important sources of inspiration for the album; the track Downtown Train is a cover of a Tom Waits song. Did Waits, with his distinctive take on turn-of-the-century New Orleans jazz, help shape the tone of the record? “That’s true. An interesting observation, and one that can be expanded upon, as another important band comes to mind: the Australian band The Hoodangers. The band was incredibly important for my generation.” This jazz (or, as they describe it themselves, inner-city acoustic folk-punk) collective was influential in its celebrated stylistic diversity – and also a formative influence on Shannon Barnett. 

At this year’s Monheim Triennale, all the threads that led to the album How Much is the Moon? will come together again, but will also be expanded, as Shannon Barnett has managed to enlist the EOS Chamber Orchestra for the performance. Susanne Blumenthal, who founded the orchestra in 2008, and Hendrika Entzian, its artistic director since 2024, are long-time collaborators of Barnett’s. She has played several times with Entzian’s group, Hendrika Entzian.

For Barnett, the orchestral approach is not a contradiction to the intimacy of the album, but rather a welcome extension. After all, she explains, “we were trying to simulate and recreate an orchestral breadth with our means and the few instruments we had”. Entzian brings just the right amount of empathy to elevate the album’s sound to a new level.

“It wasn’t a conceptual question for me. It just felt right,” she says. As our conversation, which began with netball, Australian sports, and a longing for familiar places, draws to a close, I ask her if this new freedom of choice gives her a sense of home. Shannon Barnett pauses for a moment, glances up at the Cologne afternoon sun and laughs: “Yeah, maybe. At least sometimes.”