FMP in Retrospect

Jost Gebers (2010)

Acknowledgements and thanks

Since I have not always used the opportunities to give thanks over the past years, I would like to mention a few people at this point without whose help and support my work over the last 40 years would not have been possible.

Nele Hertling - 1969 as member of staff of the Academy of Arts who, after an initial fiasco, gave us the chance to continue our work on concepts and, in 1988, with Berlin as European Capital of Culture, allowing us to realize our project Cecil Taylor in Berlin within the framework of the Werkstatt Berlin programme under her direction.

Dagmar Gebers - my former wife and still good friend, who accompanied me through more downs than ups and who documented almost all of the FMP projects with her photography.

Bernd Mehlitz - Head of Music Department at the Berlin Cultural Senate (and his team of those days) who listened - not only to the music - and helped to get a lot of things on track.

Anna Maria Ostendorf - my wife, who backed me throughout my serious mistakes during the years 1999/2000 and continues to support me.

And, naturally, thanks to the musicians (not all of them), to some of the journalists who accompanied us over the years, not always without criticism, to the co-workers on the numerous projects, Holger Scheuermann and Dieter Hahne in particular in this context, to the authors of the many texts and liner notes and, last but not least, Isabel Seeberg and Paul Lytton, whose excellent translations of the not-always-such-easy texts also contributed to the understanding of this music and its presentation.


Translation: Isabel Seeberg & Paul Lytton

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