The borderland between jazz and classical music is dangerous territory. Most attempts at crossover collapse under the weight of their own good intentions. But the trio of Paul Stark, Jonas Linnemann, and Vasilis Stefanopoulos—joined on recent recordings by Iman Spaargaren—has discovered a convincing way through the minefield. They describe their music as “universal crossover music,” a phrase vague enough to include anything from Indian ragas to Guatemalan folk songs. Fortunately, the music itself is far more decisive than the label. Around the nucleus of Stark and Linnemann, several projects have emerged over the years. The trio’s first major release, Awake (2014), featured Dick de Graaf and Gerard Kleijn. Then came the first volume of Transcending Chopin in 2015. The relatively intimate Cloud 9 hall inside TivoliVredenburg—more a maze of bars than a traditional concert venue these days—proved ideal for the music. The acoustics and the excellent grand piano made it easy to follow every nuance of the performance. Stark appeared entirely at home at the keyboard. His ease suggested something close to the legendary virtuosity associated with Frédéric Chopin himself. Chopin remains a divisive figure: romantic virtuoso, symbol of Polish identity, emotional exhibitionist, hero to some and embodiment of bourgeois sentimentality to others. Thanks in part to the missionary zeal of Arthur Rubinstein, Chopin’s reputation became inseparable from a certain polished romanticism. Yet his influence on keyboard aesthetics—and later on jazz and popular music—is impossible to overstate. What makes the StarkLinnemann project successful is precisely its refusal to indulge Chopin clichés. Rather than drowning the composer in sentimentality, the group emphasizes the melodic strength and rhythmic possibilities already embedded in the music.

Chopin is not simply “jazzed up.” Instead, bass, drums, and Spaargaren’s tenor saxophone create a framework in which Chopin becomes the foundation for jazz exploration itself. This concert focused on the two major reworkings from Transcending Chopin Volumes II & III: the Piano Sonata Op. 58 and the Cello Sonata Op. 65. The arrangements are extraordinarily detailed, adding an additional rhythmic layer that pushes the music decisively toward jazz territory. Linnemann played a particularly important role in shaping the rhythmic structure of the cello sonata. The result is music where improvisation exists inside tightly constructed harmonic and rhythmic frameworks. One especially striking element throughout the evening was the strong presence of Latin influences. Stark’s improvisations never sound aimless or “free” in the conventional jazz sense. They are carefully woven into the architecture of the sonatas themselves. That discipline also places limits on the freedoms available to Linnemann and Stefanopoulos, whose playing must constantly serve the structural demands of the compositions. Spaargaren, however, introduces an additional emotional layer through his post-John Coltrane approach and deeply expressive tone. His looser rhythmic sensibility helps prevent the music from becoming overly academic. And yet it is precisely this almost scholarly precision that ultimately makes StarkLinnemann’s approach work. The project demonstrates that such methods could be equally fruitful when applied to other classical repertoire.

Since forming in 2012, the StarkLinnemann Quartet has released four albums in various configurations, three of them devoted to their ongoing reimagining of Frédéric Chopin: Transcending Chopin Volumes 1, 2, and 3. They had only just returned from Odradek Studios, where they recorded their interpretation of Pictures at an Exhibition. But on this particular evening, Chopin once again occupied center stage. The result was unforgettable: a vivid, shape-shifting performance built around the Piano Sonata Op. 58, performed as a trio, and the Cello Sonata Op. 65, expanded into quartet form. Pianist Paul Stark, bassist Vasilis Stefanopoulos, and drummer Jonas Linnemann opened the evening with a dazzling reconstruction of the piano sonata. At moments, it sounded as if Chopin had wandered through Havana or Rio before returning, bruised and fragile, to the concert hall. A delicate classical phrase would suddenly collide with a rock riff—Linnemann launched the third movement with precisely that kind of ambush. Yet none of it felt arbitrary. The balance was meticulous; the transitions unfolded with uncanny inevitability. For the cello sonata, tenor saxophonist Iman Spaargaren joined the ensemble.

Together with Stefanopoulos, he assumed the role of the absent cello, splitting its melodic responsibilities between horn and bass. Stefanopoulos drew an extraordinary sound from his instrument, whether plucking or bowing. He possesses that rare ability to make the bass speak in complete sentences. Spaargaren’s phrasing occasionally hinted at John Coltrane, but imitation was never the point. He has developed his own dialect—one built from jazz vocabulary but spoken with a highly personal accent. Meanwhile, Linnemann’s drumming repeatedly called to mind Max Roach: immaculate timing, disciplined momentum, alternating between subtle suggestion and explosive force without ever losing precision. What stood out in both trio and quartet settings was the astonishing cohesion of the ensemble. Tempo changes appeared effortless. Contrasts emerged naturally. Jazz, salsa, chamber music, and rock all brushed against one another without collapsing into fusion cliché. Before last night, the StarkLinnemann Quartet was unknown to me. By the end of the concert, I was converted. This was music performed with conviction, intelligence, and genuine fire.

ENSCHEDE — Friday night at Jazzpodium de Tor. The StarkLinnemann Quartet took the stage: Paul Stark on piano, Jonas Linnemann on drums, Iman Spaargaren on saxophone, and Maciej Domaradski on bass. The evening’s program carried the ambitious title Transcending Chopin. There’s a certain route every serious European jazz ensemble seems destined to travel: Moscow, St. Petersburg, Vilnius, Riga, Poznań, Berlin, Amsterdam. But somewhere in that chain sits an omission few outsiders would expect: Enschede. The quartet, already operating on a distinctly continental level, wisely decided not to pass through town unnoticed. It’s rare to attend a concert featuring only two compositions and still emerge close to midnight. Yet that was exactly the case here. Normally I leave the full setlist to the archives, but this evening deserves an exception. The audience sat absorbed through two monumental works by Frédéric Chopin: Piano Sonata No. 3 in B minor, Op. 58 before intermission, and the Cello Sonata in G minor, Op. 65 afterward. Chopin, incidentally, had already haunted this stage once before—three years ago, when Peter Beets raided the composer’s catalog for his own purposes. The first half unfolded as a trio: piano, bass, percussion. That stripped-down setting placed extra weight on pianist Paul Stark, who repeatedly allowed Chopin’s ghost to drift through the room like Hitchcock slipping into one of his own films. To call Stark’s approach “variations on Chopin” would undersell the achievement. These musicians weren’t decorating the originals; they were using them as ignition points for entirely new structures.

Chopin became less a source text than a provocation. To reinforce the classical undertow, bassist Maciej Domaradski frequently reached for the bow, drawing long, dark lines through the music. Meanwhile, Jonas Linnemann surrounded himself with a small nation-state’s worth of percussion instruments and navigated them with dazzling precision. His playing never descended into exhibitionism; every texture served the larger architecture. After the break, the quartet expanded with the arrival of saxophonist Iman Spaargaren, whose imagination seemed incapable of remaining within stylistic borders. He split the Chopin themes between saxophone and bass, and before long the music drifted unexpectedly toward Cuban territory. The connection turns out to be less absurd than it first appears: not only do Chopin and Cuba begin with the same letter, the composer remains deeply beloved on the island. Spaargaren dusted off 19th-century material and demonstrated just how alive this music still sounds in the 21st century. Whether it was provoked by Stark’s thunderous solos or simple exhaustion, the old grand piano eventually began to groan in protest. That slight mechanical complaint was the only blemish on an otherwise triumphant evening—one where borders between centuries, genres, and traditions dissolved with unusual grace.

A concert by the StarkLinnemann Quartet at Hall Of Fame immediately stood apart from the venue’s usual programming. The title alone—Pictures at an Exhibition—was enough to raise curiosity. Yes, the source material was indeed Modest Mussorgsky. Mussorgsky composed the suite in 1874 after visiting an exhibition of paintings and drawings by his late friend Viktor Hartmann. The work, originally written for solo piano, was conceived as a journey through visual art—a sequence of encounters connected by recurring “Promenade” passages. Mussorgsky and his circle had pursued the ideal of a distinctly Russian art, free from Western influence. The concert announcement offered another clue: “StarkLinnemann is always searching for surprising combinations of musical styles. Extreme contrasts between classical music, jazz, world music, and rock create a unique musical experience.” That promise turned out to be entirely accurate. The Hall Of Fame hosted the pre-release performance of the quartet’s new album, which would officially debut the following day at the Concertgebouw. Inside the intimate concert space, the four musicians presented their newest project with visible pride. For this occasion, they were joined by two dancers whose carefully timed appearances added a theatrical dimension to the evening. All sixteen movements from the album were performed live. Most of the arrangements were created by pianist Paul Stark, often in close collaboration with drummer Jonas Linnemann. Linnemann later explained that the quartet had committed themselves to performing entirely “by heart.” No sheet music appeared on stage. Considering the scale and complexity of Mussorgsky’s composition, that decision bordered on reckless. Yet it succeeded magnificently. The music didn’t merely come from memory—it came from instinct, muscle, and nerve endings. You could hear how deeply the quartet had internalized the material. The recurring “Promenade” theme acts as the spine of Mussorgsky’s original composition, reappearing five times in different forms to suggest movement between paintings. Stark’s arrangements transformed this device into a showcase of stylistic reinvention. At the opening, the theme emerged as straight-ahead jazz, elevated by a superb saxophone solo from Iman Spaargaren. Later it returned as a restrained classical ballad.

Then it resurfaced over the walking bass lines of Maciej Domaradski and Linnemann’s intricate percussion. Elsewhere, it appeared as pure classical piano before dissolving once more into jazz improvisation. The achievement here wasn’t novelty for its own sake. Each transformation illuminated another angle of the material. Every “painting” introduced a different emotional climate, and the music remained startlingly visual throughout. “Gnomus” arrived jagged and unstable, colored by Spaargaren’s bass clarinet and sharply detailed percussion. “Il Vecchio Castello” slowed the pulse entirely, unfolding like a half-forgotten dream anchored by Domaradski’s bowed bass. “Tuileries” burst open with a playful percussion introduction before spiraling into childlike chaos, jazz improvisation, and a delightfully catchy finale. Perhaps the strangest—and most successful—collision of styles came during “Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks.” Latin rhythms abruptly gave way to swinging jazz fragments, only to snap back again moments later. Meanwhile, bass clarinet, bowed bass, and percussion all seemed to operate according to different internal logics. Somehow, improbably, it held together. The dancers contributed to the illusion that the paintings themselves had come alive. One left the concert thinking the project deserved expansion into a full multidisciplinary production. With both the album and the performance, StarkLinnemann demonstrated that classical repertoire still contains vast unexplored territory for jazz and improvised music. The album’s diversity of styles and approaches gives it unusual depth; it feels less like a crossover experiment than the discovery of a common language hidden inside the material all along. And hearing it performed entirely from memory made the achievement feel even larger. You could hear the commitment. More importantly, you could feel it. This exhibition of talent, originality, and passion deserves visitors.

On a winter evening in 2017, four jazz musicians in the full force of youth performed not merely a lush and exhilarating interpretation of the increasingly overplayed piano cycle by Modest Mussorgsky—better known to many through Maurice Ravel’s orchestral arrangement—but also their own compositions.

In these performances one hears the experimental drive of pianist Paul Stark, the self-assurance of saxophonist Iman Spaargaren, and the African and Latin influences carried by percussionist Jonas Linnemann: groove, daring, and above all the sheer joy of creation.

The premiere of Transcending Chopin took place at Ketel1 at Energiehuis. A year and a half earlier, the musicians had arrived carrying an unusual proposal: a concert centered on Frédéric Chopin—but approached from an entirely different angle.

Their enthusiasm was impossible to resist. Given the strength of their previous projects and the evident devotion they brought to the music, we became convinced that Ketel1 would provide the perfect setting for the StarkLinnemann vision.

During the creative process, the concept evolved repeatedly, eventually leading to a tense and exhilarating result in which the essence of Chopin’s music remained intact while being recast in a modern jazz language. We eagerly await what comes next.