ELSA

ELSA is the four-piece band around singer Elsa Steixner. Founded while studying music in Vienna and the Netherlands, the band has been active internationally since 2022. ELSA is hungry with curiosity: courage, fear, longing and chaos. Wildness is followed by immeasurable tenderness. You want to lie down in their music; lifted, comforted and caressed. Like under water, for a few breaths. Influenced by the urgency of artists such as Nina Simone and Abdullah Ibrahim as well as the compositional diversity and sophistication of songwriters such as Paul Simon and Joni Mitchell, a foundation of soul, folk, jazz and RnB emerges from which the idiosyncratic, always inviting compositions of the band ELSA develop. This embracing of tradition, combined with a curious and attentive view of the present, lends the music a timelessness without diminishing its topicality. 

After the almost exclusively acoustic debut album, the band is exploring a new world of sound with their second album JUMP!, which will be presented at Porgy&Bess on May 6, 2025. In addition to the main line-up (voice, piano, bass, drums), trombone, electric guitar, harmonium and organ are also included in the arrangements this time. This expansion of sound, the freer song structures, which almost have the character of a suite, and a wide dynamic range result in an unconventional but always inviting album. The central theme here is courage, the confidence that comes from a close relationship.