Marmoucha Orchestra

Sexi Firmum Iulium

Sun 7 Jun / 20:00

Sun 7 Jun ’26

20:00

Sun 7 Jun ’26

20:00

Amare Studio

Past event

A rare voice in jazz: oboist Maripepa Contreras, with Sexi Firmum Iulium, takes listeners on a multi-layered musical journey filled with Mediterranean sounds, improvisation, and orchestral power. Together with the Marmoucha Orchestra, she creates a captivating live experience in which past and present, sound and image blend seamlessly.

Maripepa Contreras is one of the few jazz oboists in the world. Credited with a DownBeat award, a background in both classical and jazz education, and an insatiable musical curiosity, she has developed her own musical language in which precise notation and free improvisation naturally coexist. As artistic coordinator, resident arranger, and one of the co-founders of the Marmoucha Orchestra - the Amsterdam-based ensemble that has organically brought together jazz, global, and composed music in original productions since 2019 - Contreras has both the platform and the orchestra to further deepen this language.

With Sexi Firmum Iulium, her distinct artistic voice comes fully to the fore. The title refers to Sexi, the Phoenician trading city on the southern Spanish coast that became known as Sexi Firmum Iulium under Roman rule: present-day Almuñécar, where Contreras grew up. From the polyphonic landscape of Amsterdam, she approaches the layered history of her birthplace through a creative act of imagination.

Drawing on classical, jazz, and Mediterranean sound worlds, she translates this heritage into a contemporary musical language in which Andalusian rhythm, Mediterranean melody, orchestral colour, and improvisation converge. Raw, precise, and free at once. The result is music through which she both acknowledges her origins and writes her own future.

Cloakroom and drink 
Cloakroom and an intermission drink are included. If the event does not have an intermission, you will receive the drink afterwards. 

Zoom in

The filmic visuals are by Toni Geitani, an interdisciplinary and futurist artist from Lebanon, historically linked to Phoenicia, the same civilisation that founded Sexi. In his visual language, past, present, and future dissolve into one another, while the music unfolds as a poetic form of historical storytelling. Together with the promising Marmoucha Orchestra, this creates a layered live experience in which everything becomes interconnected: sound and image, origin and present, Almuñécar and Amsterdam.

Sexi Firmum Iulium is supported by the AFK (Amsterdam Fund for the Arts) and by FPK (Fonds Podiumkunsten).

Ooievaarspas discount 
Ooievaarspas holders are eligible for a discount on the ticket price for this concert. To book tickets, we need to see your Ooievaarspas for registration purposes. Please contact our booking office to book your tickets. 