At her duo concert with alto saxophonist Jakob Manz last night at the Volkshaus in Basel, pianist Johanna Summer wore her long blond hair tightly tied back in a ponytail. That might have nothing to do with her performance full of flurries of melody when she was soloing and percussive chords and arpeggios when she was accompanying Manz. But then, after the climax of a thunderous duo passage near the end of Manz's composition "Desperation and Hope", during a moment of silence before they played the coda, the intensity and dynamic range of Summer's playing seemed figured to me when she blew a stray strand of hair out of her face. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 13 May 2026)