Estafest consists of four of the most eccentric improvisers on the Dutch music scene: four headstrong players challenging each other in a mostly improvised musical dialogue. The group was initated in 2009 as a result of all four members having been engaged in duo concerts with each other in different formations. So why not combine forces and form a quartet in which these duos can be a part of the whole composition? The original idea was to alternate different duos in a kind of tag team musical estafette, a musical party, a fest. But from the first note this idea was abandoned: they immediately felt that the strength of the quartet was playing within fluid forms, no rules, just listening. Estafest orchestrates on the spot, every version of a song has a different improvised arrangement. This process creates a specific feel in which the audience is dragged into: they are playing, here and now, no fear, they trip and get back on their feet, and they are having fun doing it. Estafest means profound musical freedom where any source of inspiration or personal colour can be introduced at all times. Their compositions are incentives for dialogue - from the first tone they jump in, together.

Bayachrimae, released recently on BMC Records, is the group’s third album, recorded at the Concert hall of BMC, with the exception of one song recorded live at the Opus Jazz Club. Its title refers to sources of inspiration for the group: the music of the Bayaka people from Central Africa, and the piece Lachrimae from the famous English Renaissance composer, John Dowland – both representing musical cultures where single lines are at the core of things, cultures where the whole is a consequence of these individual lines.