The Süddeutsche Zeitung hailed Johanna Summer’s performance at the Young Munich Jazz Prize in 2018 as “a small sensation.” The pianist, born in Plauen in Saxony in 1995, had encompassed the whole gamut, from jazz freedom to classical rigour. The critic from this respected newspaper marvelled at her “amazing gift to make well-known melodies sound so convincingly her own, they develop a real sense of creative urgency.” Summer’s winning of the prize itself became almost incidental; far more significant was the fact that this competition heralded the arrival of one of the most interesting new pianists in European jazz.