MusiC
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Matriarchy for Future – Festival
3. – 6. Juli 2025

Kasteel de Berckt, bei Venlo NL
40 km von Duisburg

What music do you listen to…?

The festival features predominantly female musicians

Yaël Deckelbaum (Credit: Carmen Trappenberg Fotografie)

YAËL DECKELBAUM

is a platinum-selling Israeli-Canadian singer/songwriter and activist. Like Joan Baez and Pete Seeger, Yael is recognized by many people as a groundbreaking musical activist of our time. With the streets as her stage and marching women as her audience, Yael has led various women’s marches in over 10 different countries over the past two years – from Europe to Asia to the Americas to Africa. Yael performs internationally in Israel, Europe and the USA, where she is increasingly active in using her music to inspire positive change and support non-violent communication between cultures in conflict, emphasizing the need for female leadership.

We are delighted to have Yaël Deckelbaum as the headliner for our festival. Her song «Prayer of the Mothers» was created together with courageous women who led the «Women Wage Peace» movement. Thousands of women marched from northern Israel to Jerusalem to call for peace. In this video, Palestinians and Israelis unite in a march of hope in the desert sand and prayed together for peace in Qasr el Yahud on the Dead Sea. This visionary song later became an international anthem for peace.

Since October 7, 2023, this appeal for peace has become urgently relevant.

Meera (Credit: Carmen Trappenberg Fotografie)

MEERA EILABOUNI

is an Israeli-Arab musician and post-production manager. From a young age, she advocated for peace through art and music and worked with various female artists to celebrate diversity. She is very active in building communities and implementing the message of unity and female leadership. She also works on many TV shows and social media videos where she talks about social change and the uniqueness of different cultures.

She received the Günter Wallraff Prize for Human Rights for her musical collaboration with Yael Deckelbaum.

Anyone who wants to talk about the multi-instrumentalist Meera Eilabouni cannot avoid talking about the war in the Middle East. As an activist for the Palestinian women’s organization «Women of the Sun», among other things, she tirelessly uses her gentle voice to campaign for peace. She uses large loudspeakers to play We Shall Overcome over the walls on Israel’s borders and hopes to start a discourse through reactions.

For her, music is the key to healing wounds, but also to abolishing the patriarchal structures that have brought the world to where it is now.

Schwessi (Foto: Tine Acke)

SCHWESSI

is a musician, lyricist, filmmaker, coach, peace ambassador and rebel all in one. Her sound is a good mix of pop, reggae, hip hop and funk. No wonder she already had famous fans before she even released anything. Udo Lindenberg himself kicked her in the ass to finally get her music out.

Her lyrics reflect her political personality perfectly: critical, funny, honest and always provocative. «Schwessi’s rebellious spirit always stays awake,» is how one TV station summed it up.

Schwessi’s music is about more than just entertainment. It’s about the liberation of the individual through consciousness development, about tolerance and equality, about overcoming nationalistic brainwashing, about world-changing measures and about saving the planet. Nothing less than that. Nothing more difficult than that. But with the greatest possible lightness and a nice amount of residual humor in the blood.

That is, despite all the seriousness, the foundation on which all this stands. And dancing. And singing. And screaming and laughing.

Laura Lee

LAURA LEE & THE JETTES

Laura Lee, a mother and songwriter, has been making music since she was a teenager and cites acts as diverse as Oasis and Sonic Youth as important influences. In 2016, she released the album «In My Head» as part of the duo Gurr. The band conquered the UK and the US from Germany and won the highly acclaimed IMPALA European Album of the Year Award.

In 2021, Laura Lee & the Jettes released their album «Wasteland», which again attracted international attention. They had appearances on BBC 6 Music, a session on NPR and a US tour before supporting The Beatsteaks in Germany.

This resulted in numerous performances, including two evenings in the 20,000-seat Wuhlheide Arena while Laura was eight months pregnant.

After a break to concentrate on her role as a mother, Laura is still active in the music industry. She made two autobiographical documentaries, including one for Vice, and appeared at the Schauspiel Leipzig in the play «The Master and Margarita», for which she was also responsible for the music together with Paul Pötsch.

Caroline S'Jegers

CAROLINE S’JEGERS

Caroline S’Jegers – founder of «ícaro * roots to create» and co-founder of Heart of The Dance – is a passionate keeper of dance and poetry. As a pioneer of Ecstatic Dance in Europe and beyond, Caroline has secured a permanent place in the dance and music scene.

For over 15 years she has supported people from a wide variety of backgrounds: from evolutionary agents and dancing hippies to street children, prostitutes and war veterans.

Through her roots in ceremony and constellation work and her active listening to the spaces between the (heart)beats, her work can be summed up as: connecting, uplifting, profound and soulful.

As a mother of two young boys, Caroline actively contributes to a world in which community life flourishes and respect for all our relationships grows.

During the day, numerous other musicians and groups play and sing.

We look forward to your final confirmation, information to follow.

Duo 2Sam

DUO 2 SAM – LYRIK & MUSIC 

Susan Gönner and Simon Weiland
We are a duo with sensitive music and poetry in German on the topics of people, nature and society. How can utopias become reality? Susan writes the songs and sings. Simon accompanies on the guitar. Delicate and powerful vibrations arise that naturally evoke resonance. The music wants a quiet presence. Interior spaces are allowed to grow.

As musicians, we are connected by the idea of ​​making a contribution together beyond patriarchal structures and as a couple we found each other in an open and questioning encounter with individual gray areas of our own gender. Being allowed to be human. We are happy that our path has led us to this festival.