The Central European Jazz Competition Seeks Talented Musicians. Closing Date for Applications Approaches

12 October 2018, 1:00
The Central European Jazz Competition Seeks Talented Musicians. Closing Date for Applications Approaches

JazzFestBrno and Poysdorf Jazz Wine invite talented young musicians to participate in the Central European Jazz Competition. Only a few days are left to the closing date for young Czech and Austrian bands. The competition is being organised jointly by the festivals JazzFestBrno and Poysdorf Jazz & Wine.

For the victors participation in the competition could easily be a turning point in their musical careers. The main prizes, aside from significant amounts of money, also include coaching from selected professionals and above all their own concert at both of these festivals. Applications will be accepted by the organisers up until 15 October using the online form at jazzcompetition.cz.

Out of the bands taking part on the basis of musical samples and other materials the jury will choose a maximum of eight finalists who will play in the competition concert on 1 December in Brno’s Alterna. “All who make it into the final round will gain not only experience and new contacts, but also feedback from a jury made up of Czech and Austrian jazz figures,” says the artistic director of JazzFestu Brno Vilém Spilka. The jury will be include experienced composers and musicians – the bassist and multi-instrumentalist Jiří Slavík, the pianist Milan Svoboda, the saxophonists Luboš Soukup and Bernhard Wiesinger and the dramaturge Peter Polansky.

Jazz bands with any kind of line-up can take part. The ages of most of the members must be under 35. The band leader must be a Czech or Austrian national as must be a majority of the band’s members, or they should have permanent or temporary resident status in those countries.

Photo JFB 2017 – JAMU Department of Jazz Interpretation

Comments

Reply

No comment added yet..

The now world-famous Swedish band Dirty Loops finished their autumn European tour on Saturday, 30 November at Brno's Metro Music Bar. The band featured on the programme of the seventeenth annual Groove Brno funk, soul and jazz festival. The virtuoso trio, consisting of Jonah Nilsson - vocals and keyboards, Henrik Linder - bass guitar and Aron Mellergård - drums, are famous for their flawless technical proficiency, sophisticated original compositions and cover versions of well-known numbers, especially pop songs. However, these songs are often reharmonised in their arrangements and the style is more a combination of disco, pop and jazz fusion. To avoid having to resort to using pre-recorded backing tracks, the trio was joined on tour by keyboardist and vocalist Kristian Kraftlingmore

Ensemble Opera Diversa put a distinctive "spin" on its last orchestral concert of the year. It took place on 26 November at the Alterna music club, which is more a rock, electronica and indie pop hangout than an artistic music venue. The pair of selected pieces consisting of Vojtěch Dlask's premièred work Querell Songs for soprano saxophone and strings and Miloslav Ištvan's Hard Blues for pop-baritone, soprano, reciter and chamber ensemble also reflected this. Naturally, it was Ištvan's Hard Blues that gave the evening its name - the clash of the artistic, composed and purposefully "artistic" world (not meant pejoratively) with authentic African-American musical expressions springing from the depths of the soul of a man tested by life formed as the centre of the evening. This was not merely a stylistic inspiration, but more thematic, which was also evident in the opening piece of the evening. This was the composition Querelle Songs, inspired by Jean Genet's novel, previously dedicated to Ensemble Opera Diversa, but this time in a new instrumentation.  more

Leoš Janáček's (1854-1928) Moravian national opera Jenůfa was brought to Brno for the Janáček Brno 2024 festival by the Moravian Theatre Olomouc in a co-production with the Janáček Opera NdB. Rather than using the Czech title Její pastorkyňa, the production team, headed by director Veronika Kos Loulová, decided to stage the work as Jenůfa, the name under which it is performed abroad. On Wednesday, 20 November, five days after its première in Olomouc, the audience at the Mahen Theatre could also see the latest domestic take on Janáček's most widely performed opera. The musical staging of the significantly modified original version from 1904 was the work of conductor Anna Novotná Pešková, and the main roles were played by Barbora Perná (Jenůfa), Eliška Gattringerová (Kostelnička), Josef Moravec (Laca Klemeň) and Roman Hasymau (Števa Buryja).  more

The office of Brno - UNESCO City of Music, with the financial support of the South Moravian Region, presents a line-up of active folklore groups (ensembles, chasers, musics) in the Brno region as part of the Year of Folklore Ensembles.  more

Trumpeter Jiří Kotača founded the big band Cotatcha Orchestra ten years ago. Nowadays, he performs a variety of programmes ranging from the most traditional jazz to a visionary fusion of jazz and electronica. We chatted with Jiří Kotača about how the orchestra has gradually developed, how the original repertoire is blurring the boundaries between jazz and electronica, and also about what fans can expect from the November concert to celebrate the orchestra's 10th anniversary. We also talk about Kotača's International Quartet, as well as how the trumpet and flugelhorn can be enriched with effects.  more