11th Gypsy Jazz Festival
The eleventh Gypsy Jazz Festival will take place on December 3, 2022. For the first time ever, it will be held at Slovak Radio Building in Bratislava. Several artists and groups will introduce the listeners to the spirited form of gypsy jazz.
The International Gypsy Jazz Festival enters the second decade of its existence with its eleventh year. During those ten years, he brought such names as Bill Evans (read article), Glenda Lopez, Gail Anderson, Ernie Watts, Dotschy Reinhardt, Justin Faulkner, Roby Lakatos, Monika Lakatos, and Rick Margitza, he created several international groups, he presented a number of projects intended only for this festival and was hosted in various concert halls. Now, for the first time ever, it will take place on the premises of the Slovak Radio in three halls – the Large Concert Studio, the Small Concert Studio, and the Foyer.
Jazz is a multicultural musical genre that has moved from its birthplace in America to the whole world to be influenced by other ethnic and national elements. Many Roma musicians use the tradition, temperament, energy and sobs of their nation marked by tragic events and celebration of life. The Gypsy Jazz Festival, which will take place on December 3, 2022 will bring a lot of interesting artists and groups.
Program on three stages
The dramaturgy of the eleventh year will be presented on three stages in the Slovak Radio. The female vocal ensemble Neha! will perform in the foyer from 6:00 p.m., which in a gentle interpretation stands up for the weak and suffering – be it Ukrainians, Iranian women or repressed sexual minorities. Award-winning violist Vojtech Botoš will also present his trio. In concert studio 2, an original mix of folklore, Balkan music, jazz and funk will be performed by Šalefuky – a project of Milo Suchomel and his guests.
The main program will take place in the Great Concert Studio of the SRO, where different performers will be taking turns. Tariška & Hodek Modal Trap consists of a pair of experienced musicians – Radovan Tariška and Eugen Vizváry, who joined forces with the younger generation of award-winning siblings Aron Hodek (bass guitar) and David Hodek (drums).
Israeli musician Shlomi Goldenberg represents a modern concept of jazz with traditional motifs. The legendary saxophonist defies the idea of a conservative approach that is close to the American school as well as the European style. Influenced by Sidney Bechet, he moved from the interpretation of serious music to his own creation and playing standards, which he picked up during many years of playing in the USA. He played there with such names as Bob Moses, Path Matheny, Gary Peacock, etc. Together with Nikolay Nikitin and Milo Suchomel, he is united by organizational skills and the desire to support the domestic scene. For this reason, he opened a jazz club Hasimta Jazz (Jazz Alley) in Tel Aviv. He will perform at the festival with the singer Rinat Mesika.
Gypsy Jazz Festival supports domestic creation and bringing together artists from different spectrums. For the first time, the new projects of the founder of the festival Mila Suchomela & band, as well as Ľuboš Šrámek & his NANOSYMPHONY – the female singing collective BEAUTIES LAVUTARI, consisting of renowned singers Anita Soul, Erika Rein, Teri Čikoš, Júlia Kozáková, Elia Kačiová, accompanied by the Mucha Quartet, will be heard. At the end, there will be a final All Star Night Session, in which most of the performers will be introduced.
One of the co-organizers, Nikolaj Nikitin, evaluated the main idea of the Gypsy Jazz Festival, this year’s program structure and its further direction: “I had the opportunity to be at the first year, and what has always been the idea of this festival was to connect world artists with local artists. Already at the first year, the world-famous saxophonist Benny Golson performed, the other years have always followed the ideas of connection, tolerance and a high-quality music program. In addition to foreign stars, we also included larger musical groups in the program structure. The last time it was the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra. We managed to organize two successful editions of the festival during the two covid years. This time, for the first time, we are in the concert studios of Slovak Radio, which we will fill with various genres. We want to bring variety, quality, originality, authenticity performed by local artists and foreign guests.”
The intention of the festival and its development was also expressed by Milo Suchomel in his own words: “It was a more or less spontaneous act that developed intuitively in my love of organizing large art concerts, until one day I said to myself, I’m going to do it (laughter). As a young musician, I played on European stages, where I noticed that many performers were of Roma origin, and that was also one of the main motivations to start organizing a festival format in Slovakia, which was missing here. From year to year, the festival was visited by domestic and international stars. Foreign managers of major world artists started contacting me, which testifies to the progressive development of my festival, which became known even beyond the borders of Slovakia in the good sense of the word.”
In the end, Milo Suchomel expressed the idea that they have been trying to develop since the beginning of their festival: “Good music is a message of reconciliation, and I firmly believe that geopolitical problems will finally tune in, like one fantastic orchestra, and start playing Odes for peace and a better life for the future generations that will always be founded on noble human values, and not on hatred, prejudice, mammon, insidiousness and egoism.”
Author: Daniel Hevier Jr. ( translated by Google)
Tickets are available through Ticketportal network.
The event was supported from public funds by the Art Support Fund. Financially supported by the Bratislava City Foundation.
