Jazz Juniors Competition
Schedule
Mon Sep 30 2024 at 07:00 pm to 11:59 pm
Location
Cricoteka | Krakow, MA
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Four bands from Poland and two from Germany have qualified for the 48 th Jazz Juniors Competition Finals. We will be able to admire these young artists’ talents during the final auditions, to be held on 30 th September at Cracow’s Cricoteka as part of the Kraków Jazz Week festival. The competition entries submitted by young musicians and ensembles from different parts of the world have been assessed by an international jury chaired by Norwegian trumpeter and jazz artist Nils Petter Molvær, who serves as Jazz Juniors artistic director for the five years to come. The other jury members are the Norwegian trumpeter Hilde Marie Holsen and Belgian singer-producer Lynn Cassiers.
The jury has selected the following bands for the Jazz Juniors final auditions: Adam Baran & Helicopets (Poland), Blu/Bry (Poland), Cyryl Lewczuk Quartet (Poland), Reboot The Mood (Germany), Vincent Meissner Trio (Germany), and Zbigniew Chojnacki (Poland).
These six bands will perform live on 30 th September in Cracow’s CRICOTEKA Centre for the Documentation of the Art of Tadeusz Kantor, where the Jazz Juniors auditions are to be held as in
the previous years. This year they will take place under the umbrella brand of Kraków Jazz Week, which combines two international competitions: the Seifert Competition and Jazz Juniors.
Winners will receive numerous prizes and awards, including those funded by the International Partners’ Council. Our international guests and partners – representatives of foreign festivals, music
labels, and publishers – will follow the final auditions and, as in the previous years, invite our participants to perform in prestigious festivals and concerts.
FREE ADMISSION
JAZZ JUNIORS COMPETITION BANDS
BLU/BRY
Founded by a group of friends in 2019, the quintet went a long way from meetings of friends to jointly writing arrangements to collective music composition. Their relations were becoming
increasingly closer with time, reinforced by participation in numerous music festivals and competitions, including Jazz on the Odra, JazzCamera, Junior Jazz Festival Wadowice, Enter Enea
Festival, and others. Currently all the band members are studying in Denmark, where they also take the opportunity to prepare new music material. The band combines modern jazz with world music
influences and frequently contagious enthusiasm for joint music-making.
Members: Jan Kusz (sax), Tomek Kusz (trumpet), Jakub Letkiewicz (piano), Stanisław Banys (drums), Franciszek Wicke (bass guitar, double bass)
CYRYL LEWCZUK QUARTET
Set up by classmates from the Jazz and Popular Music Faculty of the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music in Katowice, the band is open to diverse inspirations ranging from post-bop to fusion. Their original compositions are like collective musical tales that only fully take shape in the minds of sensitive listeners. These flexible forms leave much space for interpretation for both performers and the audience. The quartet has appeared, among others, during the 26 th Bielsko Jazz Blizzard and the 60 th Jazz on the Odra, where they won the Wojtek Siwek Jazz Individuality Contest Special Award of Wrocław Cultural Zone.
Members: Cyryl Lewczuk (sax), Jan Maciejowski (piano), Jan Dudek (double bass), Adam Barański (drums)
ADAM BARAN & HELICOPETS
Led by composer and guitarist Adam Baran, who is part of Warsaw’s alternative and improvised music scene, the band draws on minimal, ambient, and electronic music styles. Its leader focuses on space and trance, using a wide palette of electronic means, for instance treating the instrument like a sampler and then returning to a classical, almost mainstream performance style. Other elements that contribute to the band’s sound are the (frequently amplified) bass clarinet, as well as bass guitar,
Moog, and drums. The band’s innovative and open-minded approach is definitely one of its assets.
Members: Adam Baran (electric guitar), Józef Biegański (drums, electronics), Panilas (bass clarinet), Piotr Zygma (bass guitar, Moog)
REBOOT THE MOOD
The quintet came into being in Dresden under the COVID-19 pandemic. Its members decided to use the time without concerts and music events creatively to play jam sessions together and write new music. Though drawing on the fusion style, they distinguished themselves from other electric bands from the start by focusing on their own compositions – successfully, as it turned out. Now based in Leipzig, they play concerts in Germany and throughout Europe.
Members: Laurin Köller (trumpet), Philip Adam (guitar), Gabriel Gutierrez (piano), Neil Richter (double bass), Moritz Grosch (drums)
VINCENT MEISSNER TRIO
Led by pianist Vincent Meissner, the trio has already attracted the attention of German and US jazz reviewers. After a much critically acclaimed debut album, their second disc was hailed by the US
Downbeat magazine as ‘exciting’. Meissner’s talent developed under the guidance of Michael Wollny. It therefore comes as no surprise that, despite its relatively short history, the band has already performed at many European clubs and festivals.
Members: Vincent Meissner (piano), Josef Zeimetz (double bass), Henri Reichmann (drums)
ZBIGNIEW CHOJNACKI (accordion, electronics)
An accordionist, electronic music performer, composer and improviser, always willing to take daring musical risks with his accordion and wide range of electronic equipment. His solo improvisations oscillate between song, ambient, noise, drone, jazz, electronic and broadly conceived chamber music.
Every meeting with the audience, instrument and performance space is quite different and unique – relaxed or hurried, but invariably on the lookout for new melodic combinations.
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Where is it happening?
Cricoteka, ul. Nadwiślańska 2-4,Kraków, Poland, KrakowEvent Location & Nearby Stays:
