Category: Nišville Jazz Festival – eng

Nišville awards another recognition

Bata Kandi Award for the Promotion of Balkan Jazz

A special award will be presented to the renowned musician and composer Vladeta Kandić – Bata Kandi for his contribution to the promotion of Balkan jazz. The award will be given at the opening of the Nišville Jazz Festival.
Vladeta Kandić – Bata Kanda was born on July 19, 1938, in Belgrade, where he completed elementary music school. He graduated from the Second Boys’ Gymnasium in 1957. At the age of barely 20, he became a member of the Cultural-Artistic Society Branko Krsmanović of Belgrade University as a freshman at the Faculty of Civil Engineering in Belgrade. With „Krsmanović,“ he performed at numerous concerts worldwide, including Cuba in 1961, the opening of color television in Tokyo in 1963, and Carnegie Hall in New York in 1968. He has performed in over 2,000 concerts, including performances at the Olympic Games, Olympics, and the Ganefo Festival in Jakarta (1963) and Mexico (1968).
He was a soloist, conductor, and accompanist of the Folk Orchestra and Choir of this society. In addition to Serbian and Balkan folklore, his love for jazz music inspired him to create ethno-jazz of the Balkans and world music.
Since 1969 until today, Vladeta Kandić has collaborated with well-known jazz musicians in our country, such as Lala Kovačev, Lazar Tošić, Petar Radmilović, Miša Blam, Mališa Draškoci, Slaviša Pavlović-Stenli, Jovan Maljoković, Goce Dimitrovski, Miloš Petrović, Vladan Maričić, Ivan Aleksijević, Vladimir Vitas, Zvonimir Skerl, Ivan Ilić, Jovan Pavičević, Vlatko Stefanovski, Milčo Levijev, and Jovan Pavlović. Vladeta has composed and arranged a large number of instrumental pieces, including his most famous ones: Kandoro, Najciganskije vašarsko kolo, Sofkina ljubavna igra, Kandin sa, Tanino oro, Niškovac, and many others. In collaboration with the Symphony Orchestra of RTS, he composed 200 songs of Serbian poetry, which he transformed into music.
Vladeta has performed at world jazz festivals throughout Europe, including Hanover, Balvej, Graz, Berlin, Thessaloniki, Patras, Opatija, Ljubljana, Zagreb, Belgrade, and Skopje.
He is a member of the Association of American Jazz Harmonica Players in Los Angeles since 1989 (Friends of the accordion), where he received recognition from jazz harmonica legends Frank Marocco and Art Van Dame.
Vladeta Kandić has received numerous awards and recognition in both the country and abroad.

Promo price for the Nišville Package until Saturday, June 10th!

INDIVIDUAL TICKETS AND VIP GRANDSTAND TICKETS FOR NIŠVILLE 2023 NOW ON SALE!

The upcoming International Nišville Jazz Festival will take place from August 4th to 13th, 2023, with the main festival program running from Thursday to Sunday, August 10th to 13th, 2023, at the Niš Fortress Plateau. Over the course of 10 days, the festival will feature 280 programs across 16 stages, showcasing over 900 performers!

Until Friday, June 9th, the Nišville 2023 Package Tickets are available for the promo price of only 3,000 RSD for General Admission (which is also valid for Side Grandstands). Starting from Saturday, June 10th, exactly two months before the start of the main festival program, tickets for all categories will be available for purchase at the following prices:

• General Admission Package Ticket – 4,000 RSD
• General Admission Individual Ticket – 2,000 RSD
• VIP Package (VIP Grandstand) – 6,000 RSD
• VIP Individual Ticket (VIP Grandstand) – 3,000 RSD

Tickets can be purchased at all Ticket Vision sales points in Serbia and abroad, as well as through online sales at tickets.rs Sales points: https://tickets.rs/salepoints

Furthermore, in addition to the rich musical program across multiple stages at the Fortress, King Milan Square, and the Quay Amphitheater on the Nišava River, the next edition of the Nišville Jazz Festival will offer visitors a quality international program as part of the Nišville Jazz Theatre Festival, as well as a multitude of documentaries and feature films with music themes at the Nišville Movie Summit 2022.

All accompanying programs for visitors are free, except for the Hip Hop / Midnight Jazzdance stage, where tickets will cost 500 RSD per night for a double program from 9 pm to 5 am. Visitors with purchased festival packages will not need to purchase tickets for programs at that stage from August 10th to 13th!

For more information about the performers at the Nišville 2023 festival, visit www.nisville.com.

„Šaban“ is moving to the Summer Stage

Nišville has decided to relocate the entire program „Friends of Šaban“ dedicated to Šaban Bajramović, which has been held in the days leading up to the main festival program at the amphitheater on the quay in previous years, to the Summer Stage from August 10th to 13th. It was on the Summer Stage in 2006 that Šaban received the „Nišville“ Lifetime Achievement Award and charmingly opened the then Nišville in English.

In that same year, the largest award, the Nišville Grand Prix „Šaban Bajramović,“ was established for the fusion of jazz and other musical styles, which Šaban personally presented to the first recipient, the leader and founder of the group Incognito (Jean-Paul Maunick „Bluey“), saying: „I give you this award of mine.“

As director Ivan Blagojević explains, one of the reasons for moving this program is an attempt to save on the costs of setting up the stage at the amphitheater on the quay since the festival’s revenues are lower than in 2019, while the costs have significantly increased since then.

The second reason is a richer offer for foreign tourists by forming a kind of World Music stage that would include not only the program dedicated to Šaban Bajramović but also the Balkan Brass Orchestras competing in jazz improvisation for the „Buddy Bolden“ award, named after the leader of the first jazz orchestra in New Orleans. The winning orchestra will receive prizes such as performing at the closing of the main Nišville program, as well as fees and flights to perform at festivals in France and Belgium. The competition for the six best brass orchestras, whose travel and stay costs in Niš will be covered for their performance in this program, is open until July 1st, and interested orchestras can apply via email at booking@nisville.com, along with the mandatory submission of several links or recordings of their performances.

The director of Nišville explains that according to the rules of this competition, each orchestra is required to perform 30 minutes of their own choice, including the jazz standard „When the Saints Go Marching In“ – one of the oldest and most popular jazz standards, an improvisation on a jazz composition of their own choice, and the song „Dželi Mara“ by Šaban Bajramović.

Director Ivan Blagojević recalls that the idea for something like this was born at Nišville in 2007 when the famous jazz trumpeter Donald Byrd, after performing with Goran Cekić’s brass orchestra, emphasized that Balkan brass bands greatly resemble the early jazz ensembles from New Orleans.

During the first evening of the program dedicated to Šaban Bajramović, the band Faith & Branko, led by a married couple, will also perform on the Summer Stage: British musician Faith Elliott on accordion and Serbian Roma violinist Branko Ristić. Following their performance, a documentary film about the love between these two artists, brought together by their passion for Roma and Balkan music, will be shown on the Summer Stage. The program „Friends of Šaban“ will conclude on Sunday, August 13th, with a performance by the French band „Marcela“ (performing at the Sziget festival after Nišville), led by vocalist Marcela Cisarova, whose repertoire also includes compositions inspired by the musical tradition of Roma from the Balkans.

Link: Šaban Bajramović opens Nišville 2006.

Nišville concludes its ten-day tour with a concert tonight in Toulouse

The eight-member orchestra of young people from Niš will perform with young musicians from Belgium and France as part of a 24-member orchestra. Each orchestra will play music from their countries, and together they will perform Šaban Bajramović’s composition „Kalav mange avera.“

Previous concerts were held in Namur and Brussels as part of the „Balkan Trafic festival,“ as well as in the French town of Session as part of the „Welcome to Tziganie“ festival.

The young musicians have been rehearsing for the past year as part of the International Rojaze project, which is part of the Creative Europe project.

Tonight, in addition to New Orleans and Niš, Nišville will celebrate with a live concert in Sesion, France. Eight young musicians from Niš will be part of a 24-member orchestra with young musicians from Belgium and France.

Today’s program:

1pm, Jazz Museum in the Niš Fortress – Live concert:

Moba

Romajam Orchestra

5pm, Jazz Museum in New Orleans, America – Virtual celebration:

Eyot

Nišville Rojaze Orchestra

Nenad C. & Numismatica

Coffe Shop Kollective

8pm, Session, France – Live concert:

International Rojaze Project – Serbia, Belgium, France

Nišville part of the global celebration of Jazz Day in New Orleans and Niš

At the invitation of the Jazz Museum in New Orleans, Nišville will present four authentic representatives who will perform at the virtual celebration of International Jazz Day on Sunday, April 30th.

The invitation was sent to Jelena Ivanjac, Nišville’s manager in America, as a result of the collaboration between the New Orleans Jazz Museum and Nišville, which started a few years ago. The virtual celebration will include numerous performers from around the world, and in addition to music, lectures and archival recordings reflecting the global influence of jazz music and culture will be presented.

The main star of the celebration will be Caili O’Doherty, a pianist, composer, arranger, and educator from New York, who will present her homage to Lil Hardin Armstrong, a jazz pianist and wife of Louis Armstrong.

From Serbia, Eyot, Nišville Rojaze Orchestra, Nenad C. & Numismatica, and Coffee Shop Kollective will perform. It will be an excellent opportunity to demonstrate how far the influence of music whose roots are in New Orleans reaches, as well as to promote musicians who have already stepped beyond the borders of Serbia and will now be heard and seen across the Atlantic.

As part of the collaboration between Nišville and the New Orleans Jazz Museum, several more significant joint projects and mutual appearances can be expected, and negotiations are underway for guests from New Orleans to present part of their museum program at this year’s Nišville.

Before the celebration in New Orleans, Nišville will organize a double concert program in front of the Nišville Jazz Museum. Starting at 1 pm in the Niš Fortress, the group Moba and Romajam Orchestra will perform. Moba will premiere original compositions by Miša Pavlović, and Romajam Orchestra will pay homage to the legend of Roma music, Šaban Bajramović.

The celebration of International Jazz Day can be followed on the Facebook pages of the New Orleans Jazz Museum and the Nišville Jazz Festival, on Sunday, April 30th, starting at 5:00 pm.

The music composer for the film „Birdman“ at the closing of the Nisville Festival

Thana Alexa – ONA quartet ft. Antonio Sanchez

The music composer for the film „Birdman“ at the closing of the Nisville Festival, American jazz singer, composer, arranger, and Croatian-born producer Thana Alexa will present her own project „ONA“ at this year’s Nisville Festival on the last day of the festival (Sunday, August 13th). She has received two Grammy nominations for this project. Her husband, Antonio Sanchez, a drummer, composer, and multi-instrumentalist, one of the most influential jazz musicians in the new millennium, and a multiple Grammy award winner, will also be part of the band accompanying her. He is also known as a long-time collaborator of Pat Metheny and the composer of the music for the Academy Award-winning film „Birdman.“
Thana Alexa was born in New York. She became interested in music at the age of three and learned to play the violin as a child. When she finished elementary school, her family returned to Croatia, where legendary jazz musician Boško Petrović noticed her talent when she was a teenager and became her mentor. During her studies at the New School in New York (where she graduated in psychology and vocal jazz performance), her mentor was the renowned drummer Bernard Purdie. For four years in a row, she appeared on the lists of the best young jazz artists of the famous „Downbeat“ magazine (as voted by critics), and in 2014, she won second place in the jazz competition „Made in Nw York“. She released her first album, „Ode to Heroes,“ in 2016, and with her second album, „ONA,“ released in 2020, she received two Grammy nominations. The inspiration for that album was the intergenerational and intercultural stories of immigrants in her family, which evolved into an exploration of the experiences of contemporary women around the world. Critics and colleagues have rated her original work as surprising, highly successful, and an original blend of jazz, contemporary soul, and world music, primarily through the musical motifs of the region from which she draws her roots.
Thana’s husband and frequent guest on her projects (as well as she on his projects „Migration“ and „Bad Hombre“) is one of the most respected jazz drummers and a very successful composer, Antonio Sanchez. Their significance in the world jazz scene was officially confirmed by their appearance on the cover of Downbeat magazine. Sanchez was born in Mexico City. He began playing the drums at the age of five and started performing professionally in his teenage years. He also studied classical piano and in 1993, after successfully completing his „classical story“ by graduating from the National Conservatory, he returned to his first love – drums. He went to the USA and enrolled in the Berklee Jazz Academy and later earned a master’s degree from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. During his studies, his professor Danilo Perez recommended him to Paquito D’Rivera, who inherited the leadership of the famous „United Nation Orchestra“ from Dizzy Gillespie, with whom Sanchez went on tour. Sanchez then became a member of Perez’s acoustic trio, with whom he played concerts and recorded the album „Motherland,“ which received a Grammy nomination.

At one of the concerts, he was heard by the legendary guitarist Pat Metheny, who invited him to join his group… and that collaboration has been ongoing for over two decades. Metheny’s first album with Sanchez, „Speaking of Now“ (2003), won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Jazz Album.

Sanchez has performed and recorded with many significant jazz artists, including Michael Brecker, Gary Burton, Chick Corea, and Avishai Cohen. He has released nine albums under his own name, and on his debut album „Migration“ (2007), he played with Pat Metheny, Chick Corea, Chris Potter, David Sanchez, and Scott Colley. The reference site „All About Jazz“ rated the album as one of the most successful debut albums of the year.

Sanchez composed the music for the Oscar-winning film „Birdman,“ which was released as an album in 2014. The score earned him nominations for a Golden Globe for Best Original Score, a BAFTA Award for Best Film Music, a Critics’ Choice Movie Award for Best Score, and a Satellite Award for Best Original Score. The only reason he didn’t compete for an Oscar for Best Original Music was because the film contained a significant percentage of classical music themes.

Links: ONA – Thana Alexa https://youtu.be/VWeQDSUIMd8 „Ode to Heroes“ – Thana Alexa Project feat. Antonio Sanchez & Donny McCaslin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5d3Aexdzog Antonio Sánchez & Bad Hombre (ft. Thana Alexa): Tiny Desk Concert https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qafq8drD_L4