PARTICIPANTS:
Warsaw Village Band (Poland)
Colorful, modern, radical, or in other words Warsaw Village Band. They come from the Mecca of jazz music in Central Europe – Poland.
A group of friends come together to play folklore in 1997. The same year the record the album "Hop sa sa " and this was their first claim to success. Their international career started just five years after that after German label Jaro published their second album "Peoples Spring " (2001). But success didn’t stop here. In 2004 Warsaw Village Band won three prestigious awards of BBC Radio for world music for best beginners’ band. Their next studio album "Uprooting" (2004) was also equally successful. They received Poland’s most prestigious award "Fryderyk" for best folk album and were among the ten nominees for Grammies in The USA in the section World music.
Maja Kleszcz - voice, cello
Ewa Walecka - violin
Wojciech Krzak - violin, viola, hurdy - gurdy, nyckelharpa, drums
Maciej Szajkowski - frame drums
Piotr Glinski - baraban drum, perc.
Pawel Mazurczak - bass
Marta Stanislawska – Maślanka - cymbały
with support of Polish institute in Sofia
09 July |20:00 h. | amphitheatre
Ralph Peterson (USA)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Peterson,_Jr.
I saw an amateur video in You Tube, in which Ralph Peterson tries a brand of drums at the NAMM exhibition in the USA. A Japanese couple were shooting photographs undistrurebed behind his back and he was pounding and pounding on the dums. Although it was an exhibition ground he played as of he had been at a stadium full of audiences. A unique muscian! Great Art Blakey said the same about hgim when he met him in 1983. He immedieately invited the young colleage boy to join him for a drum duet. Years later, when Winton Marsalis organized the first Art Blakey Tribute concert his worthy successor was a part of the orchestra.
Today he is a professor at Berklee, he teaches at the Princeton University, the Residence Prince Claus Conservatory in the Netherlands, and at the Julliard School of Music.
Ralph Peterson | USA – drum
Antoni Donchev | Bulgaria - piano
George Donchev | Bulgaria - bass
Dimitar Liolev | Bulgaria – sax
with support of USA Embassy in Bulgaria
and Georg shops - Smolyan
10 July |20:00 h. | amphitheatre
Florinda Piticchio (Italy)
http://www.myspace.com/florindapiticchio
Italian connection 1| Italy / Bulgaria
Palermo is not populated only by mafia dons, there are other talents there too. They have nothing to do with the notoriety of the first, streets are not their stage. Real stage likes them. Let’s take for example Florinda Piticchio.
When she was a child she started playing the piano, but her passion for singing unexpectedly exploded in 1995 when she started studying at the musical school in her native city of Palermo. After a while she was given the chance to continue her education at Berklee College which is a serious stepping stone for every musician, aspiring to become world-famous. Later she studied Brazilian music at the Rotterdam Conservatory. In 2007 two of her own original compositions were selected to be arranged for a big band at the New Dutch Project’s Competition and are about to be published on CDs.
Florinda Piticchio | Italy - vocal
Fulvio Buccafusca | Italy - bass
Leonardo Grimaudo | Italy - quitar
Atanass Popov | Bulgaria – drum
Dimitar Liolev | Bulgaria – sax
with the support of Italian Culture institute in Sofia
11 July |20:00 h. | amphitheatre
MAHАVIRA (Bulgaria)
Mahavira | Bulgaria
Feat. Viktor Toth | Hungary
Musician Nikolay Ivanov is not a new name on the Smolyan’s stage. His third participation makes him a trademark of the festival. People just can’t take enough of him. It is a pleasure to listen to the mature scores of this artist who invests all his knowledge of visual art into the music material he works with. In the far away year of 1991 he founded the art formation OM. Its goal was to seek for such a form of music which puts into one elements of jazz, ethno, ambient, new-age, minimalism and folklore. In other words – Cross Culture.
Niki never stops experimenting and this year we will hear his new project, called Maxavira. We expect him to bring the house down again.
Nikolaj Ivanov | Bulgaria – vocal, piano, tambura
Mario Ivanov | Bulgaria – bass
Teodor Ivanov | Bulgaria - drum
Feat. Viktor Toth | Hungry – sax
With support of Malko Teatro – Hungry
18 July |20:00 h. | amphitheatre
Subtone | Germany
At the end of February 2009 the jazz band from Berlin Subtone published their album ECHOLOT and immediately after that set on a tour around Germany to present it to the German public first. Their programme is full till April 2010 and the destinations are from Corsica to Smolyan.
ECHOLOT ‘tells” moving music stories, painted in bright and dark colors, at times they even have some strange rhythm. The melodies are sometimes classic, sometimes heartbreakingly lyrical and at the same time open for stunning improvisations.
All members of the band played at different times with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra of Germany, but their roads crossed when the five of them started their studies at the Art University of Berlin.
What sets this band apart among other ensembles is the impressive artistic symbiosis of the five musicians. The listener perceives and relishes in this intensive bond with the first scores.
Magnus Schriefl - trumpet
Malte Dürrschnabel – alt-saxophone
Florian Höfner piano
Benjamin Hiesinger - doublebass
Peter Gall - drum
with the support of Goethe-institute Bulgarien
18 July |20:00 h. | amphitheatre
MCNKY (Turkey)
18 July |21:30 h. | amphitheatre
A Fula’s call | Senegal/Germany/ Holland/ Caribbean island/Iran
For most Bulgarians Africa is just a distant black continent. For some people it is the synonym of exotic and the home of the Olympic champions of long distance running, for others it is a symbol of poverty and starvation. Bulgarians hardly know anything about African culture and music. July Jazz, however, creates not for the first time the opportunity to fill in this gap. Fula’s call unites musicians from Senegal, France, Germany and Iran. The leading figure in the band is Omar Ka. An original talent, who came from the dusty streets of Dakar and triumphed at the world jazz stages. He has recorded three albums and took part in many prestigious festivals. The London music guide Froots writes about the group: “Desert blues meets the beat of Dakar”. It should have been a real rendez-vous…
Omar Ka | Senegal – vocal, african viola, quitar
Mark Alban Lotz | Germany – flute, bansury
Reno Steba |Holland - bass
Mark Tuinstra |Caribbean island - quitar
Afra Mussawisadeh | Iran – world percussions
23 July |20:00 h. | amphitheatre
Deborah J. Carter | USA
Jazz, latino, blues, gospel. Hawaii, Japan, Spain. These are the musical and life roads of singer Debora Carter. When you hear her recorded voice, you can’t help but close your eyes and let the music carry you away to a dim and smoky jazz club overseas. When you see her on stage, your fantasy will be challenged by a dusky singer with a velvet voice. Smolyan makes this fantasy reality.
She is a sings, composes and makes arrangements, she has been all over the world to share her talent with people. Debora Carter says: “Now we have the great privilege of seeing open doors to other cultures and perspectives which enrich our own.”
Deborah J. Carter | USA – vocal
Mark Zandveld| Holland – bass
Dimitar Bodurov | Bulgaria – piano
Atanass Popov | Bulgaria – drum
with the support of USA Embassy
and Georg shops - Smolyan
24 July |20:00 h. | amphitheatre
PERELIK pure jazz- ACOUSTIK CONCERT:
For the second time the closing concert of the July Jazz Festival will be at Karlak near the mount of Perelik.
This year again the organizers will stay faithful to the idea to make music help the restoration of the mountain’s ecology. The Boi Akih Trio (Molukan, the Netherlands, India) will play without electric lights, illuminated only by bon-fires in a perfectly clean environment at the altitude of 2191 meters above the sea level. The leading figure in this band is Manika Akihari who sings in her native Haruku lamguage. This is a language with soft and open vowels and melodic syllables which perfectly match her deep and warm voice.
The piles of hay which will preserve the audiences from the mountain wind, will be spread on the uneven landscape after the concert. And this will happen year after year, till music settles there permanently and the furrows made by the military machines fade away.
25 July |20:00 – 06:00 h. | Perelik peak
IN PROGRAM:
BOI AKIH
Monica Akohari (Moluccan/Dutch)
Niel Brouer (Dutch)
Margret Sjoerdsma | Dutch
A blond, smiling, sunny girl looks at you from the stage. If I didn’t know that she is a singer I would take her for a rising American movie star. She obviously is talented enough for both roles. Margret Sjoerdsma’s musical career started when she was sixteen years old. In 2002 she won her first award at the prestigious Princess Christina Competition and since then she has been working with Bulgarian composer Dimitar Bodurov. In 2006 Margret Sjoerdsma graduated from the Rotterdam Conservatory and the same year she was among the finalists at the International Competition of Young Singers in Brussels. Her first album “ With the whisper of a morning” is a mixture of popular pop and jazz songs and has been well accepted by critics and audiences. Last winter the album of duet Sjoerdsma&Bodurov was published. It contained original compositions.
Margriet Sjoerdsma and Bodurov Ensemble
Bloom
Margriet Sjoersma- vocal
Dimitar Bodurov- piano
Misho Ivanov- bass
Dimitar Semov- drums
Yana Bourova- violin
Todor Nikolaev- violin
Alexandrina Ignatova- viola
Stefan Hadjiev- cello
Melih Guzel | Turkey
Dimitar Russev | Bulgaria
Victor Benev | Bulgaria
Dimatar Liolev - program for 5 sax
Berkovska duhova muzika | Bulgaria
FACES:
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