The 37th “Vilnius Jazz” festival starting this week will test a new format | Culture

“I would call this year’s festival a trial on the way to a new format of the event, which we would like to preserve at least for the next few years, when strategic funding will be allocated to it,” said Antanas Gustys, founder and long-time organizer of Vilnius Jazz.

The “Vilnius Jazz Screen Beats” film series, conceived together with Neringa Medutyte, a journalist, director, student of the famous British documentarian Dick Fontaine (1938 – 2023), is a milestone innovation of this year’s festival. For the first cycle, the curator selected five of her teacher’s films on the theme of jazz. “Festival visitors will now be able to meet music and jazz in one more space – in the hall of the “Skalvija” cinema”, A. Gustys was happy.

October 18-19 “Vilnius Jazz” will enter the MO Museum for the first time. There will be lectures and talks about jazz. This year, their inspirations are French jazz expert Terry Quenum, British photojournalist Philip Arneill and Lithuanian philosopher Kaspars Pocius.

“Vilnius Jazz” has always stood out among other jazz festivals in the country for its openness to various varieties of modern music and experiments. This year’s program will testify to this from the very first project – the evening of music and lyrics “Post flux games”. During it, prof. Vytautas Landsbergis will read his poetry, and Vladimir Tarasov will fill it with percussion sounds. The duo will present their recently released vinyl record.

“These are spontaneous artists’ games, when creators play with sound, text and image for their own pleasure, without trying to please viewers and listeners, avoiding templates and standards. And the spectators become not only witnesses of this event, but also its participants”, V. Tarasova described the project.

Since their debut in 2020, the virtuosos of the “Improdimensijos Orkestor” will once again captivate the attention with an intriguing synthesis of improvisational and contemporary academic music. This time, part of the orchestra members will join the “Vilnius Fixations” program of one of the most unique British saxophonists, John Butcher, which was initiated by the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (England).

Contemporary music and jazz will also meet in a project dedicated to the work of the famous Dutch composer Louis Andriessen, prepared by LENsemble under the direction of Vykintas Baltaks. Another example of the synthesis of modern jazz and academicism is the solo program “Cub(an)ism” by Cuban Aruán Ortiz. “It will be an honor for us to present this one of the most creative and original pianists and composers of his generation for the first time in Lithuania,” emphasized A. Gustys.

The tradition of popularizing Japanese jazz will be continued – “Vilnius Jazz” has already presented more than half a dozen soloists and groups from this country. This year, the entire evening will be dedicated to the Japanese, and the legendary multi-instrumentalist and composer Otomo Yoshihide, who returned to the festival stage after a 31-year hiatus with the most important project of his life, will also perform.

The 37th “Vilnius Jazz” will welcome creators from seven countries of the world, four continents. Two ensembles with a unique composition will be presented by France, with a project of rare color, one of the most original New York alternative music groups “Elder Ones”, brought together by Indian vocalist Amirtha Kidambi. A duet of unique improvisers – pianist Alister Spence and percussionist Tony Buck – from Australia will perform, and percussionist V. Tarasova will perform with his long-time partners from the USA. The stream of original creations will be supplemented with their works by the youth of the “Vilnius Jazz Young Power” competition.

After the performances in the Vilnius old theater hall, the festival will move to a new night scene – the newly opened live music space near the railway station (Geležinkelio str. 6) “Mello”.

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