European jazz in İzmir

İZMİR

The 22nd İzmir European Jazz Festival held by the İzmir Foundation for Culture Arts and Education (IKSEV) will be organized between March 5 and 21.

During the festival, jazz audiences in İzmir will have the chance to listen to the music of acclaimed names in European jazz.

This year the festival will begin with a project titled “Jazz Meets Classic-Taksim,” to be performed by the world-renowned piano duo, Ufuk – Bahar Dördüncü featuring the Eric Truffaz Quartet on March 5.

The piece is made of three parts; in each the audience will discover the magic and poetry of Istanbul. Truffaz’s work has different styles, including minimalism, romanticism and modernism inspired by jazz.

The Paola Di Sabatino Trio will be on the stage on March 6. The trio is made up of one of the most popular pianists of the Italian jazz scene, Paola Di Sabatino, alongside Marco Siniscalco and Glauco Di Sabatino. The trio will also conduct the Open Air Jazz Orchestra Workshop of the festival. The workshop will be joined by 23 young musicians on March 7, 8 and 9.

Khalife Schumacher Tristano will take the stage on March 12, a trio featuring Bachar Khalife, Pascal Schumacher and Rancesco Tristano. Their music is so multifaceted that it can be interpreted differently, depending on who is listening. Tristano is known for his Bach interpretations while Schumacher is a master in dealing with freely-explored musical spaces and Khalife, with his roots in the Arabic musical culture as well as the French scene’s rhythmically colorful sound world, stands for the acoustic moments that mirror faraway places.

The Mateusz Smoczyński Quintet, including Mateusz Smoczyński (violin), Konrad Zemler (guitar), Jan Smoczyński (piano), Wojciech Pulcyn (counterbass) and Michal Miskiewicz’den (drums), will be on the festival stage on March 14 to represent the best examples of Polish jazz. The quintet will also hold a workshop on the same day.

Mario Rom‘s Interzone is a band formed out of a need to play music at the most basic and perhaps the only sensible way: without any rules or forced complexity. It includes three of Austria‘s most promising young musicians, Mario Rom, Lukas Kranzelbin-der and Herbert Pirker. The band will take the stage on March 16.

Slovakian jazz singers Hanka Gregusova (vocals) and Ondrej Krajnak (piano) will perform as a duo on March 19. Gregusova has been performing on the domestic as well as international jazz scene for well over a decade now, with her signature musical style of jazz and soul music fusion.

The Who Trio will take the stage on the last day of the festival, March 21. The band is formed by Michel Wintsch (piano), Banz Oester (bass) and Gerry Hemingway (drums).

All of the festival’s concerts will take place at the Ahmed Adnan Saygun Arts Center (AASAC).

Public events

The Izmir European Jazz Festival intends this year to attract more audiences to the festival through public events. In addition to public concerts held at the lounge of the Ahmed Adnan Saygun Arts Centre, jazz and cinema audiences will also gather at the Jazz Films Marathon, which will be held this year for the first time.

The public events also include an exhibition by Aykut Uslutekin Photography, regarded as a doyen artist in the field of the jazz photography, and will be open to the public during the festival, the 13th “Jazz Festival Poster Competition” exhibition, the Open Jazz Workshop Concert, the festival’s traditional jazz seminar and the Jazzine Fanzin Production Workshop.