A PROJECT OF THE STUDENTS OF THE VILNIUS UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES AND THE JĀZEPS VĪTOLS LATVIAN ACADEMY OF MUSIC

For many years, the highlight of the Birštonas Jazz festival has been the inventive, spontaneous interdisciplinary art projects developed by Lithuanian jazz master Vladimir Chekasin and students of the Vilnius University of Applied Sciences (VIKO). In those projects the jazz legend was a teacher, a stage partner, a conductor and a director.

In 2016, one of these projects, Ethnic Process, featured students from the Jazz and Ethnomusicology Departments of the Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music (JVLAM), together with Lithuanians. The two schools have a long-standing collaboration, the new highlight of which will be this performance.

This time, the curators of the project – guitarist Pranas Kentra, the head and associate professor of Rhythmic Music Department at VIKO, lecturer and singer Veronika Čičinskaitė-Golovanova, and saxophonist Indriķis Veitners, the head of the Jazz Department at the JVLAM – have passed on the creative initiative to the youth. The large jazz ensemble from two schools, brought together for the festival, is bringing a colourful programme of original compositions by its musicians, fusing jazz, R&B, funk, rock and folk.

The project features students of the Jazz Department of the Latvian Academy of Music: violinist Laima Lodina, saxophonists Emīls Knubis, Enriko Corvison and Miks Jurovs, pianist Elizaveta Shyraeva, guitarist Kristaps Hermanis, double bassist Beāte Meirāne and drummer Andris Žabris.

Vilnius University of Applied Sciences Rhythmic Music Department is represented by vocalists Kotryna Juodzevičiūtė, Ksenija Petrukovič, Evita Cololo and Nika Zundelovič, guitarist Jogaila Bagdonavičius and drummer Simas Makiejevas.

Six original compositions have been written especially for this performance by Latvians Meirāne, Shirayeva, Hermanis and Jurovs, and Lithuanians Petrukovič and Zundelovič. The ideas for the programme were initially developed remotely on the Zoom platform, and in early March, during the International Week at the Vilnius University of Applied Sciences, the orchestra rehearsed together under the supervision of the project curators.