3 × j(A)zz! – Austrian jazz festival to round off the year
12–14 December
Opus Jazz Club

The Austrian jazz scene, renowned for its wit and creative power, has been a regular feature of the Opus Jazz Club for many years, thanks to the cooperation between the BMC and the Österreichisches Kulturforum in Budapest. The j(A)zz! series will be celebrated again this year with a three-day festival from 12 to 14 December.

Austrian musicians Klaus Paier and Gerald Preinfalk as well as Croatian Asja Valcic have formed a fascinating trio as their new creative grounds. They open the festival on 12 December. Paier has been exploring the nuances of accordion and bandoneon playing, and traveling between jazz, world music and classical elements for decades. His curiosity and thirst for exploring sounds led him to design his own instrument, named “Passion”. Croatian cellist Asja Valcic found a way from classical music to improvisation, while Gerald Preinfalk presents contemporary music with the renowned Klangforum Wien. All three musicians contribute their own compositions to the trio’s repertoire, further developing their creative journey between jazz, contemporary, classical and world music together. Within the written forms, there is ample room for fine tuned improvisation and solo highlights, appealing to the demanding music listener.

Jelena Popržan, the charismatic and vocally nuanced viola player, singer and sound artist from Vojvodina (Serbia), who has injected some vitality into the Austrian music scene, is now setting up a new project after her highly acclaimed solo program La Folia. She found the poems of the Polish-Viennese poet Tamar Radzyner (1927–1991) in a booklet published by the Theodor Kramer Society and was deeply impressed. The Polish Jew, who was in the armed resistance and survived the Shoah, found a new home in Vienna and in the German language, worked with Georg Kreisler and Topsy Küppers, and wrote poems full of cheerful pessimism and bitter wit. Jelena Popržan created a musical monument to her with a song cycle. But the larger part of the program on 13 December is taken up by her brand new instrumental compositions, pieces full of imaginative sound images and melodic stories.

Leonhard Skorupa somehow manages to leave his mark on every band he’s a part of. The Vienna saxophonist and clarinetist has a penchant for surprise and wry humort. His Sketchbook Quartet is marked by a lively, contemporary sound – rooted in the jazz tradition, but the band has no problem integrating influences from musical styles ranging from straight-ahead jazz to surf rock. The music of this refreshingly unconventional quartet could almost pass for chamber jazz – if it weren’t for the strong syncopated rhythms and the undertone of uninhibited rock-and-roll. In any case, Sketchbook Quartet is partially responsible for the growing self-confidence of the Austrian jazz scene in recent years, as well as for its international mobility and popularity. The band can be counted on to deliver a fresh, vibrating sound on 14 December, celebrating a quintessentially modern, joyful, prickly eclecticism.

Tickets are available on the spot, online at bmc.jegy.hu, and at InterTicket Jegypont partners across Hungary.