Gărâna Jazz Festival 21st Edition - 6-9 July

The Gărâna Jazz Festival, the most complex open-air jazz event in Central and Eastern Europe, will take place from 6 to 9 July 2017 in the Semenic Mountains, Caraș-Severin County.

The 21st edition of the Gărâna International Jazz Festival starts on Thursday evening at 19:00. After celebrating two decades, Gărâna Festival continues to consolidate the passion and need for jazz under the free sky, cultivating the freedom of live music in the midst of nature, as it has done since 1997 to date.

The program of the 2017 edition is an echo of the last 20 years of Gărâna concerts, with legendary appearances and courageous discoveries such as HÀ NÔI DUO and friends, a composed of guitarist Nguyên Lê, Vietnamese musician born in Paris and young artist Ngô Hong Quang.

This year, 18 bands will go up on stage on the Gărâna Jazz Festival in Poiana Lupului and the Catholic Church in Văliug, including the American guitar player John Scofield, who sang alongside Miles Davis, the most appreciated jazz artist of the year, winner of two Grammy awards, but also Omar Sosa Quarteto Afrocubano, the artist who has enchanted the whole world with the frenzy of African-Cuban music. Obviously, organizer Marius Giura did not forget the Northerners: Tonbruket, the Swedish band that sang in Gårna in 2010, returns to the meadow after seven years, right for the opening of the Festival. Or, Swedish pianist Bobo Stenson, one of the most important European jazz figures, who will close the last evening of the Festival, on Sunday, July 9th.

On Thursday, David Torn is coming up on stage for the first time in Romania, with the Sun Of Goldfinger project, alongside Tim Berne on saxophone and Ches Smith on drums. Sun of Goldfinger will be the ideal representation of how the future of jazz might sound, a courageous experience for jazz lovers in Gărâna but also the opportunity to meet David Torn for the first time in Romania. Master of the combination of electronic music with acoustic instruments, David Torn is the guitarist who accompanied the most in-vogue artists of each generation he passed through. His guitar has contributed to the compositions of David Bowie, John Legend, Madonna, Tori Amos, Bill Bruford, Mick Karn, Steve Roach, Matt Chamberlain. In 2016, he released his solo album "Only Sky", acclaimed by the public and described by The Guardian as "a vast, leaping Hendrixian inspirational music landscape that manages to overwhelm you".

Friday evening will be opened by Raul Kusak, considered one of the best Romanian keyboardists, followed by a completely new presence in the Gărâna Jazz Festival program: HÀ NÔI DUO and friends, composed of guitarist Nguyên Lê, Vietnamese musician born in Paris Young artist Ngô Hong Quang. Together, they bring to life the "soul of Vietnam," a surprising musical journey that takes you through the clouds in the Vietnamese mountains and then returns you to an electric storm provoked by Lê's guitar.

Saturday morning, July 8, the concert Mircea Tiberian & Marta Hristea will take place under the umbrella of the Magellan - A sonic journey project, two musicians who contributed to the historical evolution of Romanian jazz.

In love with Cuba, the piano and the people, Omar Sosa knew how to enchant a whole world with the African-Cuban music frenzy. On July 8, the artist will tame the third evening of the Gărâna Jazz Festival alongside the Afro Cubano quartet, a formula exploring the synergy between African-American music, hip-hop and classical music.

Nominated 7 times at the Grammy Awards, Omar Sosa will present to Gărâna his latest album, Ilé, a musical tribute to his artistic roots, passionately searched for Havana music in the 1980s and early 1990s. Ile means, in free translation, the "home realm".

Pioneer of fusion and master of bebop, funk and R & B genre, John Scofield has influenced the evolution of jazz since the late 1970s, and his guitar has announced his agreements on all continents. John Scofield is the winner of two Grammy awards at the February 2017 ceremony: the best instrumental jazz album for “Country for Old Men” and the best solo jazz improvisation for the single „I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry”. The artist began his career in 1978 and for three years he sang and recorded alongside Miles Davis, an artistic stage that provided him with a stable place at the forefront of international jazz.

Swedish pianist Bobo Stenson, one of Europe's most prominent personalities, will close the last evening of the Festival, on Sunday, July 9th.

Source:RRA.Translated by Miruna Matei