Pavel Bouda
reporter Pilsenský deník
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Since January of this year, the well-known Pilsen musician Ivan Audes has been at the head of the Jazz without Borders association. He has been performing on music stages for 25 years with his group Ivan Audes Trio, and for many years he has also collaborated with a personality of the Czech jazz scene, Milan Svoboda, where he performs in his quartet and in the Prague Big Band.
Since January of this year, the Jazz without Borders association has been headed by the well-known Pilsen musician Ivan Audes
| Photo: Kryštof Marek
Together with his collaborator Vladimír Vondřich, he is now preparing jazz concerts and workshops under the banner Jazz without Borders.
One of the highlights of your concert season this year is the opening concert of the Celebration of Freedom on Friday, May 3rd at Náměstí Republiky. What can we look forward to?
First, we will perform there with our trio together with Mirka Novak, and then from half past seven in the evening, after the opening ceremony, the main concert of the Big Band with the American singer and showman Chuck Wansley, a native of Queens, New York, awaits us. He loves contact with the audience and sings traditional swing songs, which the people of Pilsen like.
His father, a war veteran from the Second World War, was supposed to come to Pilsen with him. Is it true?
Chuck’s father fought in WWII in Europe and went as far as Belgium. So Chuck expressed interest if his father could come and appear on stage with him as a war veteran. It would be beautiful, but I myself doubted it a little, because my father is already 95 years old. He was already in contact with the Pilsen municipality, but the doctors ultimately did not recommend the trip, because it is a huge distance from Los Angeles, where he lives. But maybe at least he’ll say hello.
Next year, the celebrations will be even bigger, due to the round anniversary. Are you already thinking about what extraordinary thing you would offer the organizers of the Freedom Festival?
We already cooperate regularly with Slavnost, and of course we have to think about the next jubilee year. So far we have been promised the famous BBC Big Band. That’s a big fish. We are currently at the stage where we have confirmed the date and hopefully it will go well. It would be nice and worthy of the anniversary.
This year, the freedom celebrations will take place on May 3-6. We already know what you can look forward to
During the year, you can expect other concerts and events, both traditional and extraordinary. What are you most looking forward to?It will definitely be the concert of the American jazz singer Nicole Zuraitis on Thursday, April 25 at the House of Music. This year she received the 2023 Grammy Award and I arranged for her when she was not so well known. It’s rare for an almost unknown artist to suddenly soar to the top like this. Fortunately, we already have signed contracts with her. We have also already arranged a nice suite for her in a Pilsen hotel. It is the highlight of the spring part of our concert season.
And besides that?
Two more workshops will follow, guitar and vocal. And then autumn, which is the most important season for us. There we are planning a concert by Emil Viklický’s Sextet with a foreign guest. And the pilot project will be the autumn gala concert of the East West European Jazz Orchestra of the German Big Band from Dortmund in October in the JK Tyla Theater, in which great musicians from both Germany and America play, including soloists from the USA and Bali.
