Music fades out as EUROPAfest draws to an up tempo end

The curtain came down on 16 days of top quality jazz and other music on May 19 with the EUROPAfest closing gala at the Odeon Theater. The big story of the night was the finale of the Bucharest International Jazz Competition, entitled 100% jazz & more.

Of the 14 acts that had contested the event, four – the Quentin Angus Quintet (whose members hail from the USA and Australia), the Artbeaters (Slovenia), Jazz in Dreadlocks (Poland) and the Lindeborg Aadnekvam Duo (Sweden) – were chosen as finalists and performed abbreviated versions of their sets from earlier in the competition, including, of course, Sonny Rollins’s St Thomas, the required piece. The four finalists also joined together to give a rousing last rendition of the American jazz tenor saxophonist’s composition, which had become so familiar to regular attendees of the festival.

The overall victors were the Artbeaters, who were awarded the Grand Prize. The Lindeborg Aadnekvam Duo took the Best Band award, while Luigi Gageos, director of the festival, presented the Quentin Angus Quintet with a popularity award earned by their lively and exciting set of the previous Wednesday.

The evening also saw performances from the winners of the Jeunesses International Violin Competition 2012 which ran under the EUROPAfest banner. Germany’s Lara Boschkor in the under-14s category, Ireland’s Mairead Hickey in the 14-18 section and Sujin Park, of the UK and Australia, in the 18-30 group impressed the audience with virtuoso turns of maturity and professionalism beyond their years.

Tasked with selecting the winners of 100% jazz & more was the jury president, British pianist Wayne Brown, also artistic director of the Bucharest International Jazz Competition. He was joined on the jury by German conductor Emil-Silviu Ciobota, Bulgarian Svetoslav Nikolov of JazzFM Radio and Romanian musicologist Carmen Stoianov, dean of Spiru Haret University’s Music Faculty.

The Bucharest International Jazz Competition has earned a reputation as a prestigious event in South-East Europe and was described by BBC as one of the top three jazz contests in Europe. Brown said, “I love the spirit of the event and I feel as at home in Bucharest as I do in London.”

Besides the jazz, blues, classical and pop concerts, jazz contest and young violinists’ competition, the 16-day event included jam sessions, workshops and shows in unconventional spaces. Overall, more than 300 participants from 45 countries performed at the festival, now on its 19th run. Since 2005, the event has been held under the high patronage of Princess Margarita and Prince Radu. More information is available at www.facebook.com/EUROPAfest.Bucharest.