Wow, what a year!
DSI Swinging Europe has expanded its work force and we have taken on new projects as well.
I have a lot of people to thank. All the musicians who have played in our name, people who lend a hand, politicians who were generous and willing to take a chance.
Our European Jazz Orchestra 2011 was reunited on Iceland and European Jazz Orchestra 2012 completed their European tour which finished with two concerts in Ukraine.
For the last show people were standing in line in Kiev to get tickets, but only the first 800 were lucky enough to get a seat in the audience.
Next year European Jazz Orchestra 2012 will reunite in Denmark when DSI Swinging Europe is hosting the annual IASJ Jazz Meeting. We’ll get back to that below.
PLAY!GROUND LIVE played gigs at both Aarhus Jazz Festival and Copenhagen Jazz Festival and we completed our mission to send them abroad when they were invited to play three concerts in Hungary.
Right now Bo Stief, who leads and teaches the band, are looking for new musicians to play in PLAY!GROUND LIVE.
The young brass talents from our orchestra UnderGround went on stage with indie rockers Ginger Ninja and they played live with the extra large big band Blood Sweat Drum + Bass.
Blood Sweat Drum + Bass, who we love to help in every way possible, released their fifth album On the Road to Damascus and they went on an exclusive tour in Denmark.
It’s a kind of miracle actually. It takes some planning to move 27 musicians around for every new gig!
We also managed to arranged a EU-conference at HEART – Herning Museum of Contemporary Art.
One of our own favorite moments was seeing conference-guests getting into the old automobile we had arranged for them to pick them up. Suddenly the serious negotiators were like kids wishing for a certain car to take them to the theatre.
We want to create joy in everyday life in Europe and in the case we succeeded!
When I look at the calendar I can see that next year is going to be bloody awesome.
If I should mention just one thing, I’ll say I’m looking forward to the IASJ Jazz Meeting which will take place in both Herning and Aarhus, Denmark.
Great concerts are in store for 2013 and I’m sure we are going to tell you all about it.
I wish you all a merry x-mas and a happy new year.
Per Bech Jensen, Executive director, Swinging Europe — sammen med Per Bech Jensen.
