The date will be marked with a concert at Casa da Música next Wednesday at 10pm
The Matosinhos Jazz Orchestra (OJM) is to be congratulated. A quarter of a century of great music and hard work on behalf of culture and music will be celebrated with a concert next Wednesday, November 30, at 22h, at Casa da Música.
OJM is a non-profit institution that aims to promote the creation, research, dissemination and training in the area of Jazz. With the support of the Matosinhos City Hall and crossing international ambition with local responsibility, OJM fulfills the role of a National Jazz Orchestra.
The concert that will mark the 25th anniversary will cover the original repertoire created over these 25 years by Pedro Guedes and Carlos Azevedo, and will also count on a long-time companion as guest soloist, the American saxophonist Chris Cheek.
Chris Cheek has an enviable curriculum. He is one of the most requested saxophonists in the world of jazz and has been part of bands with figures such as Paul Motian, Charlie Haden, Steve Swallow or Bill Frisell.
OJM was created in 1997 and has been supported by the Câmara Municipal de Matosinhos since 1999 and is a permanent laboratory. It does not forget the tradition of the great big bands of the past but continuously promotes creation, research, promotion and training in the area of jazz, crossing international ambition with a sense of local responsibility.
As a national jazz orchestra, it presents repertoires from all aesthetic variants and eras of jazz. It has artistic direction by Pedro Guedes, was co-directed with Carlos Azevedo and has collaborated with Maria Schneider, Carla Bley, Lee Konitz, John Hollenbeck, Jim McNeely, Kurt Rosenwinkel, João Paulo Esteves da Silva, Carlos Bica, Ingrid Jensen, Bob Berg, Conrad Herwig, Mark Turner, Rich Perry, Steve Swallow Gary Valente, Dieter Glawischnig, Stephan Ashbury, Chris Cheek, Ohad Talmor, Joshua Redman, Andy Sheppard, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Fred Hersch, Rebecca Martin, Peter Evans, Fay Claassen, Kiko Freitas, Maria Rita, Maria João, Mayra Andrade, Manuela Azevedo, Sérgio Godinho, Manel Cruz, Mário Laginha and Rui Reininho. He has shared the stage with Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música, Remix Ensemble Casa da Música, Drumming and Quarteto de Cordas de Matosinhos. The partnership he has developed with Casa da Música since 2007 gives rise to the presentation of two unreleased projects per year in this concert hall.
In 2014 it started the cycle Novos Talentos do Jazz (New Jazz Talents) where it invites young musicians to play as soloists in front of the Big Band. In 2019, in the 11th edition of this cycle, it invited a young Spanish musician for the first time, extending the project to the entire Iberian Peninsula from then on.
OJM performs regularly in the country's main venues and has toured to various cities in Europe and the United States, including Barcelona (four-year residency at the VollDamm International Jazz Festival in Barcelona), Belgrade, Brussels, Marseille, Vienna, Milan, Boston and New York.
2018 marked the beginning of an important national itinerancy project with four concerts (one per year), which takes traditional repertoire for big band to halls all over the country - from the project curated and narrated by Manuel Jorge Veloso, "A Journey through Jazz Times: from Ballroom to Concert Hall" -, music written by Portuguese composers for this type of formation and a final phase dedicated to showcasing new jazz talent.
Since 2018, the orchestra has its new home at Real Vinícola in Matosinhos. It is there that the Centre for High Artistic Performance (CARA) is housed, which is not only a publishing house, but also a space with 800 m2 where dialogue between art, science and technology is promoted, namely through multidisciplinary projects that aim to research and develop solutions for the creation, fruition and dissemination of creative content. This space hosts concerts, rehearsals, recordings and initiatives of the OJM's Educational Programme.
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