Acclaimed jazz pianist to make Viet Nam debut today
HA NOI (VNS)– Serbian-born jazz artist Bojan Z, who won the Artist of the Year title at France’s Victoires du jazz Awards last year, will make his debut performance in Ha Noi tomorrow.
A seasoned performer, Bojan started playing piano at the age of 5 and earned his first-ever jazz award – the Best Young Jazz Musician of Yugoslavia – when he was as a teenager in 1989.
After a short jazz scholarship short course in Michigan, Bojan played in the army orchestra during his military service in the former Yugoslavia before moving to Paris in 1988, where he has worked with many renowned French musicians.
Bojan has played at several big jazz festivals in Montreal, Copenhagen, Paris and London, incorporating subtle Balkan folkloric rhythms on a continental jazz sensibility.
Beside his debut solo album Solobsession in 2001, which brought him worldwide recognition, Bojan recently won praise for his new solo CD Soul Shelter.a
He also released several albums as a band leader, including Bojan Z Quartet, Koreni, Transpacifik and Xenophonia.
Bojan has frequently collaborated with Vietnamese-French composer Nguyen Le to perform as a sideman on Nguyen’s 2002 CD Purple: Celebrating Jimi Hendrix.
In 2002, Bojan was granted the title of Chevalier de l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Knight of Art and Literature) by the French government and the Prix Django Reinhardt for Musician of the Year from the French Academie du Jazz
He received the European Jazz Prize for Europe’s Best Musician in 2005.
Following his debut performance at L’Espace, 24 Trang Tien Street, Ha Noi at 8pm on Tuesday, Bojan will also perform at the IDECAF, 1 Thai Van Lung Street, District 1 in HCM City. Tickets costs VND120,000, and are half price for students. – VNS